The Intercultural Challenge of Stanners First Fieldwork

Abstract

W.E.H. Stanner is a key figure in the history of Australian anthropology and Aboriginal affairs. A student of both Radcliffe-Brown and Malinowski, Stanner undertook anthropological work from the 1930s in north Australia, Africa and briefly in the Pacific. This paper traces Stanner's attempt to wrestle with the conceptual framework he inherited as a student of structural-functionalism, on the ground, during his first field research in north Australia. A selective reading of the notes Stanner made in Radcliffe-Brown's lectures, his field diaries and unpublished master's thesis provides the main materials for my discussion. Prior to travelling to the Daly River Stanner had intended to make a study of regional social organisation. The situation he encountered proved to be much more conducive to a description and analysis of 'culture contact'. The unpublished writings Stanner produced in his attempt to make sense of this complex social field reveal an attempt to transcend some fundamental aspects of anthropological theorising of the day, and to produce a new conceptual model for taking hold of social transformation. The argument is presented that in reading these materials we gain a glimpse of an important early attempt to develop an intercultural analysis of Aboriginal Australia. Show more