Ethnobotany, Migrant Writing and Australian Tropical Rainforest: A Conversation About Story, Plants and Place

Turpin, Gerry;Smyth, Elizabeth

Abstract

Australian tropical rainforests are increasingly recognised as cultural landscapes. Aboriginal peoples maintain strong and complex connections with rainforest. Stories told by migrant and settler-colonial writers often misrepresent or omit Indigenous perspectives and thus facilitate exploitation of traditional knowledge for commercial gain. This has ongoing consequences for Aboriginal peoples due to loss of intellectual property rights and financial benefits. Despite Indigenous writers increasingly producing self-authored literature and criticism, the voices of some identity groups remain underrepresented. This article argues for employing conversation as a tool to accelerate the reach of Indigenous voices into Australian literary studies. Through a conversation about Welsh migrant writing in John Naish’s The Cruel Field, Mbabaram ethnobotanist Gerry Turpin and literary scholar Elizabeth Smyth reposition Naish’s representation of rainforest relative to Aboriginal biocultural knowledge. This cross-disciplinary approach demonstrates how oral communication can fruitfully advance literary research when essential comparative stories are held in minds and memories

Journal

Green Letters

Publication Name

Green Letters: Studies in Ecocriticism

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ISBN/ISSN

2168-1414

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Publisher

Taylor & Francis

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DOI

10.1080/14688417.2026.2690917