Beyond the Meeting of the Waters is the life story of academic, activist and Yorta Yorta man Wayne Atkinson, which he has co-authored with Catherine Guinness. It recognises the long history of Aboriginal activism by Atkinson’s people – a fight for land justice and self-determination that will continue beyond him.

Review: Beyond the Meeting of the Waters: A Yorta Yorta Life Story – Wayne Atkinson and Catherine Guinness (Melbourne University Publishing)

The Yorta Yorta people first petitioned for their land in 1881. They walked off Cummeragunja Mission Station near Barmah, Victoria, in protest in 1939. They campaigned for land rights and cultural heritage in the 1980s, and for their native title in Australian courts in the 1990s. They are campaigning for treaty and truth-telling today.

From the 1970s, Atkinson has been involved in these moments of organising and uprising, as opportunities have emerged, failed and faded. Beyond the Meeting of the Waters explains his involvement, how the Yorta Yorta organised and the experiences they drew upon. Atkinson also acknowledges the Elders who have influenced and shaped him.

He does all this without heroics or grandstanding, bitterness or dispute, and always with reference to the many Kooris who were involved. He explains his approach to making change for Yorta Yorta and Kooris as “chipping away”. He sees his life’s work as being an “agent of reform” and sees himself as a pragmatist: someone who understands the process of change as “two steps forward, one step back”.

We come to know him as a musician, worker, intellectual, student, educator, community builder, footballer, researcher, commissioner and Elder, who speaks with authority on the people, movements and ideas who have shaped his world.

Atkinson’s Yorta Yorta life story opens with a hand-written family tree that does the work of situating Yorta Yorta and Dja Dja Wurrung people and histories.

The book is organised into six sections. The first introduces people and Country. The second explains family connections and Atkinson’s childhood, from the “riverbank to town life”, moving on to his working life and the start of his university studies, which often play second fiddle to the pull of activism, but are a constant point of return.

The book goes on to detail the many movements for political change in the 1970s, underpinned by a Koori “cultural renaissance” full of possibilities. Campaigns for land rights and cultural heritage are featured; successes and disappointments are canvassed.

Native Title would become the vehicle for Yorta Yorta people to organise. They would spend decades seeking recognition, and much heartache ensued. The book’s commentary on the Yorta Yorta land rights claim lodged in 1994, the legal ruling against it in 2002, and the personal toll it took provides unique insights.

The final two sections of the book share Atkinson’s innovations as an educator at the University of Melbourne, where he introduced his students to “on Country learning”, and reflect on “unfinished business”.

Dismantling the tools of oppression

Atkinson describes the Yorta Yorta as river and forest people. Their Country straddles the colonial state borders of NSW and Victoria. This has made........

© The Conversation