“Hit the Pack”: Young Nunga Males and Rap as Resistive Transcript to Engage Schooling

• In Event: Indigenous Peoples of the Pacific SIG Business Meeting: "Elepaio": Indigenous Literacies, Indigenous Voices

Abstract

This paper conceptualises the way the culture of rap and hip hop stages acts of resistance through ‘hidden’ and ‘public’ transcripts for a small group of young Indigenous Australian males in a secondary schooling site in Australia. Young Indigenous/Nunga voices in the Nunga Room highlight contentious dialogues about race, gender, identity, performance of agency and experiences of schooling as a counter narrative in the form of a resistive transcript. This paper argues that the dominant public and powerful discourses is challenged and ruptured by the hidden transcript to overturn the misrepresentation of Nunga males and identity to show how through rap as a resistive transcript, the discursive freedom is undergoing a process of power for the subordinate and powerless.

Author

• Faye Blanch, Yunggorendi First Nations Centre