Australia has long defined itself culturally as a Western -- and more specifically British -- country and has remained blind to its own specificity, notably regarding the Aborigines, while also cultivating a real phobia toward Asia. Yet, for a few decades, under the influence of political, economic and demographic changes, it has come to term with its geographic reality and has accepted to incorporate in its own culture the non British components it had rejected for so long (mainly the Aborigine and Asian elements). By becoming cosmopolitan and composite, Australian culture has greatly gained in vigor and diversity. Adapted from the source document.
This article presents a brief overview of Australian history. First, it stresses the time-old presence of the Aborigines so as to recall that the history of the continent-island did not start with the arrival of Captain Cook in 1770. Then, it considers the formation, in the 19th century, of a British settlers' colony and its transformation, in the 20th century, into an English-speaking nation state. It also criticizes a certain historiographical trend that tends to relegate the Aborigine people to the pre-colonial past. Adapted from the source document.
Multiculturalism was introduced in 1973 by Gough Williams' Labour government. It follows the Canadian model and advocates an active and welcoming acceptance of immigrants and a consideration of the specific needs of ethnic communities, including the Aborigines. It has become one of the driving force in the construction of Australian national identity. Although criticized, it is always presented as a priority by all the right wing or left wing governments. Yet, it seems to have lost much of its original substance and even to be on the verge of being abandoned. Adapted from the source document.
International audience ; Grâce à sa filiation avec les Britanniques, le rapport entre l'Australie et la pratique sportive estfacile à établir. Ce pays de l'hémisphère sud fut en effet colonisé par les « créateurs » du sport.Les colons apportèrent des pratiques sportives institutionnalisées mais, contrairement à unecroyance assez répandue, ils ne sont pas responsables de la naissance des activités physiques surle continent, des jeux traditionnels y étant déjà pratiqués en grand nombre par les Aborigènes.Ces jeux furent, tout au long du génocide subi par les Aborigènes, remplacés par les pratiquessportives des colons. Au regard d'une étude praxéologique des jeux traditionnels aborigènes,l'article propose quelques pistes d'analyse pour comprendre quelle place identitaire lesAborigènes se sont forgée dans le monde sportif australien. Les résultats montrent que lasurreprésentation d'athlètes aborigènes dans certains sports n'est pas uniquement laconséquence de conflits socio-historiques. En effet, des concordances entre la logique internedes jeux traditionnels et celle des sports pratiqués ont également été relevées.
International audience ; Grâce à sa filiation avec les Britanniques, le rapport entre l'Australie et la pratique sportive estfacile à établir. Ce pays de l'hémisphère sud fut en effet colonisé par les « créateurs » du sport.Les colons apportèrent des pratiques sportives institutionnalisées mais, contrairement à unecroyance assez répandue, ils ne sont pas responsables de la naissance des activités physiques surle continent, des jeux traditionnels y étant déjà pratiqués en grand nombre par les Aborigènes.Ces jeux furent, tout au long du génocide subi par les Aborigènes, remplacés par les pratiquessportives des colons. Au regard d'une étude praxéologique des jeux traditionnels aborigènes,l'article propose quelques pistes d'analyse pour comprendre quelle place identitaire lesAborigènes se sont forgée dans le monde sportif australien. Les résultats montrent que lasurreprésentation d'athlètes aborigènes dans certains sports n'est pas uniquement laconséquence de conflits socio-historiques. En effet, des concordances entre la logique internedes jeux traditionnels et celle des sports pratiqués ont également été relevées.
International audience ; Grâce à sa filiation avec les Britanniques, le rapport entre l'Australie et la pratique sportive estfacile à établir. Ce pays de l'hémisphère sud fut en effet colonisé par les « créateurs » du sport.Les colons apportèrent des pratiques sportives institutionnalisées mais, contrairement à unecroyance assez répandue, ils ne sont pas responsables de la naissance des activités physiques surle continent, des jeux traditionnels y étant déjà pratiqués en grand nombre par les Aborigènes.Ces jeux furent, tout au long du génocide subi par les Aborigènes, remplacés par les pratiquessportives des colons. Au regard d'une étude praxéologique des jeux traditionnels aborigènes,l'article propose quelques pistes d'analyse pour comprendre quelle place identitaire lesAborigènes se sont forgée dans le monde sportif australien. Les résultats montrent que lasurreprésentation d'athlètes aborigènes dans certains sports n'est pas uniquement laconséquence de conflits socio-historiques. En effet, des concordances entre la logique internedes jeux traditionnels et celle des sports pratiqués ont également été relevées.
Paints with acrylic by aboriginal artists from the Australian Central Desert are now famous around the world, resulting from a complex process of marketing and heritage of aboriginal culture carried out for almost 40 years by various state bodies, undeniable actors, aboriginal and non-aboriginal political leaders and artists. In 2012-2013, the Quai Branly Museum hosted several hundred works, mainly fired panels painted between 1971 and 1972, a retrospective built by Art Gallery of Victoria and Victoria Museum in Melbourne to celebrate the forty years of Papunya Tula (Ryan Batty, 2012). The artist Papunya Tula was founded by abori-gene insiders and Professor Geoffrey Bardon, who was then in place in this old reserve, to provide artists with a structure that would nationally disseminate their works and structure their business practice. Supported by the Labour Government for some aboriginal self-determination, the cooperative became a development model, encouraging other communities in the Northern Territory to develop themselves. ; International audience ; Paints with acrylic by aboriginal artists from the Australian Central Desert are now famous around the world, resulting from a complex process of marketing and heritage of aboriginal culture carried out for almost 40 years by various state bodies, undeniable actors, aboriginal and non-aboriginal political leaders and artists. In 2012-2013, the Quai Branly Museum hosted several hundred works, mainly fired panels painted between 1971 and 1972, a retrospective built by Art Gallery of Victoria and Victoria Museum in Melbourne to celebrate the forty years of Papunya Tula (Ryan Batty, 2012). The artist Papunya Tula was founded by abori-gene insiders and Professor Geoffrey Bardon, who was then in place in this old reserve, to provide artists with a structure that would nationally disseminate their works and structure their business practice. Supported by the Labour Government for some aboriginal self-determination, the cooperative became a development model, ...
Accessible en ligne: http://erea.revues.org/2815 ; International audience ; The official Australian national history leaves little room for Aboriginal people. Convicts, settlers, gold-diggers, bushrangers and white soldiers are the protagonists of this national history and the Aborigines' presence is mentioned to emphasize these heroes' patriotism, "mateship", bravery, tenacity and initiative. These omissions, both intentional and unintentional, draw a veil over the disturbing histories that challenge the glorious and federative values around which the Australian nation builds itself. The dispossession, massacre, oppression and exploitation of Aboriginal peoples are thus silenced. Nevertheless, collective forgetting cannot permanently stifle subversive voices. In recent decades, many historians and anthropologists have dedicated their research to such repressed histories, provoking virulent reactions among conservative scholars and politicians opposed to a rewriting of history which questions the Australian national narrative and identity. This re-visitation of history is of vital interest to Aboriginal peoples, among them voices who are endeavouring to reclaim Australian history. I propose to illustrate their efforts through a study of The Forgotten, an Aboriginal short film dedicated to the recognition of the Aboriginal soldiers who fought for Australia, only to be forgotten. ; L'histoire officielle de la nation australienne se consacre peu aux Aborigènes. Les prisonniers, les colons, les chercheurs d'or, les bushrangers, les soldats blancs sont les protagonistes de cette histoire nationale et la présence des Aborigènes sert souvent de faire valoir au patriotisme, à la camaraderie, la bravoure, la ténacité ou encore l'esprit d'initiative de ces héros. Ces oublis, à la fois volontaires et involontaires, permettent d'occulter les histoires qui dérangent et viennent contredire ces valeurs glorieuses et fédératrices autour desquelles se construit la nation australienne. La dépossession, le massacre, l'oppression ...
O. Iu. Artemova, Traditional society of Australian Aborigines in Soviet anthropology. Data on Australian traditional Aboriginal culture were and still are frequently used in Soviet anthropology as one of the main sources for reconstruction of early stages of human history (prehistory). In the early 1920's-carly 1950's, the research tradition traceable back to the nineteenth century centered mostly on such issues as systems of kinship, kin groups, family and marriage patterns. The 1930's and 1940's were the years of decline in the Soviet Australian Aboriginal studies mostly because of the dogmatic approach to L.H. Morgan's scheme of early social evolution. The early 1970's saw a renewal of scholarly interest in kinship systems and in uni lineal kin structures with the resultant discussion of the so-called Australian "controversy." In 1970's-1980's the themes of Soviet Australian Aboriginal studies grew more varied; they included Aboriginal religion, arts and folklore, as well as the role of personality, the correlation between individual behavior and traditional normative system. Today, the picture of traditional social life of Australian Aborigines as reflected in Soviet anthropology appears to be much more complicated than in the previous years. In particular the concept of primitive egalitarianism is replaced by the recognition of some forms of status differentiation (group and individual) and status hierarchy as well as certain forms of individual specialization.
This thesis concerns Indigenous agency, socio-political and cultural systems, and their reproduction by means of performances within the contemporary Australian state. It examines the cultural politics of Indigeneity developed by Kimberley Aboriginal people through their regional organisations. It presents an ethnographic study of Indigenous modes of representation and organisation based on fieldwork carried out with the Kimberley Aboriginal Law and Culture Centre, a grass-roots Indigenous regional organisation federating thirty distinct groups, between 2005 and 2007. As such, the thesis gives particular attention to contemporary Indigenous practices of cultural representation and political action. The study aims at providing an anthropological understanding of the continuing cultural and political salience of the difference between Aboriginal people and Kartiyas. Engaging with the concept and practice of Law and Culture, initial research questions have been reframed in terms of the reproduction of the Kimberley as a set of Indigenous countries. Developing a relational approach, using a regional and a local perspective, the thesis provides with accounts of the relational field of interdependencies between the Australian State and its Indigenous habitants. Experiential and historical constructions of Country, cultural logics of Indigenous ritual and political agency, processes of indigenisation of the Australian modernity and current models of Indigenous sustainable development in the Kimberley are successively examined in order to allow for a processual and performative understanding of Indigenous articulations of their subjectivity, agency and identity. The thesis develops a theoretical framework discussing intercultural and ontological models of Indigeneity and argues for a territorialising and performative approach to the definition of Indigenous singularities, drawing on the Indigenous concepts of Country and Law and Culture to frame anew notions of orality, culture and land. ; Cette thèse interroge les ...
This thesis concerns Indigenous agency, socio-political and cultural systems, and their reproduction by means of performances within the contemporary Australian state. It examines the cultural politics of Indigeneity developed by Kimberley Aboriginal people through their regional organisations. It presents an ethnographic study of Indigenous modes of representation and organisation based on fieldwork carried out with the Kimberley Aboriginal Law and Culture Centre, a grass-roots Indigenous regional organisation federating thirty distinct groups, between 2005 and 2007. As such, the thesis gives particular attention to contemporary Indigenous practices of cultural representation and political action. The study aims at providing an anthropological understanding of the continuing cultural and political salience of the difference between Aboriginal people and Kartiyas. Engaging with the concept and practice of Law and Culture, initial research questions have been reframed in terms of the reproduction of the Kimberley as a set of Indigenous countries. Developing a relational approach, using a regional and a local perspective, the thesis provides with accounts of the relational field of interdependencies between the Australian State and its Indigenous habitants. Experiential and historical constructions of Country, cultural logics of Indigenous ritual and political agency, processes of indigenisation of the Australian modernity and current models of Indigenous sustainable development in the Kimberley are successively examined in order to allow for a processual and performative understanding of Indigenous articulations of their subjectivity, agency and identity. The thesis develops a theoretical framework discussing intercultural and ontological models of Indigeneity and argues for a territorialising and performative approach to the definition of Indigenous singularities, drawing on the Indigenous concepts of Country and Law and Culture to frame anew notions of orality, culture and land. ; Cette thèse interroge les ...
International audience ; Les Aborigènes Noongars du Sud-Ouest australien ont entrepris de faire valoir leurs droits fonciers coutumiers et d'améliorer leur situation sociale, économique et politique. Dans un contexte marqué par la méfiance de l'État australien vis-à-vis de la catégorie universelle de « peuples autochtones », une majorité de Noongars se tiennent à l'écart, du moins en apparence, des discours internationaux sur l'autochtonie. Ils défendent leur droit à l'autodétermination et l'idée d'une nation noongar intégrée à la nation australienne, énonçant ainsi le principe d'une souveraineté interne, concrétisant leur agencéité dans l'État australien. À l'inverse, certains Noongars se rattachent clairement aux discours internationaux et réclament la reconnaissance de leur souveraineté sur leurs terres ancestrales, sans jamais vraiment définir ce que cela signifie pour eux. L'analyse des divers processus de revendication des Noongars contribue à enrichir les réflexions sur l'autochtonie en tant que catégorie politique et contingente conduisant à des interprétations divergentes, voire contradictoires. Elle permet de réfuter l'idée d'une autochtonie ancrée dans le passé en montrant que les identités autochtones sont résolument contemporaines, constamment négociées à l'aune du contexte néolibéral dans laquelle elles sont immergées. ; The Noongars, the Aboriginal people from the South West of Western Australia, have demonstrated an ongoing exercise of asserting claim to their traditional land along with improving their social, economic and political situation. In a context marked by the mistrust of the Australian state relating to the universal definition for "Indigenous peoples", a majority of Noongars stay out of the international discourses on indigeneity, at least in appearance. They defend the idea of a Noongar nation within the Australian nation by mentioning the principle of internal sovereignty with the aim to carry out their agency in the Australian state. However, some Noongars clearly appeared to be attracted by the content of these international discourses with the claim for recognition of sovereignty over their ancestral lands. The study of the Noongars' various claims help to enrich the sociological views of indigeneity, as a political and contingent category leading to divergent or even contradictory interpretations. It allows us to refute the idea of an indigeneity anchored in the past by showing that Indigenous identities are resolutely contemporary, constantly being negotiated about in the light of the neoliberal context in which they are immersed.
