Decolonising Australian Anthropology - Introduction

DISSOLVING MENTAL BLOCKAGES 

In order to re-constitute a post-modern Australia – to better fit with First Peoples realities and provide them with the types of recognition they require to live – we need to dissolve some mental blockages. 

The 1901 Australian Constitution, and much of the mentality of the times when it was formulated, represents a truly ‘blocked’ form of energy.  We must not remain captive of the thinking of those times if we are to hope to heal life in this country. 

I raise an issue here which results from my experiences with Warumungu and Alyawarra people, during the 1980s, as they sought recognition via a land claim under the 1976 Aboriginal Land Rights (NT) Act. 

In addition to direct experience as a researcher helping Warumungu and Alyawarra people prepare their land claim in the early 1980s, I had to read a lot of anthropological material, including that of the Sir Baldwin Spencer and Frank Gillen partnership and of W.E.H. Stanner. 

Spencer and Gillen carried out fieldwork with Warumungu people in 1901, and Stanner did his brief Warumungu work in 1934. 

These anthropological materials provided me with the means to articulate an issue which came from my direct experience with Warumungu and Alyawarra people in the early 1980s.  

Warumungu people’s lives represent country itself – country as signified by Dreaming.  That is, their lives represent re-incarnations of Dreaming Ancestors. This is not the sort of thing which is familiar to most modern Europeans.  

At least two Constitutional issues arise out of this aspect of First Peoples lives. 

1. How can First Peoples beliefs in reincarnation be supported and protected in the Constitution of a modern nation-state? 

2. What implications does Dreaming reincarnation have for Constitutional recognition of First Peoples as First Peoples? 

My writing here is with the second issue, especially as it relates to the question of who decides such esoteric matters as the Dreaming identity of First Peoples, and how this relates to land ownership (and related) matters. 

I will be arguing that a key role of senior lawmen is a necessary condition for assigning Dreaming identity. Whether or not it is also a sufficient condition i will leave for others. 

There are very good reasons for seeking to push the debate about such recognition matters into an area which has attracted little, if any, real serious consideration over the life of the Commonwealth of Australia. 

These reasons are live and have real consequences on the lives of contemporary First Peoples. For example, negotiations with native title holders; land claim decisions and ongoing matters in the Northern Territory under the 1976 Aboriginal Land Rights (NT) Act; the present bitter and divisive dispute about voluntary consent for a radioactive waste facility at Muckaty.  

In regard to the debate (“conversation”) regarding Constitutional recognition of First Peoples, it has to be said that – to date – First Peoples realities have been sacrificed in order to preserve as privileged the foreign Ways introduced into this country. 

That is, European norms are deemed to be sacrosanct . First Peoples are expected to change, not Anglo-Australians.  Neo-European derived modern Australian Ways are not only deemed superior but protected from the need to change in order to better accommodate First Peoples realities.

More detail to follow ....