THE WIRLOMIN NOONGAR LANGUAGE AND STORIES PROJECT (the Wirlomin Project) works “to claim, control and enhance Noongar heritage” by sharing language and story in a gradual way that fosters an empowered generosity (Mamang, 30; Noongar, 36). As such, they “choose to do this by starting with a small ‘community of descendants’, and progressively sharing with ever widening circles of people” (Mamang, 30; Noongar, 36). This process involves workshopping archival records of Noongar stories told to the American linguist Gerhardt Laves by Noongar “informants” in 1931. These workshops create a discursive relationship between the archive and Noongar Elders to rejuvenate language and story through a variety of narrative forms, “including audio recordings, songs written in Noongar language, visual art and dances created to accompany ancestral stories, a website and additional literature” (Bracknell, “Wal-Walang-Al Ngardanginy,” 3). The choice to share these stories with an “ever-widening circle” of people is most prominently realized by the project's four publications—Mamang (2011), Noongar Mambara Bakitj (2011), Dwoort Baal Kaat (2013), and Yira Boornak Nyininy (2013)— because, as published written texts, they circulate in a globalized literary space. The “appropriate” (“Wirlomin”) sharing of these stories in the literary market creates a tension between what Scott has described as the “homogenising tendencies” of “global discourse” and the possibility for empowered regional storytelling through global systems of exchange (Scott, “Covered,” 124).

The Wirlomin Project's inherent tension between the regional and the global is increased by Kim Scott's involvement in the initiative. Scott's mobility in the world of literature as a successful Noongar author writing in English contrasts with the experiences of the majority of people in his “home community.” In Shaking Hands on the Fringe (2009), Tiffany Shellam cites Jerome Bruner, who observes, “cultures are stable groups working together, but cultures are [also] made up of individuals and so we are autonomous agents as well” (101).