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
Results 1-5 of 74
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... pastoral lease (ranching area) around which she centered much of her historical analysis: 'Blackfella started that place ... Mainoru is really on blackfella area'. Here, Cowlishaw reminds us that in the first and final analysis, the ...
... pastoral lease (ranching area) around which she centered much of her historical analysis: 'Blackfella started that place ... Mainoru is really on blackfella area'. Here, Cowlishaw reminds us that in the first and final analysis, the ...
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... pastoral Australia as an extension of modern, enlightened and progressive European culture, could generate a savage regime which was so unintentionally destructive in its effects. What were the historical imperatives driving the ...
... pastoral Australia as an extension of modern, enlightened and progressive European culture, could generate a savage regime which was so unintentionally destructive in its effects. What were the historical imperatives driving the ...
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... pastoral activities and that these principles and practices were as apparent among 'egghead' academics as among 'redneck' settlers. Ethnographic analyses of what are considered to be traditional Aborigines have seldom been able to ...
... pastoral activities and that these principles and practices were as apparent among 'egghead' academics as among 'redneck' settlers. Ethnographic analyses of what are considered to be traditional Aborigines have seldom been able to ...
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... pastoral industry. Others were public servants, protectors of Aborigines, patrol officers and more recently state officials whose presence has increased over the decades. Today the main focus of race relations is at the point of ...
... pastoral industry. Others were public servants, protectors of Aborigines, patrol officers and more recently state officials whose presence has increased over the decades. Today the main focus of race relations is at the point of ...
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... pastoral stations, as well as those managing missions and government stations, isolated Aboriginal communities experienced varied conditions.12 However, against the vagaries of individual whites, and local populations and conditions ...
... pastoral stations, as well as those managing missions and government stations, isolated Aboriginal communities experienced varied conditions.12 However, against the vagaries of individual whites, and local populations and conditions ...
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