Cross-cultural categories, Yolngu science and local discourses

Abstract

I will not attempt in this paper to produce a cross-cultural definition of science; a definition of Western science is problematical enough in itself. What I will be concerned with is the local discourse between Yolngu people of North-east Arnhem land and Europeans (represented by the settler Australian population) as evidence of the kind of context in which such definitions might be produced, or, failing definitions, understandings that, in some areas, members of different cultures are able to see a relationship between their systems of knowledge. The area of discourse includes topics that are familiarly bracketed in Western educational curricula as ‘science’. These cannot, however, be taken as unproblematically classified in the West, since not only are the specific boundaries under challenge, but also in some cases the very idea of boundaries between the topics is being questioned. Two obvious topics that recur in discussions about science are knowledge of natural phenomena and systems of logic or thinking about the nature of the world.