Shared understanding is one of the most important elements of successful communication with Aboriginal people.

What many of us don’t understand is how often non-Aboriginal people take it for granted that everyone – no matter what their cultural background – understands exactly what they’re talking about.

This is a dialogue* between two people – a Dutch-Australian filmmaker, Rolf de Heer, and a Yolngu man, Peter Djigirr - who worked together for more than a year to make the movie Ten Canoes. de Heer has phoned Djigirr to tell him that the film had won the Deadly Award.

‘Djigirr! You’ve won an award!.
‘Right…what’s that thing?’
‘Like a prize.’
‘A prize?’
‘You know, recognition for doing good with the film.’
‘Oh yeah…a prize.’ Djigirr pauses. ‘Any money?’
‘Er, not sure about this one. Probably a piece of plastic.’
A long pause. ‘Plastic?’
‘Yeah, like a statue or something.’
‘Ahh…what do I do with it?’
‘Take it home, put it on a shelf.’
There’s another pause, as Djigirr tries to digest the lunacy of everything I’m saying.
‘I haven’t got a shelf.’

This short piece of text is full of cultural dissonances. Try as hard as he can to do otherwise, de Heer started the conversation with a series of assumptions about the extent of Djigirr’s understandings about things that he himself takes for granted. But understanding, even of the small things that pepper a conversation like the one above, is contingent on Djigirr having the sort of cultural capital that he obviously doesn’t have.

So the talk is full of misunderstandings, of questions and answers that only half clear up what is going on. And note, de Heer is intellectually and emotionally honest enough to admit that what he is trying to do is ‘lunacy’ as he realises he’s bogged himself in a swamp of his own making.

Encountering this kind of dissonance is not at all unusual for people who work in Aboriginal domains. I’ve dropped myself in it repeatedly, as have most of the people I know. I am learning how to get out of it with dignity.

* From Griffith Review: Unintended Consequences, ABC Books, May 2007