Further Travels in “Becoming-Aboriginal”: The Country of Oodnadatta, the Importance of Aboriginal Tourism, and the Critical Need for Ecosophy

Abstract

ABSTRACT This paper further explores the importance of “becoming-Aboriginal” as a postcolonial or decolonising strategy in terms of Australian national identity, specifically through the “gateway” of Aboriginal tourism. Here, however, this strategy is tied particularly to Felix Guattari's work The Three Ecologies (1989) as part of a more urgent need to confront the crises presently facing humanity. Through focusing on one region in northern South Australia, initially visited in 1980 then again in 2020, I reflect upon my own experiences with Aboriginal culture and its ecologies in this area as a way to explore and expand upon not only my own identity and subjectivity but that of Australia's more generally. Considering Australia has always suffered something of an “identity crisis” because of its often brutal white colonial history, the concepts of cultural transversality and ecosophy could provide a further turning point in the reconciliation process between Aboriginal and settler Australians.