Voices of Resilience: Q&A with Steven Kelly on Preserving Nanda Stories and Indigenous Knowledge
Reading time
Date posted
By Steven Kelly
[A Fist Nations Perspective is an auto ethnographic approach based on my 2017 PhD. It gives a unique insider’s lens on my family’s journey navigating a native title claim. Through stories shared by Elders, it vividly portrays connection to my family networks, land, everyday practices, and cultural traditions that persist despite colonialism.]
This book began as your doctoral research. What was the turning point where you felt it needed to become something more—something shared with a wider audience?
In 2019, my manuscript was shortlisted in the Australian Institute for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies (AIATSIS) – Stanner Award. And I was asked if I would be interested in re-working my manuscript. I accepted the offer, and it was during this process I could see for the first time that this could become something to be shared with a wider audience.
Your work captures the “small details of everyday life.” Why was it important to centre these intimate and seemingly ordinary experiences in your narrative?
The small details of everyday life are important because these carry deep cultural meaning and reflect the lived experience of the Nanda people. For example, Elders would recount walking through traditional lands like Kalbarri and Willu Gulli and share Dreaming stories tied to specific places. These yarns happened informally – on verandas, at community events and on Country. And they often include humor, memory and advice.
How does this book contribute to broader conversations in Indigenous studies, anthropology, and Australian history?
The book contributes to broader conversations in Indigenous studies because of its stance on decolonising knowledge production. It builds on Indigenous – led research paradigms and contributes to decolonising academic knowledge. The book uses autoethnography and yarning methods that add to broader conversations in Indigenous studies by foregrounding Indigenous ways of knowing, being and doing.
my book challengers the “observer” stance of traditional anthropology. Instead of a non-Indigenous anthropologist writing about Nanda people, this is an autoethnography from within, flipping the traditional power dynamic of the discipline. Therefore, this book contributes to conversations in anthropology about positionality, ethics, and reflexivity in the field.
Finally, a broader conversation in Australian history is that the book positions Nanda lived experiences as central, and not peripheral, to the nations’ past and present.
If someone were to engage with your work for the first time, what chapter or moment would you encourage them to start with—and why?
I would say start at the beginning – chapter 1. “Historical Context”. This chapter sets the stage for understanding the historical backdrop against which Nanda people’s experiences and resilience are framed. It serves as an introduction to the broader themes in the book, focusing on the interplay between history, identity, and our enduring connection to Country.
What do you hope readers—especially those unfamiliar with Nanda culture—understand differently after reading your book?
For those unfamiliar with Nanda culture, the reader will have gained a deep understanding of how Nanda kinship systems structure relationships and responsibilities, through our ways of knowing, being and doing. It’s about reciprocal obligations and how knowledge is passed through generations. More broadly, my hope is that readers will walk away with a more humanised and respectful understanding of what it means to be Nanda, and appreciate, what it means to belong to a First Nations community.
A First Nations Perspective: Stories of Nanda Resilience as Told by Elders
This book is an extrapolation of the research I conducted for my doctoral thesis about my people’s struggle to come to terms with native title claim processes, in which we are required to prove our connection to land, culture and kin.