Ontologies and ecologies of hardship - Past and future governance in the Central Australian Arid Zone

Abstract

Any consideration of the ecologies, ontologies and mythologies of hardship has to move between the local and the regional in Central Australia. This chapter attempts to cover a lot of ground, from a brief analysis of the socio-ecology of the desert environment, where millenia of human habitation speak, to the very recent colonial frontier in remote central Australia. This reminds that in only a matter of a few generations Anangu have become Aboriginal through the gaze and controlling effects of the coloniser. The coupling of the disempowering neo-colonial discourse with the socio-economic and political structures of modernity has compelled contradictory and contested practices, with new forms of modernity emerging. Aboriginal organisations, such as the Central Land Council (CLC) that developed on the wave of 1960s land rights are rewriting how they do business with their constituents through their new Community Development Unit. The Aboriginal investment in relationships with people can be contrasted to the fetishisation of modern material comforts.