Macquarie University

Contemporary Indigenous Australia - ANTH305

This unit introduces and explores the anthropology of contemporary Indigenous Australia. The contemporary conditions in both 'remote' Aboriginal Australia, and in rural, urban and suburban communities, cannot be understood without knowledge of pre-colonial and early colonial cultural, economic and social forms. The unit explores current issues against the background of the deep historical perspective of human presence in Australia. A second underlying theme of the unit is that neither Indigenous nor settler Australian societies can be understood without a recognition of their profound historical interrelation. Lectures 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 Aboriginal cultures; the role of the law, police and prisons in contemporary Indigenous Australia; and painting, music, and historically dynamic Indigenous expressive practices.