AustLit

Introduction to Blacklines.

Introduction to Blacklines Part I. Critical discourses: identities, histories, knowledges

Revised version of a text originally delivered as the W. C. Wentworth Lecture 1994. 'Offers a powerful scholarly critique of the politics and pitfalls of defining 'Aboriginality'.' (Blacklines p. 10)

'Ian Anderson analyses and contests the effects that anthoropological discourses...have had on the critical project of developing Indigenous 'identities'' (Blacklines p. 10)

Changes in the definition of Aboriginality in the 1980s, 1990s and the early years of the 21st century.

Discusses a debate between black and white Australian feminists in the 1990s. The debate centred on an article written by Diane Bell and Topsy Napurrula Nelson, 'Speaking About Rape is Everyone's Business' (Women's Studies International Forum, 1989). The author concludes that aboriginal women 'enter feminism and its debates...not on our terms, but on the terms of white feminists whose race confers dominance and privilege.' (Blacklines p. 77)

Introduction to Blacklines Part II. Imaging Indigeneity: art, aesthetics, representations

Lin Onus calls for the acceptance of new movements and expressions in Aboriginal art and warns that to judge Aboriginal art as 'traditional' or 'urban' 'assumes that Aboriginal art should remain static' and denies the artist a place in the development of Australian art.

The author 'shows how earlier anthropological discourses have embedded 'determinist perceptions of authenticity' in contemporary art critical practice,' and looks at 'the politics of intercultural appropriation and the 'hidden undercurrent of dialogue between artists and cultures' that has been problematically 'polarised by centre/periphery models'.' ( Blacklines , p.11-12)

Discusses the creation of the Yiribana Gallery at the Art Gallery of New South Wales in 1994.

In this essay Marcia Langton looks at 'the need to develop a body of knowledge and critical perspective... on representations of Aboriginal people and concerns in art, film, television or other media.' (Blacklines, p115) And that 'without a body of self-representative work there can be no self-critical assessment made and no meaningful discourse on Aboriginal aesthetics by Aborigines themselves' (Blacklines, p.124)

Introduction to Blacklines Part III. Knowledge in action: politics, policies, practices

Using scholarly analysis and personal narrative, Nakata shows that 'the culture of education may change ...but its politics...remain unchallenged...western experts are still naming the game, still identifying the problem, and they are still providing the 'solution' on our behalf'. (Blacklines, p. 142) He concludes that 'as people positioned in the margins, and as people of colour, we need to be critically literate not simply in any liberal sense, but in a political sense.' (Blacklines, p. 144)

'Tony Birch meticulously examines the contradictory impulses and drives behind the political saga of trying to restore the Indigenous-language name for...the (currently named) Grampians(Gariwerd) mountain range.' (Blacklines, p. 13)

Based on her 1993 Boyer Lecture, Bell discusses the 'social, spiritual and heritage significance of Indigenous language survival and revival with reference to the history of Murri languages in south-eastern Queensland.' (Blacklines, p 13)

Discusses 'the historical tensions between the discourses of 'black' and 'green' ideologies...' (Blacklines, p. 13)