Land of Heart's Desire: Inscribing the Australian Landscape

Abstract

European exploration and colonization of Australia was in large part a project of labeling, erasing, and re-labeling the continent’s landscapes, flora, and fauna in order to take possession of the land. In the postcolonial era, the legacy of that project is reflected in conversations about multiculturalism and cultural equality whether in political or literary spheres. This paper explores how two contemporary novels (Aboriginal author Archie Weller's Land of Golden Clouds, and European-Australian Julia Leigh's The Hunter) employ differing representations of ecology and wildlife as a reflection of cultural politics, and how these novels offer different visions of the risks and possibilities of a multicultural Australia. It argues that metaphorical possession of the natural world is as crucial (and as problematic) to narratives of multiculturalism as it was to colonial narratives of discovery and conquest, and that competing political and cultural visions rely upon competing definitions of a natural or native Australian ecology.