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Notes
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Dedication: This book is dedicated to the Aboriiginal peoples of Australia, to Aboriginal peoples everywhere, and to the Aboriginal in each of us.
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Epigraph: Hear; you mob!
I'm an Aboriginal.
I'm and Australian.
I'm a Miriwoong.
We're all one family,
All together;
We human beings.
All one big mob! (Ted Carlton, Miriwoong)
Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of
Works about this Work
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'New Age Trippers': Aboriginality and Australian New Age Travel Books
2009
single work
criticism
— Appears in: Studies in Travel Writing , vol. 13 no. 1 2009; (p. 27-43) In the last two decades of the twentieth century Australia became an attractive travel destination for alienated middle-class Westerners in search of a spiritual utopia. In such texts Aboriginality is represented as a source of spiritual transcendence and as a remedy for the evils of modern consumerism and industrialisation. This article examines a number of books by white New Age spiritual travellers-James Cowan's Two Men Dreaming (1995), Marlo Morgan's Mutant Message Down Under (1994), and Harvey Arden's Dreamkeepers (1995) - that claim to (re)discover a lost, universal, sacred heritage within Aboriginal cosmologies. The discourses employed by recent Australian New Age travel texts are prima facie examples of postcolonial forms of cultural appropriation. Yet the involvement of indigenous agents in the production, promotion, and critique of such texts complicates the argument that these texts are simply new forms of cultural colonisation (Author's abstract). -
Black Spice for White Lives : a Review Essay
2000
single work
essay
— Appears in: Balayi , January vol. 1 no. 1 2000; (p. 149-161)'Joel Monture, writer and professor of traditional Native American arts, tells of a visit to Santa Fe, "the place to buy culture and reduce your spiritual deficit".' He writes poignantly of discovering two of his former students - a Lakota (Sioux) woman and her partner, an Arapaho sculpture student - making suede jackets - average price $US 4,000 - in a dingy backroom under sweat shop conditions.' Disgusted and pained by the exploitation, by the counterfeit traditional garb and artefacts on sale and, more discreetly, the illegal sale of authentic heritage items, Monture concludes by noting that Native American popularity peaks in twenty-year cycles, and that during the troughs, a period when Native peoples become invisible, 'mainstream culture' redefines them in alignment with their changing interests.' He then notes that the dominant culture "will not stop short of acquiring even our spirituality for eventual mutation into a New Age pantomime"' (Introduction)
-
'New Age Trippers': Aboriginality and Australian New Age Travel Books
2009
single work
criticism
— Appears in: Studies in Travel Writing , vol. 13 no. 1 2009; (p. 27-43) In the last two decades of the twentieth century Australia became an attractive travel destination for alienated middle-class Westerners in search of a spiritual utopia. In such texts Aboriginality is represented as a source of spiritual transcendence and as a remedy for the evils of modern consumerism and industrialisation. This article examines a number of books by white New Age spiritual travellers-James Cowan's Two Men Dreaming (1995), Marlo Morgan's Mutant Message Down Under (1994), and Harvey Arden's Dreamkeepers (1995) - that claim to (re)discover a lost, universal, sacred heritage within Aboriginal cosmologies. The discourses employed by recent Australian New Age travel texts are prima facie examples of postcolonial forms of cultural appropriation. Yet the involvement of indigenous agents in the production, promotion, and critique of such texts complicates the argument that these texts are simply new forms of cultural colonisation (Author's abstract). -
Black Spice for White Lives : a Review Essay
2000
single work
essay
— Appears in: Balayi , January vol. 1 no. 1 2000; (p. 149-161)'Joel Monture, writer and professor of traditional Native American arts, tells of a visit to Santa Fe, "the place to buy culture and reduce your spiritual deficit".' He writes poignantly of discovering two of his former students - a Lakota (Sioux) woman and her partner, an Arapaho sculpture student - making suede jackets - average price $US 4,000 - in a dingy backroom under sweat shop conditions.' Disgusted and pained by the exploitation, by the counterfeit traditional garb and artefacts on sale and, more discreetly, the illegal sale of authentic heritage items, Monture concludes by noting that Native American popularity peaks in twenty-year cycles, and that during the troughs, a period when Native peoples become invisible, 'mainstream culture' redefines them in alignment with their changing interests.' He then notes that the dominant culture "will not stop short of acquiring even our spirituality for eventual mutation into a New Age pantomime"' (Introduction)
