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OLIVIA

From high-school dropout to Cambridge scholar

Olivia Slater is a Badimia Yamatji and Whadjuk Nyoongar mother, student and wife. Her ancestral homelands are along the banks of the Swan River, in Perth, and further north near Paynes Find, Western Australia. She spent her childhood in Perth and has spent many years living and working in the inner west of Sydney and the western suburbs of Melbourne. Olivia is the first Indigenous Australian woman to undertake a PhD at the University of Cambridge, which she won a scholarship to.

As a sort of introduction, I’m a Badimia Yamatji gnarlu and a Whadjuk Nyoongar yorga. My mob is all from the southern half of Western Australia. I must acknowledge that without my Badimia and Whadjuk ancestors, I would not be here today. My ancestors fought long and hard for me to exist – for there to be a country for me to exist with. My heritage, my family and my culture all work together to make me, me. I’m currently off country, living in Cambridge, England, taking a Masters in social anthropology at the University of Cambridge. I’m a mother, a wife, a mature-aged student, and I’m from one of the most underprivileged populations globally, living as part of what could be considered one of the most privileged. It is commonly referred to as the Cambridge Bubble.

It’s been a weird journey.

I grew up in Perth, Western Australia, as the youngest of four kids. My family is huge – massive in comparison to some. I have ten aunties and uncles, just on my mum’s side. I have over thirty first cousins and I’ve lost count of all their bubs. Growing up, I was lucky to have a group of cousins around my age, as my siblings are a lot older than I am. Outside of family, however, I couldn’t quite find a place to call my own. I never fitted the mould of girlhood or femininity, not in my too-tall, not-quite-white-enough body, and not in my anxious, bookish ways. When family circumstances in my teenage years took a turn for the traumatic, my high school was woefully underprepared to deal with me, and at fourteen I just stopped going. Mum and I then moved across the country to northern New South Wales, where I continued to try and figure out where I belonged. I attended high school just enough to scrape through with my Year 10 certificate, but I ended up leaving high school – and home – at sixteen.

I spent the decade between the ages of seventeen and 27 working full-time between Perth, Melbourne and Sydney. I was 22 when I was diagnosed with endometriosis. My diagnosis made so much sense – the intensely painful periods coupled with an almost unmanageable loss of blood all pointed to something above and beyond your average dysmenorrhoea. One morning, post-diagnosis, I felt compelled to call Mum to tell her, ‘I want to have kids one day. And I don’t think that makes me a bad feminist.’ She sighed. ‘I just don’t want you making the same mistakes I did.’ I paused. Thankfully, after a lifetime of knowing my mum, I knew not to take it personally. It was actually kind of endearing