Macquarie University

Culture, Care and Country in Aboriginal Australia - ANTH305

This unit introduces and explores the anthropology of 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 unit is that neither Indigenous nor settler Australian societies can be understood without a recognition of their profound historical inter-relation. 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; and painting, music, and historically dynamic Indigenous expressive practices.

Timetable Information

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