Sovereignty is about “Our relationships to ourselves and each other through our shared embodied knowledge.” (Baker, 2018).
Creation is an act of resistance against oppression, false historical and social narratives, and, more importantly, defiance against colonial censorship. Melissa Lucashenko’s essay Writing as a Sovereign Act (2018) discusses the idea of literary sovereignty from the perspective of an Indigenous author and the power of utilising her creativity to challenge the colony’s history and stories. This reflection will focus on the power and responsibility that is attached to the power of sovereignty in creating new stories and correcting the old ones.
The act of creating within a European framework comes with certain expectations and often capitalist goals, devoid of soul and purpose beyond quantifiable measures of ‘success’. An Indigenous author, like Melissa, has a different purpose when writing for the community and the younger generation; she aims to empower, force the reader to confront their own biases, and to remind us of the resistance against one of the most powerful empires in history by using an equally powerful Indigenous tool; storytelling (Baker, 2018). By taking on this responsibility, she is acting under the politics of resistance, which is an instrumental aspect of Indigenous sovereignty. Challenging those social structures allows her to explore new avenues to keep the stories alive in the conscience and memory of every person on this land.
The creator of an artistic medium can express joy, sorrow, and defiance. The freedom of creation, however, is not an inherent right, especially for Indigenous creatives. As every other form of freedom is taken from those in control, so is the power of the pen (Baldwin, 1993). Artists, academics, and activists are utilising these earnt freedoms as a vessel for enacting wider social change; publications that live at universities, libraries, the internet and book stores, spoken and written poetry that occupy stages and festivals, and songs that travel beyond the local music scene. All of those freedoms are weaponised to share ultimate truths and challenge preexisting narratives that serve a certain purpose in maintaining the colony and its beneficiaries (Wright, 2016).
An author who refuses to kill Black characters too early in a novel is an act of resistance against the narrative that Indigenous folks are a ‘dying race’ compared to the white man. “We need to be alive on the page. We need to be fighting, and standing strong.” (Lucashenko, 2018). The poetics of refusal focus on exercising sovereignty in a manner by which the author/creator disobeys the notion of assimilation to Western standards of creativity. This personal artistic choice affects the wider social attitude in creating new narratives and stories about the lives of Indigenous people. Melissa’s work highlights the role of sovereignty in writing, and ultimately, creation. “Our assertion of sovereignty and in the countering of the colonial narratives, the colonial stories, that have spread across our lands.” (Behrendt, 2019).
From the global Land Back movement to the ongoing resistance against the forced removal of Indigenous children and incarceration of Black bodies on a globally alarming scale, these struggles cannot be separated from everyday individuals. As we live, work and profit off this continent, we have a shared responsibility as non-Indigenous settlers to affirm the sovereignty of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.
A testament to the collective power of creation is the fact that an Indigenous author shared that her work is heavily influenced and guided by Indigenous singers and poets. “The music of Uncle Archie Roach, Uncle Kev Carmody and Uncle Roger Knox, which supports a lot of my writing and pondering and imagining. The poetry of Romaine Morton, Ali Cobby Eckermann, Natalie Harkin, Tony Birch and many, many other First Nation poets.” Creating new connections through the combination of many art forms is a powerful tool to unite the audiences from those shared spaces. Merging and collaborating through different platforms is a powerful act of resistance in itself – Indigenous folks were at one point not allowed to mingle or interact, and we’ve reached a point where artistic collaborations are creating new avenues of resistance (Aberdeen & Jones, et. al, 2021).
“Of course those lies about the nature of classical Aboriginal society served a purpose then, just as they serve a purpose now, which is to distract. To take attention away from the big crimes: the genocide of a people and the theft of a continent.” (Lucashenko, 2018). This essay itself is a great example of challenging narratives; from correcting falsehoods about Indigenous resistance to the powerful act of refuting colonial stories about the Indigenous people of this land and their plight to seek reconciliation and justice for the centuries of colonisation and genocide.
Melissa reiterates the importance of traditional storytelling at the centre of her work. She asserts the power of sovereignty by writing over the colonial stories. “We can reshape the ideas of what it is to be Aboriginal.” The power to tell one’s own story was stripped away by decades of systemic oppression, censorship and exclusion from institutions that shape stories and society. By entering these spaces and introducing new truths, the sovereign is therefore introduced as the utmost powerful weapon.
Melissa asserts the notion of cementing empowering Black stories by scattering them across this essay as well. Stories of Elders marching with broken body parts to assert sovereignty over their land and the sheer resistance to surrender under the systemic oppressions implemented by the colonisers. “We must continue to insist that we are the sole owners of our own traditional stories and the authors of our own lives.” (Lucashenko, 2018).
To conclude, the essence of this piece lies in the fact that there are sovereign powers in creative individuals acting in defiance of the colony, Western standards of storytelling and false histories. It enforces the idea that unity amongst different creatives can lead to new pathways of resistance. Indigenous authors and creatives, like Melissa, are gifting us an anti-colonial framework to create new stories by which we can collectively demand sovereignty, reconciliation and justice.
References
Aberdeen, L., Jones, J., Ellinghaus, K., Francisco, A., Horton, K., Marsden, B., Maynard, J., Kella Robinson, Stevens, L. and Wickes, J. (2021). Black, White and exempt : Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander lives under exemption. Canberra, A.C.T.: Aboriginal Studies Press.
Baldwin, J. (1993). Nobody knows my name: More notes of a native son. New York: Vintage Books.
Meanjin, M. (2018). Writing as a Sovereign Act. [online] Available at: https://meanjin.com.au/essays/writing-as-a-sovereign-act/ [Accessed 23 Mar. 2026].
Wright, A. (2016) 'Telling somebody else’s story’ and ‘Writing as a Sovereign Act’. 23 March 2026.
Behrendt, L. (2019) p. 175 Decolonizing Research Indigenous Story work as Methodology, Eds, Archibald et al., 2019, ZED Books Ltd.