Law, Country, Story: Learning from First Nations Australian Cosmologies and European Tragic Narrative
If we want a powerful example of anti-separatist narratives [narratives that reject the idea of human 'separateness' from nature], along with a relationship-oriented cosmology to frame them in, the cosmologies of First Nations Australians are one place we might look for inspiration. The structure, content and aspirations of many cosmologies amongst First Nations peoples are inherently anti-separatist. They are also concrete: local, high-context, and linked to what in First Nations Australian English is known as “Country”, a term which encapsulates both physical territory and the many relationships it guides and preserves.
Although it would be unacceptable to attempt to appropriate the specific contents of these localised cosmologies, it is still possible to learn from them in a variety of ways. More specifically, we can: (1) consider the ways in which they imagine human beings in ecological and spiritual contexts; (2) reflect on their relationship to the places from which they have emerged; (3) ask questions about how they are incorporated into individual and collective thought and life for First Nations Australian communities; and (4) consider their use of ritual, metaphor, emotion, embodiment, story, and dialogue, or “yarning”, as ways to foreground a relational and ecologically-oriented approach to politics.
Having considered them in this way, we can turn back to the European tradition, to ask questions about the kinds of languages or resources that might be available there for facilitating engagements and dialogues that parallel these First Nations Australian ones. In particular, we can show that one powerful place to look is the body of work in this tradition on narrative tragedy and its creative and imaginative possibilities. Reflections on tragedy have long been woven into reflection and dialogue about politics and ethics in European and European-inflected contexts. Engaging with some of this work, and sketching the outlines of a story that represents, and moves beyond, human separatism, is one means of continuing to engage the challenges I have explored in this project.
Ben Mylius completed his Ph.D. in Environmental Political Theory at Columbia and his LLM at Yale Law School after his undergraduate studies in Australia. His work revolves around climate, storytelling, and imagination. At the McCoy Family Center for Ethics in Society, Ben will be working on a book-length project exploring different tools communities can use to imagine their own just, resilient, and dynamic climate futures. The project draws on his dissertation research (“On Human Separatism”) and his practical experience as founder of the Columbia Climate Imaginations Network. Ben is an Interdisciplinary Ethics Fellow in partnership with the Stanford Doerr School of Sustainability.