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Uncontained subjects: 'population' and 'household' in remote Aboriginal Australia

Morphy, Frances

Description

The particular abstractions represented by the terms 'population! and 'household' are central categories in modern demographic analysis. They form the organizing principles of national censuses in Western liberal democracies such as Australia, and profoundly influence both the collection methodology and the content of the collection instrument. This paper argues that these categories are founded on a particular metaphor, the 'bounded container', that broadly reflects the population and...[Show more]

dc.contributor.authorMorphy, Frances
dc.coverage.spatialAustralia
dc.date.accessioned2009-04-17T06:16:39Z
dc.date.accessioned2010-12-20T06:06:12Z
dc.date.available2009-04-17T06:16:39Z
dc.date.available2010-12-20T06:06:12Z
dc.date.created2007
dc.identifier.issn1443-2447
dc.identifier.urihttp://hdl.handle.net/10440/70
dc.description.abstractThe particular abstractions represented by the terms 'population! and 'household' are central categories in modern demographic analysis. They form the organizing principles of national censuses in Western liberal democracies such as Australia, and profoundly influence both the collection methodology and the content of the collection instrument. This paper argues that these categories are founded on a particular metaphor, the 'bounded container', that broadly reflects the population and household structures of sedentary societies such as mainstream Australia. Bounded discrete categories are conducive to the collection of reliable census data in such societies, since 'unbounded' behaviours can be controlled for by statistical means. However, remote Aboriginal populations behave in radically unbounded ways. This paper proposes that the dominant metaphor underlymg Yolngu (and much remote Aboriginal) sociality is, instead, the nodal network. It then explores the consequences of attempting to 'capture' nodal network societies in terms of models based on the bounded container.
dc.format.extent22 pages
dc.format.mimetypeapplication/pdf
dc.language.isoen_AU
dc.publisherSpringer
dc.sourceJournal of Population Research 24.2 (2007): 163-184
dc.source.urihttp://www.jpr.org.au/upload/JPR24-2Morphy.pdf
dc.subjectKeywords: census; demographic transition; genealogy; indigenous population; kinship; social structure; Australasia; Australia Censuses; Family composition; Genealogy; Government policy; Household; Indigenous population; Kinship; Social structure
dc.titleUncontained subjects: 'population' and 'household' in remote Aboriginal Australia
dc.typeJournal article
local.identifier.citationvolume24
local.identifier.absfor169902
local.identifier.ariespublicationu8100238xPUB118
local.type.statusPublished Version
local.contributor.affiliationMorphy, Frances, ANU, Centre for Aboriginal Economic Policy Research
local.bibliographicCitation.issue2
local.bibliographicCitation.startpage163
local.bibliographicCitation.lastpage184
local.identifier.absseo940102 - Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Development and Welfare
dc.date.updated2015-12-08T09:40:52Z
local.identifier.scopusID2-s2.0-38649110430
CollectionsANU Research Publications

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