Zohl dé Ishtar
Irish-Australian lesbian Dr Zohl dé Ishtar is the author of Daughters of the Pacific and editor of Pacific Women Speak Out for Independence and Denuclearisation.
These books contain histories of peoples’ immense suffering and courageous resistance against colonialism, which were told to her by Indigenous Pacific and Australian women. Having worked with Indigenous Australian and Pacific women and their communities since 1979, Zohl has visited twenty-seven countries as a political activist campaigning for the eradication of colonialism in all its forms.
Diagnosed with cancer in 1991 she established LesCan, Australia’s first lesbian cancer support group. In 1995 she sailed to Moruroa to protest French nuclear testing with the New Zealand Peace Flotilla. In 1998-99, as the Oceania representative for the International Peace Bureau, she coordinated the Pacific delegation (twenty delegates representing eight nations) to the Citizen’s Centennial end-of-millennium social justice conference in The Hague.
In 1999 she took up residence in Wirrimanu on the edge of Western Australia’s Great Sandy Desert where she lived intimately with the women elders assisting them to establish the Kapululangu Women’s Law and Culture Centre. This experience was the subject of her PhD for which she was awarded Deakin University’s Isi Liebler Prize for “advancing knowledge of racism, religious or ethnic prejudice” and furthering “multiculturalism and community relations in Australia”.
In 2005 Zohl was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize as a part of the 1000 Women for Peace campaign celebrating the courage, vision and resilience of women throughout the world who actively and passionately dedicate their lives to fostering peace and social justice in their communities. She is currently a post-doctoral fellow at the University of Queensland’s Australian Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies.
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Zohl dé Ishtar
Mapping inter-cultural relationships as they are played out in a remote Aboriginal settlement in Western Australia's Great Sandy Desert, this book challenges White Australians to reconsider their relationship with Indigenous peoples. Unpacking White cultural practices, it explores the extraordinary difficulties which Indigenous women face when they attempt to maintain and pass their cultural knowledge, customs and skills on to their children and youth. From 1999 to 2001, Zohl dé Ishtar lived and worked intimately with a group of thirteen women elders to establish a vibrant intergenerational cultural knowledge transmission program: the Kapululangu Women's Law and Culture Centre. Through this profound experience Zohl identified 'Living Culture', the cultural energy which is created when individuals live their culture to its fullest expression enabling them to transform their worlds even when to do so seems impossible. Her profound radical feminist analysis of the socio-cultural context surrounding this Indigenous women's initiative challenges White attitudes and behaviours and offers a deeper comprehension to those who aspire to be involved in collaborative projects with Indigenous peoples. A lyrical and passionate book.
2005 | ISBN 9781742199795 | Paperback | 220 x 140 mm | 425 pp
For more paperback copies, please visit IPG Book in the US or Gazelle Book Services in the UK
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