All free man now : culture and post-colonialism in the Kimberley Division North-Western Australia

Abstract

The thesis analyses post-colonial relations between Aborigines and Europeans in a remote region of Australia - the Kimberley division in the north of Western Australia. Post-colonial relationships stem from the political and economic enfranchisement of Western Australian Aborigines consequent on a series of legislative changes, and changed material relationships, from about 1963. Post-colonial relations are conceived of as occurring between cultural systems. The thesis initially describes traditional Aboriginal culture and the early period of colonisation. Post­ colonial developments then analysed are: the use of language in the formation of a regional Aboriginal identity in distinction to that of white Australians; the special role of mixed-descent Aborigines in the north; the creation of Aboriginal post-colonial communities; the dynamics of servicing and administering these communities; and finally in the last two chapters the emerging instruments of Aboriginal post-colonial self-government.

The central tenet of the thesis is that two differently ordered structured socio-cultural systems exist side by side in the remote regions of Australia. The two systems absorb and transform each other’s products without themselves merging. Even in the post­ colonial era the points at which the two systems intersect are still few and restricted. This thesis is an analysis of these points of intersection. They occur within, and create, a middle ground in which institutions are functionally polyvalent and their processes inherently ambiguous. Show more