Storytelling in Our Legal System: Healing for the Stolen Generations

Abstract

This article argues that there would be transformative benefits from expanding opportunities for Indigenous storytelling within plural legal systems such as Australia. The article highlights the successful example of legal storytelling’s inclusion in the inquiry into Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people affected by forcible removals. Such removals were authorised under Australian Commonwealth, State, and Territory Aboriginal protection/welfare laws and policies. This history has entered the awareness of all Australians as resulting in ‘Stolen Generations’. Opportunities exist to expand legal storytelling beyond inquiries and royal commissions into the wider justice system. Embracing legal storytelling by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people recognises their Voices are important. This need for Voice has become a constantly expressed desire, most recently manifested in the Uluru Statement.