AustLit

'There is an increasing body of literature, and awareness, of the nature of deficit discourse and its contribution to the essentialising of Indigenous identity. Through an analysis of sports writing since the 1960s, this paper explores how such discourses can develop. Sport, however, has another attribute: it is the avenue by which Aborigines and Islanders have earned and demanded the respect of non-Aboriginal Australia; it has given them a sense of worth and pride, especially since they have had to overcome the twin burdens of racism and opposition on the field. It has shown Aborigines and Islanders that using their bodies is still the one and only way they can compete on equal terms with an often hostile, certainly indifferent, mainstream society (Tatz and Tatz 2000:33). In the aftermath of civil rights victories, the politics of 'victimhood' became the predominant methodology of black advocacy and the reigning paradigm of public policy thinking (Pearson 2007:26).' (Publication abstract)

'Stephen Gray, lawyer and award-winning novelist and essayist, has turned his attention to the difficult intersection of history and morality. In The Protectors, Gray looks at the roles and motivations of some of the key players in the administration of Aboriginal people in the Northern Territory between 1912 and the 1970s. He is concerned mainly with the question of whether we can or should judge the Chief Protectors and Directors of Native Affairs and Welfare and the patrol officers who served under them or, instead, attempt to understand them.' (Introduction)

'Indigenous Victorians: Repressed, resourceful and respected is the 85th edition of the La Trobe Journal and was launched to coincide with the lead up to National Reconciliation Week, 2010. This special edition draws from the collections of the State Library of Victoria and various collections from around Australia to make a significant contribution to the understanding of the lives and aspirations of the Indigenous people of Victoria and their interface with colonial Australians from first contact to the present.'  (Introduction)

'In this important and amazing book, Gammage contends that Australia was ‘governed by a single religious philosophy…the Dreaming made the continent a single estate’ (p.xix and repeatedly) and that the original Australian people did this through their ‘knowledge of how to sustain Australia’ (p.323). Thus they ‘put the mark of humanity firmly on every place’ (p.323). He brings forward a mass of evidence to support his contention that Europeans entering and exploring the mainland and Tasmania observed and described those altered landscapes, without realising, or being unwilling to admit, that these rich landscapes of open forest, beautiful grassland and sheltering bush were other than natural. He uses a vast build-up of evidence to show that ‘even in arid country [around Ayers Rock] 1788’s unnatural patterns recur’. But although the bulk of the book is concerned to validate and exemplify the technology and results of land management, largely through burning, we should not lose sight of Gammage’s primary aim, which is to persuade us of the spiritual stature and technological skills of Aboriginal people. We should see them as masters of their terrain, managing the entire continent with detailed local and regional knowledge and skill, to yield an abundance of resources and leisure. This enables them to focus on the social, ritual and artistic aspects of life; participating in ceremony, dance, song, storytelling, decoration of the body, the ground, the rock; gathering to exchange knowledge of the myths impressed on the landscape and the mathematical intricacies of finding marriage partners correctly placed in kinship patterns. They could live life to the full, rather than merely struggle to stay alive.' (Introduction)