Book Launch - Where's All the Community? Aboriginal Melbourne Revisited by Julie Andrews

Readings Carlton are delighted to host the launch of Julie Andrews' Where's All the Community? Aboriginal Melbourne Revisited.

Julie Andrews will be in conversation with Jedda Atkinson-Costa to discuss this groundbreaking account of the people and places that have shaped Aboriginal Melbourne.

In Where's All the Community? Andrews paints a vivid portrait of the Aboriginal community in Melbourne, from 1835 to today.

Drawing on extensive interviews with community members, her research in anthropology and her own family's story, Andrews traces the bonds that have shaped and sustained Aboriginal Melbourne. She explores the importance of kinship, geographic mobility and ties to other First Nations communities. She considers health, education and housing, including the crucial role played by Aboriginal-led organisations. And she describes the ongoing campaigns for social justice, land rights and self-determination.

Professor Julie Andrews OAM is a descendant of the Yorta Yorta people. Her community and family connection is to the Aboriginal Melbourne community and the Cummeragunja Aboriginal Reserve. She also has connection to the Wiradjuri and Wurrundjeri Woiwurrung peoples. Her family has been instrumental in establishing Melbourne Aboriginal organisations and Aboriginal women's networks across Australia. She is director of the Gabra Biik Wurruwila Wutja Indigenous Research Centre at La Trobe University.

Jedda Atkinson-Costa is a proud Wemba Wemba, Yorta Yorta and Mutti Mutti woman from Narrm. Growing up with a love for storytelling, she pursued a Bachelor of Communication (journalism) before forging a media career as a cross-platform news reporter at the ABC. During her time at the national broadcaster, Jedda wrote stories that would go on to earn her the Victorian Rural Press Club's Young Journalist of the Year Award in 2021. She has since used her skills to train and support grassroots campaigners and community advocates to better understand the country's media landscape. Having worked within various media and Aboriginal community spaces, Jedda has become a vibrant presenter and host with a passion for uplifting voices within her community. She currently works as a Media and Communications Advisor at the First Peoples' Assembly of Victoria.