Product Description
An examination of the colorful Tiwi culture from the late 1920s to the 1980s that provides a broad picture of cultural change and modernization in a hunting and food gathering tribe. The first half focuses on marriage contracts and their relationship to other aspects of Tiwi social structure, and the second half examines the Tiwi's response to modern influences. ... Read more

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This innovative work takes a narrative technique (known as "storytracking") practiced by Australian aboriginal peoples and applies it to the academic study of their culture. Gill's purpose is to get as close as possible to the perceptions and beliefs of these indigenous peoples by stripping away the layers of European interpretation and construction. His technique involves comparing the versions of aboriginal texts presented in academic reports with the text versions as they appear in each report's cited sources. The comparison helps reveal the extent to which the text is transformed through its presentation. Gill follows the chain of citations along, uncovering the story, or as he calls it the "storytrack," that interconnects scholar with scholar-independent subject. The storytrack reveals the various academic operations--translations, editing, conflation, interpretation--that serve to build a bridge connecting subject and scholarly report.

Gill begins by examining Mircea Eliade's influential analysis of an Australian myth, "Numbakulla and the Sacred Pole." He goes back to the field notes of the anthropologists who originally collected the story and by following the trail of publications, revisions, and retellings of this tale is able to show that Eliade's version bears almost no relation to the original and that the interpretations Eliade built around it is thus entirely a European construct, motivated largely by preconceptions about the nature of religion. By applying this method to other received texts of aboriginal religion, Gill is able to bring us closer than ever before to the worldview of this vanishing culture. At the same time, his work constitutes an important statement on and critique of the academic study of religion as it has traditionally been practiced. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Extremely Helpful Theoretical Contribution for Scholars
Book Review: Sam D. Gill's Storytracking: Texts, Stories, and Histories in Central Australia

The Skinny: This texts theoretical contributions far outweigh its deliberate focus on Australian history. It is a valuable text for anthropologists, ethnographers, historians, and religious studies scholars. Minus one star for its exorbitant list price.

One danger that scholars face is the obliteration of subjects. Without getting into any of the theoretical background for this contention, we should accept (as a working proposition) that when we talk about others we are always already translating and interpreting and recontextualizing. If an informant tells you something, then you can hope to transcribe it accurately, but when you USE this quotation in a scholarly work you will inevitably reframe it for your own purposes. This leads to distortion, and this is especially true for those scholars who have studied Australia's aborigines.

To start with let's take the instructive example of JZ Smith and Mircea Eliade. Both wrote about the arrente in Australia. Both relied heavily on secondary sources. Yet each scholar managed to incorporate the arrente into their work differently. On the one hand, we should expect differences. However, the other hand wags its nit-picky close-reading fingers at you. Gill skillfully deconstructs the "storytracks" created by these two scholars, identifying the differences in how they approach (and employ) their sources and explaining the implications for their interpretations. Here's the kicker: These differences reveal authors not subjects.

This is an important contribution on its own, but it is Gill's clear application of his method to get to this point that makes this volume worth reading. Gill calls this method storytracking, and it intentionally calls to mind not only the "tracks" that scholars leave behind when they create "stories," but also the implication that new works are always sleuthing around, sniffing for that lead that breaks the case. While this method is far more of an abstraction than a heuristic model for interrogating sources, it does inventively re-frame the scholarly enterprise as not necessarily subject-obliterating. The big question emerges if we accept that works by scholars (often) say much more about themselves than their subjects: How can we reveal our subjects more clearly? Gill is obviously in favor of greater transparency about the relationship betwixt and between sources, and while this helps pull layers of obfuscation of subjects, it does not render them transparent. Gill's method creates a space for greater clarity, but he has really only opened the door to the possibilities of his own method. We should all eagerly await the downstream implications of this important text.

PS: This book is AMAZINGLY expensive new. (What were the publishers thinking!) So be sure to grab a used copy! ... Read more

Product Description
A Shorter History of Australia proves Blainey's ability to get to the heart of Australia's past. After a lifetime of research and debate on Australian and international history, Blainey is well placed to introduce us to the people who have played a part and to guide us through the events which have created the Australian identity: the mania for spectator sport, the suspicion of the tall poppy, the rivalries of Catholic and Protestant, Sydney and Melbourne, new and old homelands, the conflicts of war abroad and race at home, the importance of technology, the emerging recognition of an Aboriginal past, the successes and failures of the nation. It is a broad vision on this nation's achievements. It teaches us that we are our past and the future belongs to those who remember. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

A Shorter history of Australia
This was an excellent introduction to Australian history, it gave me a good idea of the basic history of Australia and who the people of Australia are. I found it to be balanced and concise. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

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I have not read the book.I am actually looking for a book of Albert Namantjura's (this might be spelled wrong) paintings.He was a very popular Aboriginal artist back in the 1950's in Australia.I believe he used watercolor, but I am not certain.Can anyone advise me on where I can get a book of his paintings?

Eleanor ... Read more

Product Description
Volume I: The Belief among the Aboriginees of Australia, the Torres Straits Islands, New Guinea and Melanesia (1913); volume II: The Belief among the Polynesians (1922); volume III: The Belief among the Micronesians (1924). ... Read more

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This important new collection of essays brings together exciting work in archaeology, linguistics, and genetics to reveal a varied and dynamic view of Australia's Aboriginal past--and of its place in the prehistory of the Pacific region. A picture emerges of sweeping changes happening in the last five thousand years, an active and detailed illustration at odds with prevailing notions of a static Aboriginal society. ... Read more

Product Description
In the nineteenth century, Australian Aborigines were used by European scholars as an exemplar of early human forms, and have consequently featured as the crucial case study for generations of social theorists and anthropologists. Arguments about Aborigines examines controversial subjects such as family life, religion and ritual, and land rights through the prism of Aboriginal studies. Professor Hiatt's book will provide a valuable introduction to Aboriginal ethnography, and is a shrewd and stimulating history of the central questions in Aboriginal studies. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Arguments About Aborigines
At first I felt awe, then dismay, at the amount of literature available on this most-studied culture, the Aborigine of Australia. The culture has been of intense interest since the ealiest days of formal ethnological andanthropological enquiry. Hiatt's book has given me a perspective into thehistory of scholarly enquiry that informs and conditions my reaction to thework of others. His format is subject-oriented according to his ownscholarly interest in the Aborigine but is prefaced in each chapter by areview of the prejudices and aspirations of his predecessors. The book ishighly readable and very stimulating. I consider it essential, at theleast, to others like myself who have no formal anthropological trainingbut who must discern and rely on the work and opinions of scholars. ... Read more

Product Description
Many of the earliest books, particularly those dating back to the 1900s and before, are now extremely scarce and increasingly expensive. We are republishing these classic works in affordable, high quality, modern editions, using the original text and artwork. ... Read more

Product Description
This digital document is an article from The Australian Journal of Politics and History, published by University of Queensland Press on January 1, 1997. The length of the article is 1372 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: Arguments About Aborigines: Australia and the Evolution of Social Anthropology. (book reviews)
Author: Bruce Rigsby
Publication: The Australian Journal of Politics and History (Refereed)
Date: January 1, 1997
Publisher: University of Queensland Press
Volume: v43Issue: n1Page: p86(2)

Article Type: Book Review

Distributed by Thomson Gale ... Read more

Product Description
This scarce antiquarian book is a selection from Kessinger Publishing's Legacy Reprint Series. Due to its age, it may contain imperfections such as marks, notations, marginalia and flawed pages. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment to protecting, preserving, and promoting the world's literature. Kessinger Publishing is the place to find hundreds of thousands of rare and hard-to-find books with something of interest for everyone! ... Read more

Product Description
This digital document is a journal article from Social Science & Medicine, published by Elsevier in . The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Media Library immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Description:
Based on anthropological field research (1997-2000) within the Department of Health and Community Services in the Northern Territory in Australia, this paper explores the lingering features of colonial logic in the pastoral work of public health workers in the Northern Territory of Australia. The public health professionals drawn to work in this space are determined to remedy what is wrong with culturally acceptable solutions. But viewed from an anthropological perspective, the way in which health professionals conceptualise the problems they need to solve ultimately serves to reinforce the reality of the need for their continued tutelary presence. This paper aims to draw out the complex ways in which this interventionary effect is secured, concentrating in particular on the role played by progressive ideologies of participatory development and information sharing. It argues that through a complex process of forgetting, the otherwise innocuous gestures of public health goodwill recreate a mandate for more public health intervention. This is not a simple moral tale where analysts can easily identify good and bad practices and thus distance themselves from the difficulties involved. Rather, by emphasising the honest commitments to improvement in situations of mass illness and preventable disease that health professionals bring to their work, and the burden they bear in being conscious of the recent colonial past, the paper aims to avoid the judgement that this sort of work is easy to get right. ... Read more