Introduction:
The debates between applied and pure anthropologists’ demonstrate the difficulties which those engaged in native title litigations encounter. Debates to whether anthropologists’ engaged in native title hearings are morally and intellectually adequate are discussed in contemporary anthropology. These debates between anthropologists’ cause various ambiguities to the role and ability of those practicing engaged anthropology. David Trigger’s article, ‘Anthropology Pure and Profane: The Politics of Applied Research in Aboriginal Australia’, outlines some criticisms engaged anthropologists’ face and attempts to disprove them. Trigger’s points in this article caused debates amongst applied and pure anthropologists’ revealing many ambiguities and complexities. Firstly, I will discuss Trigger’s arguments to the uncertainties of the moral and intellectual ability of engaged anthropology in native title cases. Secondly, through citing anthropologists’ such as Diane Austin-Broos, Rohan Bastin and Francesca Merlan, I will display the ambiguous role engaged anthropologists’ have and the complex relationship held between pure and applied anthropology. Thirdly, by discussing Bruce Kapferer and Barry Morris’s responses to Trigger, I will show the complex relationship between anthropology, the state and corporations. Then the difficulties which engaged anthropologists’ face in the legal realm will be highlighted. Finally, I will discuss the difficulty those engaged in native title cases face to whether their work is assisting or subjugating Aboriginal communities. These ambiguities, difficulties and complexities which arise from anthropologists’ participating in native title are deliberated in the following essay.
Ambiguous Nature o...
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References:
Austin-Broos, D 2012, ‘Three Points and Three Replies’, Anthropological Forum, vol. 22, no. 1, pp. 68-69
Bastin, R 2012, ‘Comment on Trigger’s Manichean Dualism’, Anthropological Forum, vol. 22, no. 1, pp. 71
Merlan, F 2012, ‘Different, Not Impure’, Anthropological Forum, vol. 22, no.1, pp. 75-78
Morris, B 2012, ‘Expert Knowledge and the Tide of History’, Anthropological Forum, vol. 22, no.1, pp. 79
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According to Keefe (1992:53) “Aboriginality is a complex social reality, only artificially explained by the abstract divisions of resistance and persistence’ and modern history demonstrates the connections between official education policies (or attitudes used by the dominant group) and key events in Aboriginal Australian history.
As European domination began, the way in which the European’s chose to deal with the Aborigines was through the policy of segregation. This policy included the establishment of a reserve system. The government reserves were set up to take aboriginals out of their known habitat and culture, while in turn, encouraging them to adapt the European way of life. The Aboriginal Protection Act of 1909 established strict controls for aborigines living on the reserves . In exchange for food, shelter and a little education, aborigines were subjected to the discipline of police and reserve managers. They had to follow the rules of the reserve and tolerate searchers of their homes and themselves. Their children could be taken away at any time and ‘apprenticed” out as cheap labour for Europeans. “The old ways of the Aborigines were attacked by regimented efforts to make them European” . Their identities were threatened by giving them European names and clothes, and by removing them from their tra...
Reynolds, H. (1976). The Other Side of The Frontier: Aboriginal resistance to the European invasion of Australia. Queensland, Australia: James Cook University
Robbins Burling, David F. Armstrong, Ben G. Blount, Catherine A. Callaghan, Mary Lecron Foster, Barbara J. King, Sue Taylor Parker, Osamu Sakura, William C. Stokoe, Ron Wallace, Joel Wallman, A. Whiten, Sherman Wilcox and Thomas Wynn. Current Anthropology, Vol. 34, No. 1 (Feb., 1993), pp. 25-53
Australian indigenous culture is the world’s oldest surviving culture, dating back sixty-thousand years. Aboriginals and Torres Strait Islanders have been represented in a myriad of ways through various channels such as poetry, articles, and images, in both fiction and non-fiction. Over the years, they have been portrayed as inferior, oppressed, isolated, principled and admirable. Three such texts that portray them in these ways are poems Circles and Squares and Grade One Primary by Ali Cobby Eckermann, James Packer slams booing; joins three cheers for footballer and the accompanying visual text and Heywire article Family is the most important thing to an islander by Richard Barba. Even though the texts are different as ….. is/are …., while
Cultural Anthropology: The Human Challenge, 14th Edition William A. Havilland; Harald E. L. Prins; Bunny McBride; Dana Walrath Published by Wadsworth, Cengage Learning (2014)
Schultz, Emily A. & Lavenda, Robert H. 2005, Cultural Anthropology, 6th edn, Oxford University Press, New York, Chapter 3: Fieldwork.
Sharma, B.R.. "Cultural Preservation Reconsidered." Critique of Anthropology 19 (1999): 53 - 61 . College of Anthropology . Web. 2 Apr. 2011.
The lecture provided by Professor Elias Kary on the nineteenth of November merely was a recapitulation and overview of the previous lecture, plus a summarization of the past few weeks of class lecture/material. There was an overview of Applied Anthropology and how “anthropologists have a practical place in solving problems.” (Kary 2015) There was an overview of colonialism; the Maori and Moriori of New Zealand; and the history of anthropology itself. There was a foray into the work of Charles Mann and revisionist history, particularly from the point of view of his book 1491. World systems were discussed at some length and a short overview of the film from previous class session. Then the professor went into the structure and what the class needed to provide for the final paper the next week; class then concluded early on account of the large paper due.
Australia’s Indigenous people are thought to have reached the continent between 60 000 and 80 000 years ago. Over the thousands of years since then, a complex customary legal system have developed, strongly linked to the notion of kinship and based on oral tradition. The indigenous people were not seen as have a political culture or system for law. They were denied the access to basic human right e.g., the right to land ownership. Their cultural values of indigenous people became lost. They lost their traditional lifestyle and became disconnected socially. This means that they were unable to pass down their heritage and also were disconnected from the new occupants of the land.
Keyes, Charles F. Karma, An Anthropological Inquiry. Los Angeles, CA, USA: University of California Press, 1983
When Captain Cook arrived in 1788 and the colonisation of Australia began, the Indigenous people of Australia struggled and fought to protect their country from infringement, theft and violation. The Indigenous people were faced with a dominant military force and an extremely different view of the world. Over one hundred years ago, the colonists understood this land to be open for the taking and the rightful first owners were treated as intruders on their own land. In 1901 the commonwealth of Australia was proclaimed and a supposedly new era was to occur for this “lucky country” and its inhabitants. http://www.greenleft.org.au/back/2001/433/433pl6.htm However, for Indigenous Australians, this year marked a 113 years of resistance, removal, withdrawal and dispossession. Over one hundred years later, the Native Title act is passed and Indigenous Australian’s continue their political struggle for land rights
the story in the Phillip Whitten and David E. K. Hunter anthropology book of No
In the book titled Around the World in 30 Years, Barbara Gallatin Anderson’s makes a precise and convincing argument regarding the acts of being a cultural anthropologist. Her humor, attention to detail, and familiar analogies really allow for a wholesome and educating experience for the reader. Her credible sources and uniform writing structure benefits the information. Simply, the book represents an insider’s look into the life of a cultural anthropologist who is getting the insider’s look to the lives of everybody
Ember, Carol R., Melvin Ember, and Peter N. Peregrine. Anthropology. Thirteenth ed. Boston, MA: Prentice Hall, 2011. Print.