KALARA
We engage in a participatory, action-oriented framework of iterative, slow-reveal processes.
Kalara is both a framework for collaborative engagement, as well as values focussed production process, bringing stories to the world respectfully and most importantly, ensuring those stories return to (the) Country.
“… kalara (Nyikina language) means born, revealed - to make seen, visible” (Hattersley, 2014, p. 72).
This iterative, slow-reveal process occurs within a participatory, action-oriented framework, where the transmission of stories to others emerges through narrative discourse. As a researcher and filmmaker, McDuffie reiterates:
“… our films are never a “finished product” but, as an iterative process, are endowed with a fluidity characteristic of Aboriginal ontologies, illustrating the notion that culture is always “poised, in transition, between different positions” (Hall, 1992, p. 310). They sit at the meeting points of the “crisscrossing lines” between stories, songlines, people or groups of people, allowing for the emergence of new alliances and new meanings (Glowczewski, 2005, p. 28)”. in (McDuffie, 2017, p. 95)
McDuffie, Magali (2017): Kalara - Making Seen, Revealing.
Figure. Available at https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.4763383.v5
‘Jimbin Kaboo Yimardoowarra Marninil: Listening to Nyikina women's voices, from the inside to the outside.’
Dr. Magali McDuffie, in collaboration with Nyikina women of the Kimberley region of Western Australia, reveals and makes seen in her Ph.D. thesis, Nyikina women’s agency, through filmed interviews and narratives of inter-generational cultural actions, economic, and self-determination initiatives.
“… Magali deconstructs historical and historiographical discourses, anthropological data, legislative policies, development theory, as well as international Indigenous literature on agency, governance, and development, reflecting on the Nyikina women's continued involvement on the local, national, and international stage, and the significance of Booroo, Country, in a global development context”. (Australian National University, Research Library, 2019).
Access & download Dr. Magali McDuffie’s Ph.D. thesis - PDF (204 MB)