Does native title merely provide an entitlement to be native? Indigenes, identities, and applied anthropological practice

Abstract

This paper is directed to two immediate purposes which lie beyond anthropology as practiced within academia: to contribute to the ongoing dialogue within the discipline on applied anthropological engagement in and with the Australian native title and Indigenous development arenas; and secondly, to add to our conversations with Indigenous people themselves on what it means to be Indigenous in contemporary Australia. It aims to do this by focusing initially on what I argue are two ostensibly alternative constructions of contemporary Indigenous identities implicitly established through different provisions of Australia's Native Title Act, one of which I propose draws from the particular legal construction of Indigenous tradition in that Act and in native title jurisprudence, and the other from certain aspects of identity held to be associated with modernity. I argue, however, that there is a false dichotomy between tradition and modernity in contemporary circumstances, and that Indigenous identities are better understood as ‘hybrid’ in the sense that they involve a complex interpenetration of forms of identity and practice drawn from diverse domains. I further argue that these arguments have important implications for an applied anthropological practice well beyond the native title arena, and for Indigenous people themselves.