2025 PROGRAM
Land, Identity and Who Gets to Belong
DATE:
Saturday 21 March, 2026
LOCATION:
Qi Yoga Studio
COST:
$25.00
Who gets to belong in Australia, and on whose terms? From very different starting points, Joshua Gilbert and Tyree Barnette reflect on how land, race and power shape ideas of identity and home. Gilbert brings an Indigenous, future-focused perspective grounded in Country, agriculture and cultural continuity. Barnette offers the lens of a Black American migrant learning how race, privilege and belonging shift across national borders. Together, they examine the stories Australia tells about itself and the tensions between welcome, ownership and sovereignty. This is a conversation about belonging that rejects easy answers and what it might mean to build a shared future without erasing difference or history.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT OF COUNTRY
The Manly Writers' Festival acknowledges and thanks the original storytellers on the lands on which our events take place, the Gameraygal people of the Eora Nation. We acknowledge and respect their continuing connection and culture, and we pay our respects to ancestors and Elders, past and present, as well as emerging leaders.