AustLit

'Encounters with indigeneity surveys the career work of renowned Australian anthropologist Jeremy Beckett. This important book highlights a scholarly engagement with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples that spans the second half of the twentieth century and demonstrates how these encounters prompted Beckett to move beyond the disciplinary limits of anthropology to produce a body of work that is characterised by its overtly inter-disciplinary approach to the study of indigeneity. In this sense, Beckett is much more than an anthropologist as he engages with history, political science, economics, sociology, literary studies and post-colonial studies to develop understandings and insights of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples that are rich in detail and complex in analysis. As a collection of works, Encounters with indigeneity demonstrates the ease with which Beckett is able to show how local issues concerning Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples often have implications that are felt in the politics of the nation-state and increasingly in the politics of the global community. Unlike many of those who preceded him,' (Introduction)