Rednecks, Eggheads and Blackfellas: A study of racial power and intimacy in AustraliaThis lively book brings the reader close to the people from a remote cattle station in far north Australia, where black and white peoples' lives have been intertwined over the span of 80 years. Tracing the humorous, savage and ordinary ways in which race structured intimate and everyday relationships across a great divide, Gillian Cowlishaw makes startling and original arguments about race relations. By investigating specific patterns of interaction on Australia's cultural frontier, Rednecks, Eggheads and Blackfellas illustrates how anthropologists, pastoralists and government officials squabbled about Aborigines as they intruded into their country, controlled aspects of their lives, and dominated the way they were represented in the public realm. The ironic title hints that the difference between 'redneck' pastoralists and 'egghead' anthropologists is not so great as might be imagined. Aborigines were central to the projects of both kinds of whitefellas. Weaving the shifts in government policy and public opinion with accounts of their sometimes ludicrous impact on outback communities, this book brings to life the complexities of living with racial categories. And it asks why increasingly enlightened anti-racist policies seldom seem to have worked as intended, even in this era of self-determination. This thought provoking work will speak not only to anthropologists and those interested in Aboriginal Australia, but to scholars of race more generally, especially in the burgeoning field of whiteness studies. |
From inside the book
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... becomes crucial. Is it enough, for example, to hear only about and only from the colonisers, and from the critics that, inevitably, eventually emerge the descendants of those communities wherein the colonising effort first began? More ...
... becomes crucial. Is it enough, for example, to hear only about and only from the colonisers, and from the critics that, inevitably, eventually emerge the descendants of those communities wherein the colonising effort first began? More ...
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... become adept at using names appropriate to the circumstances. On my first visits I was doing field work, collecting material for a PhD thesis concerning certain traditions and knowledge among Aboriginal women. Even then, and in numerous ...
... become adept at using names appropriate to the circumstances. On my first visits I was doing field work, collecting material for a PhD thesis concerning certain traditions and knowledge among Aboriginal women. Even then, and in numerous ...
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... becomes possible to expose the politics of representing the past and the present. That is, those ideas and assumptions shared by erudite texts and popular accounts are a clue to a profound domain of cultural determination. As feminist ...
... becomes possible to expose the politics of representing the past and the present. That is, those ideas and assumptions shared by erudite texts and popular accounts are a clue to a profound domain of cultural determination. As feminist ...
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... becomes a question of making a virtue out of what others have historically had to do as a matter of necessity— finding a way across cultural divides and social barriers. . .' (1995:ix). But we must also examine the nature of these ...
... becomes a question of making a virtue out of what others have historically had to do as a matter of necessity— finding a way across cultural divides and social barriers. . .' (1995:ix). But we must also examine the nature of these ...
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Contents
Opening the Country | |
Civilising the Country | |
Reforming the People | |
Racial Intimacies | |
A New Modernism | |
Betrayals | |
A Viable Enterprise | |
Enjoying Democracy | |
Palimpsest Processes | |
Notes | |
Bibliography | |
Index | |
Other editions - View all
Rednecks, Eggheads, and Blackfellas: A Study of Racial Power and Intimacy in ... Gillian Cowlishaw No preview available - 1999 |
Rednecks, Eggheads, and Blackfellas: A Study of Racial Power and Intimacy in ... Gillian Cowlishaw No preview available - 1999 |
Common terms and phrases
Aboriginal communities administration anthropologists Arnhem Land asserted Australia became Beswick Billy Farrar Billy Moore blackfellas Bulman Bulman mob bureaucratic bush bush tucker Camfoo camp ceremony Chuckerduck civilisation colonial Cowlishaw Danny Watson Darwin dependants discourse domain Elkin established European everyday experience expressed forms Gibbs Gulin Gulperan half-caste Heather Dodd identity indigenous individuals interaction Jack McKay Jawoyn Jimmy Dodd judgements Judy Katherine kinship knowledge Kriol labour lives Mainoru station manager Maningrida married Mataranka meanings modern moral mother mununga myalls names natives Nelly Northern Territory notion NTTG officials outback outstations palimpsest pastoral pastoralists patrol officers practices protect race relations racial hierarchy racialised rations recognised rednecks relationships Rembarrnga responsibility Ronnie Martin Ryan self-determination sense social specific state’s stockmen told took tradition tribal tucker understanding wages Weemol Welfare whitefellas workers