Macquarie University

ANTH305: Culture, Care and Country in Aboriginal Australia

This unit introduces and explores some central challenges facing contemporary Indigenous Australia. Underlying the rationale of the lecture program is the view that the contemporary situation of both 'remote' Aboriginal people and urban and suburban communities and kin groups cannot be understood without knowledge of pre-colonial and early colonial cultural, economic and social forms. The unit thus explores current issues against the background of the deep historical perspective of human presence in Australia. A second underlying theme of the course is that neither Indigenous nor settler Australian societies can be understood without a recognition of their profound historical interrelation. Lectures thus explore how forms of Australian settlement and governmental practice have transformed Aboriginal Australia in some unexpected ways, and also how Aboriginal perspectives and forms of active social engagement continue to shape broader Australian cultural concerns. Specific topics to be covered include: life perspectives and practices of hunters and gatherers; the land-people connection (cosmology, totemism and territorial organisation); first contacts and the impact of European settlement; urban Indigenous communities and struggles over public space; painting, music, and historically dynamic Indigenous expressive practices.

Timetable Information

For unit timetable information please visit the Timetables@Macquarie Website .