Animating freedom: Accompanying Indigenous struggles for self-determination


Book Description

In the 2019 Backhouse Lecture, Jason MacLeod shares what he has learnt about accompanying West Papuans – and to a lesser extent Aboriginal people, Bougainvilleans and East Timorese – in their struggle for self-determination.  Through personal stories, he tries to make sense of this experience in ways that might speak more broadly to Quakers.  His lecture is a deeply personal re ection on what one person thinks it takes to animate freedom and accompany Indigenous peoples on a journey from empire to the ‘good life.’




Animating freedom: Accompanying Indigenous struggles for self-determination


Book Description

In the 2019 Backhouse Lecture, Jason MacLeod shares what he has learnt about accompanying West Papuans – and to a lesser extent Aboriginal people, Bougainvilleans and East Timorese – in their struggle for self-determination.  Through personal stories, he tries to make sense of this experience in ways that might speak more broadly to Quakers.  His lecture is a deeply personal re ection on what one person thinks it takes to animate freedom and accompany Indigenous peoples on a journey from empire to the ‘good life.’




God's ways, not our ways: a dissident Quaker's response to disability


Book Description

The 2024 Backhouse Lecture God’s ways, not our ways: A dissident Quaker response to disability was delivered by Jackie Leach Scully on Monday July 8th 2024 in Adelaide. Disability has shaped Jackie’s family, career, personal and professional life, and her engagement with faith and spirituality. Drawing on her personal and professional experience, she looks at traditional and contemporary theological engagement with disability. She uses Quaker testimony to explore how Friends are called to respond to disability and impairment and shares some “dissident thinking” about disability with Australian Friends, and others, to help build a world more inclusive of all kinds of difference and diversity.




Creating Hope: Working for justice in catastrophic times


Book Description

In the 2022 James Backhouse Lecture, Yarrow Goodley looks at the critical issue of climate justice—at how our responses to the climate emergency have the potential for great suffering, as well as great redemption. In a world where the rich pollute, and the poor suffer, we do not just need to address our rapidly-warming planet, but also the injustices which drive this environmental catastrophe. In conversation with Quaker and non-Quaker activists, Yarrow explores the history of this crisis, and the despair and hope we must negotiate in coming to grips with a problem of planetary proportions. This crisis offers us an unparalleled opportunity to remake our political, economic and social systems, in ways that support a liveable planet, while addressing the profound injustices of our age, especially racial inequality. Yarrow asks us ‘What can we do?’ and seeks to offer ways forward that create hope not just for all people, but for all the living creatures on our small bluegreen planet.




Seeking Union with Spirit


Book Description

For over twenty years, Fiona has participated in facilitating the Meeting for Learning (a year-long program for spiritual nurture, designed to explore Spirit and Quaker ways), and lives with her partner in a small intentional community that has been a place of spiritual nurture and learning. She has worked as a social worker for many years and now as a university teacher, particularly in fostering critical reflection and spirituality for social workers and critical spirituality for pastoral care workers. A continuing challenge in her spiritual life has been how to integrate her spiritual being in all of these aspects of her life.In the 2010 Lecture, Fiona asks Why seek to live life in union with Spirit? Such a life, in my experience and that of many others, is a fuller, richer, meaning filled and deeper life, connected to that which is eternal. It means moving from what is often called the divided life, beyond opposing forces to a place of wholeness, to integrating all of who we are in all that we do. To do this means holding together these opposites.







Indigenous Heritage and Self-determination


Book Description

The book aims to critically analyze the possible legal mechanisms and processes, which could be used by indigenous peoples in the protection and management of their cultural and intellectual property. The book studies the historic and legal context in which the debate on the rights of indigenous peoples has developed. It analyses mechanisms such as the Convention on Biological Diversity and the Agreement on Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property (TRIPS). The book ends with a discussion on the possible courses of action, which indigenous peoples could take in order to improve the levels of protection and management available to them regarding their cultural and intellectual rights.




Sovereignty Matters


Book Description

Sovereignty Matters investigates the multiple perspectives that exist within indigenous communities regarding the significance of sovereignty as a category of intellectual, political, and cultural work. Much scholarship to date has treated sovereignty in geographical and political matters solely in terms of relationships between indigenous groups and their colonial states or with a bias toward American contexts. This groundbreaking anthology of essays by indigenous peoples from the Americas and the Pacific offers multiple perspectives on the significance of sovereignty.