Australian Aboriginal Studies Research Articles

'Waiting with Bated Breath'

'Waiting with Bated Breath'

Transformative or Tokenistic?

Transformative or Tokenistic?

You Are Not Alone: Pre-Service Teachers’ Exploration of Ethics and Responsibility in a Compulsory Indigenous Education Subject

Aunty Mary Graham, Kombu-merri elder and philosopher, says: "You are not alone in the world." We have a responsibility to each other, as well as to the land; and violence is the refusal of this relationship that binds us (Rose). In this paper, I use Emannuel Levinas’s ethics as first philosophy and epistemological violence to consider how non-Indigenous educators come to know Indigenous people. In his philosophy, Levinas presents a paradox: that to act as if one is a free being, as first philosophy, is to ignore that one is not alone in the world and that the presence of others evokes responsibility. However, to claim to know another is to bring them into one’s totality, one’s knowledge framework; an act of reducing another to who you think they are. We must find a new relationship to knowledge, one that is not based on possession. For non-Indigenous educators learning about teaching Indigenous students and perspectives in schools, much of the curricular material draws on the corpus of knowledge constructed by non-Indigenous researchers, politicians, and professionals about Indigenous people (Nakata, Cultural Interface). This material is already bound by others' interests and motivations. How can non-Indigenous educators engage with Indigenous peoples, histories and knowledges in a way that foregrounds the responsibility that our entanglement prompts? In this paper, I present data from my research into pre-service teachers undertaking a compulsory university subject in Indigenous education, where the pre-service teachers wrote weekly reflective learning journals. This data is drawn primarily from the end of the semester, where students reflected on what their learning would mean as they moved into future practice. I explore the role of responsibility in regards to the ethical violence that Levinas discusses.

Welcome to the Peoples of the Mountains and the Sea: Evaluating an Inaugural Indigenous Cultural Festival

Welcome to the Peoples of the Mountains and the Sea: Evaluating an Inaugural Indigenous Cultural Festival

"We Will Show the Country": Bringing History to Life

"We Will Show the Country": Bringing History to Life

Australian Aboriginal Studies in Japan, 1892-2006

Australian Aboriginal Studies in Japan, 1892-2006

Mapping More Than Aboriginal Studies: Pedagogy, Professional Practice and Knowledge

As undergraduate curriculum is increasingly required to meet a range of intellectual, professional practice and personal learning outcomes, what purpose does Australian Aboriginal Studies have in curriculum? Most Australian universities are currently in the process of developing institution-wide approaches to Indigenous Australian content in undergraduate curricula. One Australian university began this task by mapping how, where and why Indigenous perspectives, issues and content are included in undergraduate curriculum. This article reports on the findings of the mapping of Indigenous content and approaches to teaching at the University of Technology, Sydney (UTS) and thereby contributes to a strengths-based approach to understanding the purpose of Indigenous perspectives and issues in undergraduate curricula.

Anthropology Pure and Profane: The Politics of Applied Research in Aboriginal Australia

Is there a view that academic anthropology operates or belongs in a ‘sacred’ space that is distinguishable from applied research occupying a less pure, intellectually inferior and more morally profane domain? Certainly, in my experience of some thirty plus years of work in Australian Aboriginal studies, such a distinction has at times been both promoted and contested vigorously. I outline my reading of the recent debate focusing particularly on writings from those concerned about the moral and political standing of applied anthropology. I also address the proposition that applied work is intellectually inadequate, particularly in being incapable of analysis of cultural change. Prompted by the critiques of applied anthropology, I reflect upon my own research career's blending of both academic and applied work. The paper addresses some case material enabling presentation of my perspective on the positive contribution of engagement beyond the academy in Australian Aboriginal anthropology.

Changing Selves in Remote Australia? Observations on Aboriginal Family Life, Childhood and ‘Modernisation’

The idea of modernity is increasingly called upon to describe and understand change in Indigenous societies, replacing the older paradigms of colonisation, culture change and the short-lived misnomer hybridity. This paper problematises such an approach in the field of Australian Aboriginal Studies, with special attention to the question of whether individualisation and individualism are real phenomena in Aboriginal life-worlds, or else what kind of subjectivities might be in the making. The focus is on childhood as a site of change towards, and resistance to, modern individualism in reference to the history of state and religious interventions into Aboriginal family life.

‘An edifying spectacle’: A history of ‘tourist corroborees’ in Victoria, Australia, 1835–1870

Parsons [Parsons, M. (2002). “Ah that I could convey a proper idea of this interesting wild play of the natives” corroborees and the rise of indigenous Australian cultural tourism. Australian Aboriginal Studies, 2(1), 14–27.] has persuasively argued that nineteenth century corroborees performed for non-indigenous audiences may be considered to be Australia's pre-eminent prototypical indigenous cultural tourism product. This paper extends Parsons' [Parsons, M. (1997). The tourist corroboree in South Australia. Aboriginal History, 21(1), 46–69; Parsons, M. (2002). “Ah that I could convey a proper idea of this interesting wild play of the natives” corroborees and the rise of indigenous Australian cultural tourism. Australian Aboriginal Studies, 2(1), 14–27.] analyses of ‘tourist corroborees’ in nineteenth century South Australia to corroborees staged in Victoria during the pastoral period and the gold rushes of the 1850–1870s. It argues that an Aboriginal-grown ‘business acumen’ developed rapidly in the economic climate of the Victorian goldfields. It also provides a historical context to this commodification.

Gendered substances and objects in ritual: an australian aboriginal study

ABSTRACTThe creative action of the foundational beings known as Dreamings lies at the heart of Aboriginal Australian ceremony. In ritual, gender is drawn into a nexus of generative action and interaction. I will make the case that gender characterizes country, ceremonies, many sacred sites and many objects and substances. People, country, sites and ceremonies are integral to the bringing forth of the life of the world, and draw on a root paradigm of birth. I will examine that paradigm from the perspective of gender in domains of blood, ritual, country, men and women, and objects. The analysis will show that while gender is most assuredly a difference that makes a difference, in Gregory Bateson's famous words, it is the play of difference itself that is most productively worked with in ritual.

Woman, man, land: an example from Arnhem Land, North Australia

This particular study of Australian Aborigines' religious beliefs explores the spiritual and geomorphic interaction between Ancestor Beings and the creation of land formations. Examples are abundant in mythology and rock-paintings of the clans who lived in the stone country of western Arnhem Land in northern Australia. This location flanks Cooper Lagoon near the sacred land formation called Awunbarna, also referred to as Mt Borradaile. The study concentrates on the recent infill tradition of rock-painting, between 2000 years ago to present, and the continuing tradition of oral transmission of belief systems as they pertain to the land. The polymorphous nature of Ancestor Beings in the Aboriginal belief system is vividly reflected in the mythology and iconography of the Aboriginal people across the vast Australian landscape. In Aboriginal oral tradition the original Ancestor Beings of the Aboriginal people created the first shapes in the landscape. In the area surrounding Awunbarna, human, insect, animal, ...

Book reviews

Orlove, Benjamin S., Michael W. Foley, and Thomas F. Love, eds. State, capital, and rural society: Anthropological perspectives on political economy in Mexico and the Andes. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1989. 350 pp. $34.50 (paper). Schumann, Debra A., and William L. Partridge, eds. The human ecology of tropical land settlement in Latin America. Westview Special Studies on Latin America and the Caribbean. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1989. 470 pp. $35.50 (paper). Sheridan, Thomas E. Where the dove calls: The political ecology of a peasant corporate community in northwestern Mexico. Tucson, AZ: University of Arizona Press, 1988. 237 pp. $35.00 (cloth). Hart, Gillian, Andrew Turton, and Benjamin White, eds., with Brian Fegan and Lim Teck Ghee. Agrarian transformations: Local processes and the state in Southeast Asia. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1989. 356 pp. $35.00 (cloth). Coombs, Herbert Cole, H. McCann, H. Ross, and ?. ?. Williams, eds. Land of promises: Aborigines and development in the East Kimberley. Canberra: Centre for Resource and Environmental Studies, Australian National University and Aboriginal Studies Press, 1989. 164 pp. AUS$9.95 (paper).

: Social Anthropology and Australian Aboriginal Studies: A Contemporary Overview . R. M. Berndt, R. Tonkinson.

American AnthropologistVolume 93, Issue 3 p. 766-767 Social/Cultural Anthropology: Social Anthropology and Australian Aboriginal Studies: A Contemporary Overview. R. M. Berndt and R. Tonkinson, eds. MICHAEL C. HOWARD, MICHAEL C. HOWARD Simon Fraser UniversitySearch for more papers by this author MICHAEL C. HOWARD, MICHAEL C. HOWARD Simon Fraser UniversitySearch for more papers by this author First published: September 1991 https://doi.org/10.1525/aa.1991.93.3.02a00870AboutPDF ToolsExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL No abstract is available for this article. Volume93, Issue3September 1991Pages 766-767 RelatedInformation

Social Anthropology and Australian Aboriginal Studies: A Contemporary Overview.

Social Anthropology and Australian Aboriginal Studies: A Contemporary Overview.

La société traditionnelle des aborigènes d'Australie dans l'anthropologie soviétique

O. Iu. Artemova, Traditional society of Australian Aborigines in Soviet anthropology. Data on Australian traditional Aboriginal culture were and still are frequently used in Soviet anthropology as one of the main sources for reconstruction of early stages of human history (prehistory). In the early 1920's-carly 1950's, the research tradition traceable back to the nineteenth century centered mostly on such issues as systems of kinship, kin groups, family and marriage patterns. The 1930's and 1940's were the years of decline in the Soviet Australian Aboriginal studies mostly because of the dogmatic approach to L.H. Morgan's scheme of early social evolution. The early 1970's saw a renewal of scholarly interest in kinship systems and in uni lineal kin structures with the resultant discussion of the so-called Australian "controversy." In 1970's-1980's the themes of Soviet Australian Aboriginal studies grew more varied; they included Aboriginal religion, arts and folklore, as well as the role of personality, the correlation between individual behavior and traditional normative system. Today, the picture of traditional social life of Australian Aborigines as reflected in Soviet anthropology appears to be much more complicated than in the previous years. In particular the concept of primitive egalitarianism is replaced by the recognition of some forms of status differentiation (group and individual) and status hierarchy as well as certain forms of individual specialization.

Terra incognita: Australian aborigines and aboriginal studies in the 1980s

Steele, J.G. Aboriginal Pathways in Southeast Queensland and the Richmond River. Brisbane: University of Queensland Press, 1984. xix + 366 pp. including glossary, bibliography, and index. $37.50 cloth. Berndt, R.M., ed. Aboriginal Sites, Rights and Resource Development. Academy of Social Sciences in Australia, 1982. xii + 253 pp. including chapter references. $12.95 paper. Butlin, Noel. Our Original Aggression: Aboriginal Populations of Southeastern Australia, 1788–1850. Winchester, Massachusetts: Allen and Unwin, 1983. xii+ 186 pp. including maps, references, and index. $14.95 paper.

Australian Aboriginal studies

Abstract— Investigations carried out on 6–14 year‐old Aboriginal children resident at Bathurst Island and Groote Eylandt showed that the Groote Eylandt children had a higher prevalence of dental caries at statistically significant levels. This difference in prevalence was attributed to the greater financial affluence at Groote Eylandt.

Robert Edwards (ed.): The preservation of Australia's Aboriginal heritage. Report of National Seminar on Aboriginal antiquities in Australia May 1972. Prehistory and Material Culture Series No. II. Australian Aboriginal Studies No. 54. Canberra: Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies, 1975. 245 pp., 44 pls., I map. Aust. $10.00.

Robert Edwards (ed.): The preservation of Australia's Aboriginal heritage. Report of National Seminar on Aboriginal antiquities in Australia May 1972. Prehistory and Material Culture Series No. II. Australian Aboriginal Studies No. 54. Canberra: Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies, 1975. 245 pp., 44 pls., I map. Aust. $10.00.

Book reviews

Book reviews