Open for Inspection: Problems in Representing a Humanised Wilderness

Abstract

Historically, a large percentage of non‐indigenous Australians have obtained knowledge of Aboriginal people through channels which provoke an aesthetic response (paintings, film, literature, etc.). More recently, inhabited national parks, such as Kakadu and Uluru, have offered a supposedly more direct engagement with contemporary Aboriginal life, yet this engagement is also filtered through a number of aesthetic discourses. The necessity for any social group to construct representations of itself arises out of the complexities and contingencies of the political landscape. Although such representations can and do reflect a number of political perspectives, Aboriginal people occasionally have the opportunity to convey their own view of the social and historical circumstances which continue to impinge upon their lives. Although national park boards of management often encourage this indigenous voice, I argue that the resulting aesthetic representations tend to elide and suppress the untidy moments which gave rise to them. This, I further suggest, presents problems for any attempt to represent the contemporary social and cultural reality of a particular group of people.