Gleaning and labouring at the edges: Reading Ruth 2 with Natalie Harkin’s “Domestic”

This paper explores the intersections between biblical interpretation and the legacies of settler colonialism in the lands now called Australia. The interpretation of the Bible is entangled with colonisation in Australia, shaping colonial attitudes towards the human and the more-than-human in this place. As sacred text, biblical stories continue to hold importance for the spiritual and religious identity of many Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples. These entanglements are significant but underexplored site for research. Drawing on feminist and contrapuntal reading strategies, this paper brings the biblical story of Ruth into conversation with the poetry of Narungga scholar Natalie Harkin, through the eyes of a Settler interpreter. In the conversation that unfolds, the paper explores how women’s work is framed within interpretations of Ruth 2 alongside the use of Aboriginal women’s domestic labour in the Australian context as a means of colonial and religious domination and control. Through bringing these diverse texts together, the paper contributes to a broader question of how Settler Australians might read biblical texts and settler colonial contexts in ways that do not perpetuate colonial structures but contribute to constructions of work and community that might be liberative and decolonising.