women's library

The Women's library is a resource and toolkit designed to highlight the work First Nations women, girls and gender-diverse people (inclusive of Sistergirls and transwomen) are doing everyday.

The library showscases networks, community groups and organisations, articles, reports, research and projects across the continent elevating the voices that are leading the work of First Nations gender justice and peacebuilding. The Institute has always been First Nations women's voice led, and we have engaged with women to produce resources and tools that caputure our experiences and calls to action. But, this work is ongoing external to the Institute, and this action needs to be showcased.

This is a living library, updated regularly with new and emerging resources, tools, projects and groups. If you'd like to add your work to the library, please get in contact.

The below resources are produced and authored by First Nations women and allies in our network, highlighting the diverse perspectives, voices, and experiences across the continent.

The Myth of Australia's Peace

Reflection on peacebuilding from conversations between Collaboration for Impact and Janine Dureau, highlighting that systems change must be place-based and community led.

Indigenous people want violence out of their communities. Here’s a new approach

This one sits close to our own work as it follows the West Daly Peace Project in the Northern Territory, where Elders and local researchers draw a clear line between quieting a dispute and growing a lasting peace. The distinction they name – negative peace held in place through arrests and incarceration, and positive peace grown by tending healthy kin networks on Country – is the work of peacebuilding.

Closing the Gap is failing, yet again. Is it time we do away with it altogether

Reflections on the effectiveness of Closing the Gap, authored by Wiyi Yani U Thangani collaborator and ally, Elise Klein. The article looks at the new CtG data recognising that the National Framework is no closer to meeting the targets, and points to reparative justice as part of that alternative, citing examples like Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Legal Services - community-built initiatives credited with diverting Indigenous people from the justice system and reducing incarceration.

My name is Nanny Nellie

This documentary follows a family's journey to reclaim their history after discovering their ancestor Nanny Nellie was one of three nameless Aboriginal statues commissioned by the Australian Museum in 1925. Director Daniel King and his great-aunt Irene Walker work to reconnect families with their ancestors' statues and ensure they're displayed with their proper names, identities and dignity.

Motherhood in the Colony

This powerful collaboration between Worimi filmmaker Genevieve Grieves and Palestinian artist Aseel Tayah brings eight First Nations and Palestinian women together to share stories of colonial trauma and mothering as resistance.

Co-created with three generations of women Punkaliyarra: Sister-in-Law Dreaming Story celebrates ancient and contemporary stories of women’s power, where nurture, care and guidance are formed in the collective. Blending film, animation, music, song, movement and spoken word, this immersive audience experience is an invitation into women’s stories, culture and living practices that persist against all odds.

Talkin’ Up to the White Woman: Indigenous Women and Feminism

In this ground-breaking book, Distinguished Professor Aileen Moreton-Robinson undertakes a compelling analysis of the whiteness of Australian feminism and its effects on Indigenous women. From an Indigenous woman’s standpoint, as a Goenpul woman and an academic, she ‘talks up’, engages with and interrogates western feminism in representation and practice.

For Yolngu people from North East Arnhem Land, women and men play different roles in bringing songlines to life, yet the vast majority of what has been published is about men's place in songlines. Songspirals is a rare opportunity for outsiders to experience Aboriginal women's role in crying the songlines in a very authentic and direct form.

Wiyi Yani U Thangani Recommends

Wiyi Yani U Thangani is inspired by many authors, films, podcasts, articles and research. Here's some of our team favourites:

Your Silence will not Protect You by Audre Lorde

A collection of essays, stories and poetry by writer, professor, philosopher, intersectional feminist, poet, and civil rights activist, Audre Lorde. Lorde describes herself as a "Black, lesbian, feminist, socialist, mother, warrior, poet" who dedicated her life and talents to confronting all forms of injustice and oppression. We feel particularly connected to Lorde's essay on the 'Master's Tools' recognising that we will never dismantle systems with the tools and langauge the systems has created. Instead we need to be radical and transformative, drawing on Indigenous and non-western ways of knowing, doing and being.

The Way out is in Podcast

Thich Nhat Hanh (1926–2022) was a Vietnamese Buddhist monk, teacher and peace activist, known for founding Plum Village and the practice of Engaged Buddhism - the idea that inner transformation and social action can't be separated. The podcast takes its name from one of his calligraphies, a reminder that the way out of any difficulty is to look deeply within, gain insight, and put it into practice. It speaks to something we've heard from First Nations women - that peace within isn't separate from peacebuilding, it's the foundation of it. It is co-hosted by Brother Phap Huu, abbot of Plum Village's Upper Hamlet and Jo Confino, who works at the intersection of personal transformation and systems change.

Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer

Drawing on her life as an indigenous scientist, a mother, and a woman, Kimmerer shows how other living beings-asters and goldenrod, strawberries and squash, salamanders, algae, and sweetgrass-offer us gifts and lessons, even if we've forgotten how to hear their voices. In a rich braid of reflections that range from the creation of Turtle Island to the forces that threaten its flourishing today, she circles toward a central argument: that the awakening of a wider ecological consciousness requires the acknowledgment and celebration of our reciprocal relationship with the rest of the living world. For only when we can hear the languages of other beings will we be capable of understanding the generosity of the earth, and learn to give our own gifts in return.

Glimpses of Utopia by Jess Scully

Scully argues that our social, political, and economic "operating systems" need an upgrade, and gathers real-world examples from around the globe, from worker-led care cooperatives in India and Lebanon to digital democracy movements in Iceland and Taiwan, to show how people are already reimagining work, government, and community life. The book is framed as a manifesto for optimism, using these ten core areas of reform to demonstrate that fairer, more sustainable systems aren't just theoretical but are actively being built. We are seeing this work everyday connecting with First Nations women's organisations and networks across the continent.

Have something to add? Let us know!

This is a live resources that we want to actively add to to showcase the incredible work taking place across the continent. If you have something to add let us know!

Thank you! We will update the library shortly!

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