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AbstractHistoryArchive Description
'Fringedweller describes the life of Robert Bropho, but as well that of nearly all Aboriginals in Australia. They live on the fringes of large and small communities in all the states under conditions of deprivation and almost unimaginable humiliation. Robert Bropho in this work takes us with him across the length and breadth of Australia, from Broome in the Kimberleys to the outskirts of Perth, to Ceduna in South Australia, and to Alice Springs and beyond in the centre. We experience what it is like to be an Aborigine, and we learn how they react to their circumstances and to the white people, and white officialdom, with whom they have to deal, and who have the power to decide the most detailed conditions of their lives. Bropho lives and breathes the wrongs of his people, and in this book we are able to grasp how such a man, with utter singleness of purpose, pleads cajoles and, sometimes, threatens, in order to bring their condition to the attention to their fellow white Australians. It is not a unique life, but what is exceptional is that for the first time we have the story told in the unembellished often ungrammatical words of one such sufferer. The book is, consequently unlike any other. The problem, Bropho says, won't go away - "We'll always be here, more numerous than ever". (Source: Inside cover)
Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of
Works about this Work
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y
Life Writing : Literarische Identitatskonstruktion in schwarzaustralischen Autobiographien und Lebensgeschichten
Berne
:
Peter Lang
,
1999
Z1093511
1999
single work
criticism
The study Life Writing: Literarische Identitätskonstruktion in schwarzaustralischen Autobiographien und Lebensgeschichten [Life Writing: Literary construction of identity in black-Australian autobiographies and life stories] looks at 50 autobiographical texts by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander writers, published up to 1992. It examines in more detail some representative works, focussing on the subject of identity. Moreover, it discusses problems surrounding the European representation of indigeous peoples predominant in previous studies of black Australian writing. Includes short biographies of writers discussed.
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Autobiographical Storytelling by Australian Aboriginal Women
1992
single work
criticism
— Appears in: Decolonizing the Subject : The Politics of Gender in Women's Autobiography 1992; (p. 370-384) 'It is only very recently that the written autobiographies of Aboriginal people have begun to be published in Australia. So extreme has been the degradation and virtual erasure of Aboriginal culture that it is impossible for white readers to imagine the scale of obstacles that have to be negotiated and compromises that have to be made in order for Aboriginal people to offer their personal stories to a white reading public, and to do so in genres and modes that are not only foreign to Aboriginal culture but have been brutally efficient agents of its destruction for two hundred years. Much Aboriginal history is difficult to relate because it is literally unspeakable. For white readers there are also difficulties that go well beyond the challenges of cross-cultural comprehension. Even the most sympathetic white observers and promoters of Aboriginal culture face the now familiar risk of consolidating the old patterns of domination each time they attempt to act as interpreters of Aboriginal production. It can be argued, however, that there is a much more serious risk of perpetuating the negation of Aboriginal culture by ignoring the new work and remaining silent, and it is from this position that this essay is written. Further, Aboriginal autobiography offers much more than a window for viewing authentic "first-hand" presentations of black experience; it also contributes to a more understanding of the genres by which cultures tell their personal and communal stories and so define themselves. In other words, the window enables vision and reflection both ways, upon fundamentally different worlds and their representations.' (Author's introduction, 370-371)
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Exiles in Their Own Country: 'Fringedweller' and 'The Fringedwellers'
1988
single work
criticism
— Appears in: A Sense of Exile : Essays in the Literature of the Asia-Pacific Region 1988; (p. 111-117)
-
y
Life Writing : Literarische Identitatskonstruktion in schwarzaustralischen Autobiographien und Lebensgeschichten
Berne
:
Peter Lang
,
1999
Z1093511
1999
single work
criticism
The study Life Writing: Literarische Identitätskonstruktion in schwarzaustralischen Autobiographien und Lebensgeschichten [Life Writing: Literary construction of identity in black-Australian autobiographies and life stories] looks at 50 autobiographical texts by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander writers, published up to 1992. It examines in more detail some representative works, focussing on the subject of identity. Moreover, it discusses problems surrounding the European representation of indigeous peoples predominant in previous studies of black Australian writing. Includes short biographies of writers discussed.
-
Autobiographical Storytelling by Australian Aboriginal Women
1992
single work
criticism
— Appears in: Decolonizing the Subject : The Politics of Gender in Women's Autobiography 1992; (p. 370-384) 'It is only very recently that the written autobiographies of Aboriginal people have begun to be published in Australia. So extreme has been the degradation and virtual erasure of Aboriginal culture that it is impossible for white readers to imagine the scale of obstacles that have to be negotiated and compromises that have to be made in order for Aboriginal people to offer their personal stories to a white reading public, and to do so in genres and modes that are not only foreign to Aboriginal culture but have been brutally efficient agents of its destruction for two hundred years. Much Aboriginal history is difficult to relate because it is literally unspeakable. For white readers there are also difficulties that go well beyond the challenges of cross-cultural comprehension. Even the most sympathetic white observers and promoters of Aboriginal culture face the now familiar risk of consolidating the old patterns of domination each time they attempt to act as interpreters of Aboriginal production. It can be argued, however, that there is a much more serious risk of perpetuating the negation of Aboriginal culture by ignoring the new work and remaining silent, and it is from this position that this essay is written. Further, Aboriginal autobiography offers much more than a window for viewing authentic "first-hand" presentations of black experience; it also contributes to a more understanding of the genres by which cultures tell their personal and communal stories and so define themselves. In other words, the window enables vision and reflection both ways, upon fundamentally different worlds and their representations.' (Author's introduction, 370-371)
-
Exiles in Their Own Country: 'Fringedweller' and 'The Fringedwellers'
1988
single work
criticism
— Appears in: A Sense of Exile : Essays in the Literature of the Asia-Pacific Region 1988; (p. 111-117)
Last amended 25 May 2015 13:46:12
Subjects:
- Swanbourne, Inner Perth, Perth, Western Australia,
- Caversham, Swan Valley area, Eastern Perth, Perth, Western Australia,
- Eden Hill, Bassendean area, Eastern Perth, Perth, Western Australia,
- Bayswater, Bayswater area, Eastern Perth, Perth, Western Australia,
- Perth, Western Australia,
- Brunswick Junction, Australind - Eaton area, Bunbury - Capel - Collie area, Far Southwest Western Australia, Western Australia,
- Kalgoorlie, Goldfields area, Southeast Western Australia, Western Australia,
- Ceduna, Ceduna area, Northwest Eyre Peninsula, Eyre Peninsula, South Australia,
- Yalata, Nullarbor area (South Australia), Far North South Australia, South Australia,
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