Transforming colonial social suffering : strategies of hope and resistance by LGBTIQ+ Indigenous peoples in settler-colonial Australia

Although emergent literature has begun articulating the effects of settler-colonialism on Indigenous Australians’ gender and sexuality, little remains known about how contemporary colonial processes are being counteracted by Indigenous queer communities. Drawing on the qualitative responses within a larger survey with Indigenous gender and/or sexuality diverse people, we explore how strategies of hope and resistance are enacted in efforts to contest and transform colonial social suffering and to maintain and promote individual and collective wellbeing. While all participants share experiences of struggling for wellbeing against the ongoing effects of colonisation, they also reveal how they have fostered Indigenous queer networks to respond to and resist alienating and/or oppressive colonial structures of power. Additionally, some participants divulge how they harness adverse lived experiences as a motivator to challenge and change the intergenerational legacies of colonisation.