On Taungurung Land: Sharing History and Culture

The Australian story since James Cook first claimed the continent has been dominated by European perspectives and European narratives. These narratives involve historical and legal issues that implicate the foundational myths of a particular society and the fundamental assumptions about the nature of individuals and the polity. As J. G. A. Pocock noted (in Politics, Language and Time: Essays on Political Thought and History, London, 1972, p. 233), the resolution of these issues turns on and affects 'a set of ideas about what happens, what can be known and what [is] done in a society' — issues that cannot be easily and clearly abstracted into an analytical framework internal to history and the law.