Abstract
[I]f a civilisation can sustain itself for over sixty-five thousand years. . . why do you assume that you have nothing to learn from it about how it keeps the peace and keeps on going?
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Introduction
The 2003 International Studies Association Presidential Address began by referring to Aboriginal People of Australia, explaining that they would ‘sing their world into existence’. 2 Smith segued from this introduction to his contention that, as a discipline, International Relations (IR) helps sing the world into existence. He suggested that IR has often done so in counterproductive ways, typically presenting theories as neutral, universal frames, without acknowledging how they reflect dominant interests. 3 Smith further called for ethical reflections on theory, arguing that the discipline’s universalizing tendencies made IR complicit in creating the world that produced the violent events of 11 September 2001.
Continued reflections on this work over the decades since then have prompted us to ask: how might we sing the world into existence in ways that foster peace? What might IR and Peace and Conflict Studies learn from deeper engagement with Aboriginal 4 knowledges and practices, including those around singing the world into existence? And how might these insights inform peacebuilding theory and practice?
Despite the significance of such insights, in too many cases in IR, Indigenous concepts have been ignored or utilized without meaningful engagement. Mainstream IR’s state-centric focus has historically marginalized Indigenous people and their concerns. 5 In recent decades, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander knowledges have continued to be pushed to the periphery, as logics of settler imperialism continue to structure political relations, 6 both in Australia and globally. 7 Furthermore, paradoxically, although Australia has supported global peacebuilding efforts, the state has not effectively established peace and justice for First Peoples in Australia. 8
To bridge misunderstanding and the lack of attention to date in IR and Peace and Conflict Studies, this article explores how Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander-led work continually resists dominant settler logics while simultaneously working towards advancing peace. This crucial work reflects First Peoples’ ways of being, doing and knowing, which are grounded on ‘Country’, meaning that they encompass connections to and coexistence with all living and non-living things within a place. 9 As Tynan 10 explains, ‘Country is a term used by many Aboriginal groups in Australia to delineate understandings from the English word “land”’. Citing Mary Graham’s 11 work, Tynan 12 explains that this distinction rejects dominant settler approaches, which deem land as existing primarily to benefit people through financial gain, property acquisition and/or resource extraction. In contrast, Country is understood relationally and as having its own agency or Law, creating responsibilities of care for land, family and research, and providing teachings on multiple truths, which constitute relationality. 13
This contrasts with liberal peacebuilding endeavours, which deny ‘the ways in which conflict is shaped by peoples’ relationship with the natural world’. 14 Indigenous epistemologies notably do not exist in or accord with the linear temporalities more common in non-Indigenous framings. 15 In these ways, the locally informed creative approaches to peacebuilding we consider contrast with dominant approaches that valorize linear, short-term visions of peacebuilding. In our analysis, we aim to embrace, rather than overcome, these differences for their generative potential. In doing so, we are further guided by Lederach’s call for peacebuilders to use their ‘moral imagination’, which he postulates can involve both embracing experiences of different conceptions of time and engaging with insights from aesthetics. 16
Likewise, here, we suggest that music can act as a key conduit for First Peoples’ peacebuilding efforts to resonate intergenerationally, noting that at times this is particularly fostered through engagement with ‘songlines’. In Australia, First Peoples’ arts practices, especially those associated with songlines, embody capacity for change and adaptation and represent intergenerational knowledge transmission. 17 Neale and Kelly 18 explain songlines as, ‘a knowledge system – a way of retaining and transmitting knowledge – that is archived or held in the land. They can be visualised as corridors or pathways of knowledge, like Dreaming tracks’. Moreover, songlines unify present, past and place, and enable people to connect with Country even when removed from it, thus enabling crucial intergenerational learning and communication. 19 Songlines are complex 20 and context specific, as they are related to the Country on which you are located, and accessible in different ways to different people at different times. To illustrate, Neale and Kelly 21 explain how, ‘the Seven Sisters Songline story in the National Museum of Australia’s exhibition or in a book is an open story, which the custodians call the schoolkids’ version’. In planning and discussing this exhibition with a ‘virtual journey along the Songlines’, elders clearly expressed ‘why all Australians need to know about the Songlines. If you want to truly belong to this country, you have to know your story about this place, this continent and its creation. It was about teaching you your stories, not just sharing ours – otherwise, you won’t take root and belong’. 22 This is deeply imbricated in how arts practices can represent powerful elements of peacebuilding.
In exploring Indigenous-led music-based peacebuilding in the place now known as Australia, we investigate the crucial ways these embodied, situated knowledges intersect with, and are grounded in, musical concepts and practices on Country. This focus reflects the centrality of creative practices in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultures and recognizes that continued storytelling, art and song are the key means by which Indigenous practices of conflict resolution have been communicated. 23 In particular, traditionally voice has been the main communication tool in Aboriginal culture, which ‘was traditionally non text based’, and drew on song as central to conveying and passing down knowledge. 24
As our literature review demonstrates, international research on music-based peacebuilding rarely engages Australia, and most published research on music-based peacebuilding in Australia was completed well before several significant relevant political events here. Recognizing these geographic and temporal gaps, continued exploration of the ways music has contributed and may contribute to peacebuilding here and beyond is thus crucial.
Thus, we consider a case study – Treaty in the Park, which helps illustrate a timely example of locally informed, Indigenous-led, music-based peacebuilding practice in Australia. This case study seeks to contribute to deepening understanding of the diverse ways people around the world work to build peace in place. It also offers unique insights, as it features local perspectives on an arts-based approach – in this case music – that aims to produce local change, as distinct from federal or international top-down approaches to peacebuilding. 25 By offering this case study, we seek to recognize how First Peoples continue to connect to their Country, retell their stories, sing songs from their old people and pass down their histories. Here, we note how they do so in relational ways, fostering configurations of connection that enable peace to resonate.
To analyse this case, we draw on publicly available materials, including online text, images and videos reporting on the event, and data provided by organizers, including quantitative survey results shared by First Peoples’ Assembly of Victoria (FPAV) and qualitative survey responses shared by Wyndham City Council. In considering this effort connecting peacebuilding and music in Australia, we demonstrate how Indigenous-led music-based peacebuilding approaches can encapsulate insights from local knowledges and practices, which are enacted intergenerationally. In particular, we show how Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples are deploying music to advance peacebuilding that centres connection and relationality, promotes understanding and healing and draws strength from being grounded in place. Furthermore, we assert that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders’ knowledges advance peacebuilding in Australia through creative approaches that recognize and draw on the crucial importance of language, Country, ancestors and culture, all of which contribute to and are represented in the musical peacemaking practices considered here.
In analysing and discussing the case study, we employ the musical concept of ‘resonance’, which may be commonly understood as how loud and clear a sound comes through to the listener(s). We purposefully engage with ‘the resonance of song as social force’, 26 which relates to how music may connect people in particular times and places, generating shared experiences, potential learnings and transformation. In theorizing Treaty in the Park as a peacebuilding endeavour, we aim to echo the work of international Indigenous scholars of Music and Sound Studies, who call for close, critical listening 27 and suggest doing so with ‘a futurist ear’ in ‘the hyperpresent now’, which ‘is neither legible, nor reducible to a linear structure of settler temporality’. 28 Given theorizing around political aesthetics and temporal sovereignty, engaging with resonance enhances our framework for understanding, including through enabling consideration of vibration and how music can produce an environment where connection can be ‘felt vibrationally between (human and non-human) bodies’. 29 To that end, we suggest that engaging with the concept of resonance enables reflection on possibilities for how musical efforts can communicate peacebuilding knowledge between ‘the listener and the listened’ 30 and beyond – grounded in place through sound, song, and music. In examining the case study, we show how it intersects with broader traditions of Indigenous peacebuilding, resistance and resurgence, and highlight how musical practices are animated by and sustained through their capacity for resonating beyond what can be captured in dominant approaches to and mainstream analyses of peacebuilding.
To develop this case, the remainder of this article proceeds as follows: First, we briefly situate ourselves and the study’s frame and contribution. Next, we provide relevant background and context. From there, we consider existing relevant research on peacebuilding, incorporating studies engaging with Indigenous knowledges and the role of music in peacebuilding, including what has been done in Australia, and noting where further understanding might be developed. We then introduce and analyse Treaty in the Park, a First Peoples-led 1-day music and culture festival held in Victoria, Australia, as an illustrative case study, which enables us to explore prospects and practices around music-based peacebuilding. Finally, we conclude by summarizing main points, posing possible questions for future research, and reflecting on key findings.
Situating Ourselves and the Study Framing and Contribution
As an Aboriginal author, Nicola Parkes connects to and descends from Taungurung Country in the central part of Victoria, Australia. She holds a Master’s degree and expertise in peacebuilding policy and practice, both internationally and in advancing Treaty in Victoria at a State level. Lesley is a non-Indigenous person who has been living and working in Australia since she arrived in 2005 as an international scholarship student. She moved to Melbourne to begin her first full-time academic role in 2011 and is thankful to have gained Australian citizenship in 2016. Together, we have engaged in ongoing dialogue across difference since 2022, when mutual academic friends connected us, having noted our shared personal and professional interests and commitments around supporting meaningful participation by young people, considering future generations, and creative approaches to advancing peacebuilding. 31
Our scope here is necessarily limited to what knowledge is available given the people we are and the places in which we are grounded. Recognizing that First People’s knowledges can be sacred and are deeply connected to Country, 32 we affirm that ‘peacebuilding and place are inexorably intertwined’. 33 We primarily conduct our discussions, research and writing in English on Wurundjeri Woi Wurrung and Bunurong Country, where Aboriginal people have been learning and peacemaking for tens of thousands of years. As Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders’ key values, including reciprocity and care, extend past the land group while also encompassing care for the land, 34 we continually benefit from the care traditional custodians have provided since long before our arrival. We hope the insights generated through learning with and from one another in this local setting, where our different life worlds and professional experience meet, can contribute to broader aims and processes of peacebuilding in this place and beyond.
By ‘peacebuilding’ we mean working towards positive peace, which incorporates efforts aimed at reducing, preventing, transforming and healing from violence, both direct and structural, including in cases that have not (yet) resulted in widespread armed conflict. Peacebuilding occurs across diverse settings including, for example: community based efforts to restore and heal relationships affected by conflict, empowering citizens to work together across differences of ethnicity, religion and political views; and creating and strengthening institutions to prevent violence, both social and political. 35 Noting this, we see peace ‘as a daily process of caring for humans and non-human beings, of refusing and resisting violence’, 36 and agree that ‘Peace is an ongoing doing, not an endpoint’. 37 Theorizing peace in this way crucially aligns with how ‘Australian Aboriginal societies tend to foreground process-oriented activities that manage conflict by according individuals a wide range of autonomy in the context of networks of relatedness’. 38 Notably, Indigenous peoples often engage creatively in ‘the space in-between what is actual and what is possible’. 39 Here, we examine how they do so in engaging other community members in a culturally grounded process of musical peacebuilding that we theorize as resonating with ancestors, current living generations of all ages and the wider environment.
While focusing on Australia, our scholarly contribution seeks to add to global peacebuilding scholarship concerned with local, hybrid, everyday and aesthetic approaches to peacebuilding. 40 While IR does not commonly engage with everyday creative resistances, including those by Indigenous artists during transitions from violence, 41 scholarship over the preceding decades demonstrates ways various art forms may contribute to peace. 42 Thus, this article’s exploration of prospects for, and practices of, music-based peacebuilding in Australia can significantly advance understanding.
Background and Context
The country on which we write is sacred for some and known as Australia for others. In 1778, British settlers invaded and began colonization ‘as part of the creation of “Australia”’. 43 The dispossession of Indigenous lands and resources remains ongoing. The Australian state’s long history of violence against First Peoples is extensively documented, incorporating widespread structural violence of racist policies and practices, which include, but are not limited to, lack of recognition as citizens prior to 1967, theft of Indigenous wages, removing Indigenous children from their families, overrepresentation in prisons and out of home care and associated effects, including intergenerational trauma. 44 Scholarship examining 50 years (1967–2017) of federal government policy found Australia has ‘failed to genuinely acknowledge and recognise Indigenous rights’, even though they ‘are critical to Australia progressing towards peace’. 45 Consequently, ‘Intergenerational inequity and political powerlessness continue to shape the lives of young Indigenous peoples and limit the conditions of justice that liberal democratic colonies such as Australia can imagine’. 46 In short, peacebuilding clearly merits further attention here.
While the Australian political system rarely, if ever, reflects or incorporates Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander philosophies and ontologies, 47 First Peoples have learnt to navigate the Australian state’s structures and laws to advocate for themselves and their communities. In doing so, many have continually engaged in diverse forms of protest and resistance. Building from these efforts to advance Indigenous rights through the Australian political system, the Uluru Statement from the Heart (hereafter Uluru Statement) represents one of the most widely acknowledged contemporary movements for advancing a more peaceful, fair future for Australia. In 2017, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander leaders who were chosen as delegates for the First Nations National Constitutional Convention met to write, endorse and then release the Uluru Statement, which petitioned the people of Australia to adopt key proposals. 48 The Statement calls for (1) ‘voice’, (2) ‘treaty’ and (3) ‘truth’, meaning (1) an Indigenous ‘voice’ comprising a group advising Parliament on Indigenous people’s concerns; (2) a commission to help Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians come together and heal; and (3) a process of truth-telling around governmental relations with Indigenous peoples. In recognition of these efforts and their contributions to peacebuilding, in 2021, the Uluru Statement was awarded the Sydney Peace Prize. Accepting the prize on behalf of the Statement’s creators, Professor Megan Davis referred to this work as crafting ‘a roadmap to peace for the nation’. 49
The need for valuing and having better awareness of such local understandings of peacebuilding is increasingly gaining public attention. For example, in Australia in recent years, the Yolŋu word
Although the Uluru Statement from the Heart clearly articulated Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander perspectives on pathways to peace, wider political contestations remain. In Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s 2022 electoral victory speech, he referenced the Uluru Statement and committed to holding a Referendum to enshrine an Indigenous Voice to Parliament. 57 The leadup to this vote featured hostile political public debates, 58 and in 2023 the Referendum proposal failed to pass. 59 This fraught context makes considering approaches to peacebuilding a timely topic in Australia.
In the aftermath, under Australia’s federalist system, each State and Territory charts its own course on whether and how to respond to the Uluru Statement. Significant variation exists. Here, we focus on efforts in the state of Victoria, which is uniquely placed in that it has worked towards addressing all three elements. The
To better understand peacebuilding in this context, we next turn to examining relevant existing scholarly knowledge. In particular, this article considers, bridges and contributes to existing research around music and peacebuilding and Indigenous peacebuilding. In bringing these ideas together with other contributions from Indigenous scholarship on music and sound, and engaging closely with a local case study, we seek to ground our contribution in place, acknowledging the myriad ways land, people and culture coexist and connect.
Indigenous Contributions to Peacebuilding
Engaging with and valuing Indigenous knowledges and practices is crucial for advancing rights, and it offers valuable learnings for scholars, practitioners and policymakers seeking to understand, imagine, create and maintain peace. By engaging with Indigenous knowledge systems and collaborating across difference, peace scholars may work towards decolonizing ways of knowing, being and doing peace. 65 To be clear, our aim is not to romanticize ‘Indigenous’ peacemaking, 66 but rather to engage in a respectful, productive curiosity around ancestral knowledge and how associated practices are deployed and/or adapted in contemporary peacebuilding. For instance, Indigenous scholars of foreign policy and diplomacy assert that First Peoples’ ways of being can educate mainstream society on fostering respectful relationship to others, particularly highlighting that through this teaching, ‘relationality, rather than oppositionality, is made clear’. 67
Indeed, Aboriginal people here have reflected for millennia on essential questions for everyone: ‘How do we live together without killing each other off? How do we live without substantially damaging the environment? . . . And how do we find answers to these questions in a way that does not make people feel alienated, lonely, or murderous?’ 68 These reflections undoubtedly have proven fruitful, as research concludes that over the millennia of Indigenous people living in the land now known as Australia, ‘conflict, violence and aggression were part of their experience yet relatedness and peace prevailed’. 69
Despite this wealth of knowledge and experience, relatively few peacebuilding studies explicitly engage with Australia. 70 Consequently, Bishop et al.’s 71 foundational work importantly sets out how ‘in Australia, many First Nations peacebuilding systems, ceremonies, and practices remain largely unrecognised, unknown, and misunderstood within the mainstream context’.
Examining contemporary creative and arts-based practices is essential here, because they play central political roles in advancing peace in Australia. Research suggests that this has long been the case, as knowledge relevant to peacebuilding or conflict management has traditionally been shared through songs, dances, ceremonies and spoken words, 72 including long before European settlement. 73 Research in recent decades also documents the significant role art can play in politics aiming to eradicate structural and direct violence against First Peoples. 74 At the same time, even as Indigenous artwork has been lauded, Indigenous people have continually been denied their rights. Nevertheless, Butler and Bleiker show ‘how Indigenous art interferes with and challenges the legacies of colonial violence that still persist in Australia’, 75 noting more broadly that ‘Art becomes political because it can challenge how we see and conceptualize the world around us’. 76 In this way, art offers crucial potential to consider when seeking to advance peace. Recognizing these important research contributions, it nevertheless remains the case that around the world, overall relatively ‘little is known about how people use art as embodied performance to heal, contest and open new ways through which to find collective justice and healing’. 77 Hence, learning from and contributing to research around arts and peacebuilding is vital. This brings us to our focus on music and peacebuilding.
Music and Peacebuilding
Research surveying the field suggests that music can contribute to peacebuilding in a variety of ways across diverse settings with a range of actors. 78 Music performances are common elements of peacebuilding efforts, 79 and popular music is a site of contestation of everyday meanings of peace, as is young people’s engagement with popular music. 80 A range of musical contributions to peacebuilding have likewise been documented. For example, research notes that musical efforts can make peacebuilding contributions that are both symbolic and functional: directly challenging or subverting divisions that have become normalized, and comprising ‘a sonic rendering of a possible future, as well as a present call-to-action for those who are ready to respond’. 81 Similarly, Schneider suggests that music can enable people to connect across difference and envision and enact positive futures, thus contributing to social cohesion in conflict-affected settings. 82
Furthermore, existing research on music and peacebuilding highlights the need for nuanced critical approaches around
Considering the pressing need for intergenerational peace leadership, 85 it is also worth noting that research suggests that music may offer potential for engaging people in peacebuilding across generations. For example, scholarship examining Oromia/Ethiopia has proposed that storytelling through music enables resistance and intergenerational connections. 86 Moreover, research considering music-based peacebuilding particularly highlights how music has served as an important tool for engaging youth in peacebuilding, including through fostering dialogue across difference, providing a means for understanding and practicing identities in more plural ways and creating space where this work on dialogue and identity can effectively take place. 87
At the same time, as Ragandang 88 argues, successful peacebuilding requires critically engaging with the past, including violence and trauma relating to processes of ongoing colonialism, and music can shed light on ways of doing so. Considering the Philippines context, Ragandang examines how the Indigenous Tausug peoples sing ballads as local expressions of traumatic pasts, which he argues must be effectively acknowledged and addressed in order for peace formation to be possible, let alone successful. This crucial contribution thus importantly highlights the need for studies of peacebuilding in general, and music and peacebuilding in particular, to account for, meaningfully engage with, and learn from Indigenous knowledges and experiences.
Music and Peace: Perspectives from Australia
Here in Australia, in recent decades, music has been deployed in highly visible ways that may constitute peacebuilding. For example, popular Aboriginal musicians have written songs to educate the wider public about violence against First Peoples, including child removals and displacement from Country.
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Additionally, popular Indigenous and non-Indigenous musicians have collaborated to create songs with related messages, such as Kev Carmody and Paul Kelly’s song
Some Australian research has also documented and analysed music-based peacebuilding efforts at the community level. For example, research has documented peacebuilding through musical collaborations between Indigenous and non-Indigenous youth in their own local communities. 93 Rickwood’s research has considered prospects for healing and harmony through the experiences of Madjitil Moorna, a community choir in Perth, Australia, that brings together Indigenous and non-Indigenous participants to engage the wider community. 94 Additionally, Phillips-Hutton 95 suggests that music, particularly song, is significant in conflict transformation efforts in Australia. From popular music aimed at raising consciousness, to court cases on native title using Aboriginal songs for evidence, to engaging primary school children in singing songs to say sorry, a range of musical efforts seek to improve intercultural relations here. 96
Overall, existing research focused on music and peacebuilding provides crucial context for our study. At the same time, in light of momentous recent events, including the 2023 failed Voice referendum, continued consideration is clearly merited. To update and develop understanding, we next turn to consider an illustrative case study.
Treaty in the Park: Music Resonating for Peace
Treaty in the Park, a one-day, all-ages festival celebrating music and culture, was held in November 2024 on Wadawurrung and Bunurong Country at Wyndham Park in Werribee, Victoria. Organized by the FPAV, the event was planned and coordinated in collaboration with the Wadawurrung Traditional Owners’ Aboriginal Corporation and the local government, Wyndham City Council. Attracting over 2000 attendees, 97 the event catered to both Indigenous and non-indigenous audiences, in aiming to advance community understanding of Treaty across regional and rural Victoria. 98 Featuring ‘an all First Nations lineup’ 99 of musicians, including renowned artists such as Dan Sultan, Kutcha Edwards, Mo’ju, Brolga and Madi Colville-Walker, 100 Treaty in the Park also included craft stalls, kids’ activities, cultural experiences and food trucks, engaging multiple senses and offering intergenerational connections. Analysing Treaty in the Park offers the chance to develop understanding of relevant local context for Indigenous-led peacebuilding. Notably, the festival aimed to transform Indigenous-settler relations and promote healing from colonial violence by actively promoting treaty on Country.
In exploring these efforts, we consider Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander knowledge systems and concepts in conversation with broader research on how musical concepts and practices have been deployed for peacebuilding, applying the conceptual lens of resonance to facilitate our analysis. We embrace resonance as particularly relevant in the Australian context, where Noongar music maker and Professor of Music Clint Bracknell states that ‘Regardless of the political impact of Indigenous artists in the cultural field of Australian music, they are united in the overarching goal of making music that reaches and
The event started with a customary welcome in traditional language, 102 where representatives of two Traditional Owners groups, the Wadawurrung and the Bunurong peoples, conducted a dual smoking ceremony for all event attendees. The purpose of smoking ceremonies is to acknowledge ancestors of the Country, cleanse from bad spirits and heal the body in order to have a safe journey across Country. Traditional Owners used native plants to create smoke for attendees to walk through.
Through this ceremony, First Peoples invited both ‘Indigenous and settler descended peoples, into the dance of cyclical time, with its healing potential for transformation’. 103 We suggest that through deploying Aboriginal traditions and language in these peacebuilding efforts, First Peoples crucially practiced peace in ways that intersect with theories of Indigenous resurgence, as they (re)create past political and cultural practices in ways that support wellbeing for people living today. 104 We view this ceremony as a generous gesture, through which First Peoples (re)create spaces for connection and engaging with culture. In doing so, they may forever change the context, which they continually adapt to suit ongoing relations. As such, we conceptualize their efforts as enabling ongoing reciprocal connection and exchange to occur, thus embodying capacity for peacebuilding resonance.
Likewise, at Treaty in the Park, Kutcha Edwards, a member of the Stolen Generation, and beloved mentor to many other First Nations artists, 105 performed in Mutti Mutti language and extended knowledge sharing around songlines to attendees, which we suggest contributed to resonance for peace. Edwards is known for inviting audiences, particularly those who share his bloodlines, 106 to come to the stage and sing with him. Through audience interactions, Edwards retells learnings from ancestors through language. He also demonstrates appreciation to his songlines, which he makes visual by requesting all relatives to sing alongside him from various bloodlines while retelling stories that help connect and share knowledge on Country across time. Edwards engages audiences through song and performance to connect to both Country and ancestors, thus physically and symbolically referencing intergenerational knowledge in order to sustain people and place. As such, his performance ‘resonates across generations in the enduring present or the everywhen’. 107 Crucially, for songlines to resonate, those accessing the knowledge must embrace an ability to actively feel and listen. Engaging with songlines in this way creates opportunities to acknowledge and remember intergenerational injustice and trauma while simultaneously creating new memories and practices supporting more peaceful, inclusive pathways forward.
Moreover, the lineup of artists included musicians across multiple generations (e.g. Madi Colville-Walker, now in her 20s; Mo’Ju, now in their 40s; and Kutcha Edwards, now 60 years old), who are widely known for songs and lyrics that incorporate and advance some of the key ideas of peacebuilding explored here. For one, in Kutcha Edwards’ song ‘We Sing’, through his lyrics he lays out a different world that he envisions, singing:
‘We sing for love
We live for justice
We long for freedom
We dream of peace’. 108
Notably, these artists make connections between these broad visions for peace and their very personal journeys grounded in place. For example, Madi Colville-Walker, a Yorta Yorta artist, is known for singing in language in her song, ‘Yinyarr Mulana Winyarr’, in which she sings:
‘Have you travelled many moons to find the ones who speak to you?
Have you ever stopped to listen to the wind?
Oh, she’s up amongst the trees, and, oh, she’s watching you, my friend
Free spirit woman calls again’.
Another key act at Treaty in the Park, Mo’Ju, a Wiradjuri, Filipino and queer artist, also demonstrates imagination for a peaceful future through their song lyrics, ‘Change has to Come’, singing: ‘I am flesh, I am blood I am down in the mud To protect all the things I believe in I believe in, I believe in us Rising above hatred I believe that love Love will elevate us Change has to come Change has to come’.
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When interviewed, Mo’Ju described the song saying, ‘This is my heart longing for community. This is me calling out for us to be together’. 110 As these examples showcase, the meaningful messages shared through these artists’ lyrics demonstrate a decolonial imagination calling for a just peace. Their performances likewise invite audiences to take part in developing this imagination together.
Reflecting on the interconnected elements of the festival, such as the location by the river, the Welcome to Country ceremony, the range of creative arts featured and the powerful presence of music, including engagement with songlines, we suggest that they jointly offered attendees the chance to enter into a space that encouraged ‘decolonial imagination’, in which different homogeneous understandings are interpreted and imagined differently.
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Engaging with such powerful musical contributions, attendees were clearly affected by and valued the chance to develop understanding and inhabit spaces that welcome diverse ways of knowing, being, and doing, including through engagement in creative practices seeking to build peace in place. Stall holder and Aboriginal artist Mandi Barton reflected on the event as ‘such a joy to connect with the community, share creativity and celebrate culture through art’.
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Furthermore, survey data gathered by FPAV found that 78%
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of respondents reported the event increased their awareness of the Victorian Treaty process and the FPAV. Moreover, of the responses received, 75% reported increased support for Victorian Treaty process and FPAV.
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Qualitative comments from survey results shared by Wyndham City Council further evidence these sentiments of attendees. As some wrote when surveyed after the event, Thank you so much for creating this space on the day for allies to be immersed in culture. Thank you for the wonderful event, as an Ally I felt welcomed and safe! My family and I loved the event! Absolutely amazing event in a beautiful spot by the river. Really loved the music, market stalls and kids’ activities.
These expressions highlight the felt connection that occurred across generations, including for non-Indigenous attendees. We see this as demonstrating how attendees envision and experience new peaceful ways of being together intergenerationally. Following Walker’s earlier work on music and Aboriginal peacebuilding, we assert the event’s site, ceremonial elements and the collaboration between diverse actors enabled actions that ‘sing up new, more balanced and just worlds of multiple, connected circles of people who envision and enact new, peaceful ways of being together’. 115
A number of caveats and limitations may apply here. For one, within any community differences of opinion exist. Within the Victorian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander community, we note that differing views exist around the FPAV as a representative body for Aboriginal peoples living in Victoria, as well as around what Treaty intends to achieve. Moreover, we acknowledge that Treaty in the Park may be considered as one relatively small-scale event held on a single day. Likewise, we anticipate that critics may likely suggest that Treaty in the Park may have limited potential, particularly as we understand that the event had lower attendance than expected due to public transport outages and rainy weather. However, we also note Treaty in the Park is one amongst a range of popular events the FPAV have facilitated, such as Treaty Day Out 116 and Treaty Statewide Gathering 2024. 117 All of these aspects likewise could merit further research. Meanwhile, we remain mindful that ‘there is unlikely to be a single “best practice” for circumventing entrenched segregations and partitions; creating a “peacescape” takes adaptability and sensitivity to what is possible in a given period of time’. 118
The music-based peacebuilding offered by First Peoples in this case may draw from a cyclical view of time, which embraces creative ways to explore change. At the same time, First Peoples’ communities understand the political appetite for Treaty in the Australian context as significantly narrow. Thus, while keeping a wider lens of time, actors such as FPAV may capitalize on opportunities to use creativity in mobilizing Indigenous and non-Indigenous community members to develop shared beliefs and aims for a peaceful future for all. As such, we consider this event as strategically timed and aligned with a political opening and a vision of transformation from colonial powers that are still felt at present. 119 Notably, on 31 October 2025, the first treaty in Australia passed in Victorian parliament. Recognizing this significant milestone and acknowledging that further work remains to be done, we suggest that this case study offers a reminder of the crucial role that song may play in facilitating critical ‘nonviolent social change’ 120 necessary for creating peace here for generations to come.
On the whole, this case study offers worthwhile insights, and we postulate that the kind of resonance we are suggesting pushes us to look at peacebuilding beyond the typical linear, narrowly defined lens of time and space generally implied. Rather, when it comes to considering music for peacebuilding, it is important to note that potential impacts may not necessarily be seen or felt immediately. By ongoing resonance, these efforts may occur or grow over time, potentially contributing to rebuilding/mending social connections despite the colonial history and ongoing violence. In doing so, they may draw strength from songlines, which as noted enable the storing of memory across generations. 121 Hence, engaging with songlines may be especially key in simultaneously acknowledging and remembering intergenerational injustice and trauma and creating new memories and practices supporting more peaceful, inclusive pathways forward.
As the Uluru Statement made clear, listening is most impactful when heartfelt messages are shared. In the case of Treaty in the Park, artists shared their experiences of structural violence through song and presented a new vision for heartfelt relations through the goal of Treaty, which will impact on future generations. Upon considering these musical peacebuilding practices, we suggest that the range of ways in which artists engaged with community were impactful peacebuilding efforts precisely because of their embodied, relational nature grounded on Country and their capacity for resonance. Overall, by engaging with this musical work for peace, we suggest that new possibilities for theorizing and practicing intergenerational peacebuilding are simultaneously remembered, revealed, created and shared through music, which in turn creates and sustains an environment conducive for peace to resonate.
Singing Peace Into Existence?
We started this article wondering how we could engage more deeply with Aboriginal knowledge and practices to sing a more peaceful world into existence. Through this study, we have sought to connect wider research on peacebuilding with First Peoples’ contributions to music-based peacebuilding. This exercise enabled us to explore new ways IR can make visible and learn from Indigenous-led, context driven and locally informed music-based peacebuilding practice. Music-based peacebuilding promotes a process of (un/re)learning and offers new directions for enabling inclusivity, understanding and relatedness between people. Throughout this article, we have drawn out the ways Indigenous practices, grounded on Country and incorporating a commitment to intergenerational knowledge sharing, illustrate music-based peacebuilding in which resonance is central. By exploring these possibilities through analysing the example of Treaty in the Park, we have demonstrated how in Australia, First Peoples are leading intergenerational peacebuilding efforts in locally informed, grounded and creative ways.
We believe further documenting, analysing, reflecting on and supporting such efforts could offer fruitful insights around issues relevant to peacebuilding, including policy and practice efforts at (re)building social cohesion and belonging amidst increasing political polarization globally. Advancing these goals would be supported by further consideration on several themes, which will undoubtedly be plural and require engagement from a wide range of thinkers, voices and spaces. As a starting point, we recognize that the research so far leaves us with more questions than answers. We see this not as a limitation, but as a benefit of orienting our research to move beyond liberal peacebuilding ideas of predetermined, presumably universal aims and outputs on fixed timelines. Rather the kind of peacebuilding practices examined here encourage us to value alternative framings that prioritize locally driven stories, grounded in context with a commitment to resonance.
We propose that Indigenous approaches to music-based peacebuilding can inform future research agendas, including ongoing exploration of the many important questions that remain. Some questions we believe merit inquiry include, though are not limited to, the following: (How) might the process of singing as a group, including in language with one’s own community (mob), guide and direct humans through and towards peaceful interactions? How could learning about Songlines enhance peaceful coexistence and belonging? What impact do song lyrics have on community members listening in a live concert setting? What purposeful silences may persist and why? (How) should/could the insights from these questions be applied or embedded in formal political peacebuilding efforts?
Going forward, we remain open to possibilities, knowing further exploration is required. In these explorations, we aim to continue to learn from Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders’ practices of music and peacebuilding in this place and beyond to better understand and support prospects for creating peaceful, dignified futures for all generations. For now, we conclude this contribution by encouraging ongoing reflection on Wiradjuri poet Jazz Money’s insightful questions: ‘Can we dream up the world we want for our next ones? Can we sing it together?’ 122
Footnotes
Data Availability Statement
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
Funding
ORCID iD
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