Disintegration : a homecoming

This thesis is an articulation of how I make sense of being a young Tasmanian Aboriginal woman through story, place and movement. The first part of the thesis consists of creative works that chart multiple approaches to the question How does movement create the conditions in which story and place bring each other into being?. The second part of the thesis is an exegesis of the creative works, which consists of two parts: the context of the creative works and the analysis of the creative works. The context traces the route my family and I walk from punnilerpanner country / Tarleton, the country that grew me up, to tebrakunna / Cape Portland, my ancestral country, as well as the multiple departures and returns that constitute the (ongoing) route. I outline the cultural practice of walking on country and examine how it relates to story and place. I also engage in dialogue with western philosophical and literary perspectives on the interrelatedness of place, narrative and movement. The analysis examines the responses that arise out of the creative process. This thesis, therefore, functions as both a story and a map: it is a map become story, and a story become map.