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'This article approaches the question of how Aboriginal Australians describe their own experiences of drinking alcohol, sometimes to excess, and how they recover, through a reading of seven autobiographies alongside the scholarship on Aboriginal drinking. The evidence contained in these life stories stresses personal factors and adds to the picture we glean from the scholarship, whether academic or governmental, epidemiological, anthropological or historical, which explains Aboriginal drinking habits in more social terms. Thus, the autobiographies themselves make an important intervention into the scholarship on Aboriginal drinking. Beyond this, negotiating with the stereotype of the “drunken Aborigine” is unavoidable for Aboriginal people who write about their drinking and these autobiographies represent a challenge to this popular image. This article examines a previously unexamined discourse on Aboriginal drinking that goes some way towards undermining the public representation of a drunken Aboriginal culture while simultaneously giving individual Aboriginal Australians greater voice in describing their past and current experiences.' (Publication abstract)
Notes
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Epigraph: Now you know I started drinking to become a man. Well, now I am drinking for the pleasure of it, and I am going down to the pub every day after work. This goes on until the year 1963, this drinking for pleasure. In this year I found my first excuse to start drinking out of self-pity. -- Koorie Dhoulagarle, There’s More to Life
Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of
- I, the Aboriginal 1962 single work biography
- There's More To Life 1979 single work autobiography
- Don't Take Your Love to Town 1988 single work autobiography
- Black Hours 1996 single work autobiography
- My Side of the Bridge : The Life Story of Veronica Brodie as Told to Mary-Anne Gale 2002 single work autobiography
- Wisdom Man 2003 single work autobiography
- Back on the Block : Bill Simon's Story 2009 single work autobiography