We done it!: the story of Warmun Women's Centre and Safe House: women's agency in western Australia

This thesis documents the history of a women's centre and shelter in the Kija Aboriginal community of Warmun in the East Kimberley region of Western Australia where gender relations were characterized by a balance in economic and spiritual realms but have been threatened by increasing social problems, such as violence against women, introduced through the colonization process. I have attempted to answer the question: Why do I perceive Warmun women as having a stronger status than women from my own Swedish culture? This is divided into three subquestions: What does the history of Warmun women's centre indicate about the continuity of balanced Kija gender roles, what does it show about different aspects of Kija women's agency, and how can I relate this to Swedish women's gender status? I have decentered Western European patriarchal ideology by listening to Warmun women who represent a gender balanced ideology and presented what Warmun women have to say about women's collective action, their mode of organizing and the ideological base of their agency. My methodological approach has been my own movement between different worldviews and feminist histories over time and space; feminist ethnography provided the field data. The story of the Centre reveals that Warmun women have not allowed the intrusion of a Western European ideology to weaken their egalitarian status but have adhered to an organizational independence determined by their traditional culture and based in the spiritual heritage of "Women's Law." It indicates that Warmun women have an authority as women which is not found in the Swedish patriarchal democracy.