Abstract
The most significant employer of anthropologists in Australia's Northern Territory is not the university or museum. It is the Aboriginal land councils. As I detail in this article, the primary role of the land council anthropologist is to mediate between Aboriginal groups and developers. But there is a catch. While anthropologists are usually employed because they have already developed a relationship with particular clans as a result of Masters or Ph.D. studies, in performing the duties as required by a council, one often alienates the people who we owe our careers to. This is because any land council has a dual function. On the one hand it pursues land and sea rights for the Aboriginal people under its jurisdiction. On the other, it is trying to sell the idea of Aboriginal property rights to the rest of Australia, where Aborigines enjoy nowhere near the same level of rights.
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