Quête spirituelle, résilience et Temps du Rêve chez les Aborigènes de Sydney

Abstract

ContextThis article contains a discussion of cultural continuity between self-improvement and health practices amongst Aboriginal populations in large Australian cities, from a psychological anthropology perspective. GoalsThere are two main purposes to this article: (a) showing how some contemporary urban Aborigines reappropriate cultural elements, historically and anthropologically considered as “traditional,” especially concerning their links to the Dreaming cosmology; (b) analyzing how this cultural reappropriation impacts the way Aborigines express their pain, both individually and collectively. MethodThis study is based on first-hand ethnographic data collected during the author's doctoral research. The fieldwork consisted of a 10.5-month participant observation of an Aboriginal group therapy circle in a suburb of Sydney and about 15 semi-structured interviews with some members of this group. FindingsThis article presents two main findings: (a) the urban Aboriginal populations under consideration reappropriate an altered version of the myth and practices of the Dreaming and (b) their involvement in a therapeutic process aimed at allowing them to “feel better” takes the form of a spiritual quest framed in this altered conception of the Dreaming. ConclusionsThrough the analysis of this ethnographic example, this research promotes an understanding of therapy as being intrinsically linked – from a pragmatic point of view – to the cultural background from which it emerges. Doing so, this article shows the cultural inventiveness and resilience demonstrated by Aborigines in Australia's large cities to contain the pain generated by colonization.