AustLit

'Early narratives of colonial exploration mythologised the role of the explorer. He, for inevitably the explorer was a man, was often cast as a lone heroic figure venturing into the vast uninhabited unknown. This mythical trope was a resilient one that found its way into published journals of exploration and works of literature and art well into the twentieth century. Yet the reality of colonial exploration was vastly different from the myth. The territory being explored was, in fact, inhabited and had been so for millennia. Furthermore, explorers relied on the expertise and knowledge of Indigenous intermediaries and mediators to navigate the unfamiliar landscape. It is the role of these intermediaries that is examined in Brokers and boundaries: colonial exploration in Indigenous territory. The editors of this volume of collected essays have brought together historians of Australia and Papua New Guinea to formulate new narratives in the history of exploration that address the complex interactions between explorers and intermediaries. These accounts draw attention to the agency that was often exercised by these intermediaries and the manner in which they used their positions to navigate relationships with not only colonial explorers but also other Indigenous peoples.'  (Introduction)