This paper is an attempt to develop the notion of the ‘intercultural’ suggested in Caging the Rainbow (Merlan 1998), a book which dealt with the situation of Aboriginal people in a north Australian town. I explore possible implications for this notion of work done in the name of structural history; of some of the ideas of Pierre Bourdieu; and of V.N. Voloshinov (and/or M.M. Bakhtin). All these approaches were developed against the background of structuralism, and all struggle with problems of conceptualizing process and the dynamics of interaction. I suggest that especially Voloshinovian notions of the fundamentally dialogical aspects of interaction offer some interesting perspectives for our treatment of central issues of difference, boundedness and change.

Views of pre‐contact Aboriginal social groupings have ranged from those which posit a linguistically‐defined, homogeneous ‘tribe’ to others which, more recently, have asserted that language plays little or no role in Aboriginal constructions of social identity. Given the obvious, different degrees of linguistic diversity in different parts of the continent, it seems of interest to look at native linguistic ideologies and the ways in which notions of language and linguistic difference are integrated with other variables in the construction of social identity. This paper begins to look at differential constructions of social identity in three parts of Australia—Cape Keerweer in Cape York, the Western Desert, and western Roper River and suggests some directions for future research.

The term indigenous, long used to distinguish between those who are "native" and their "others" in specific locales, has also become a term for a geocultural category, presupposing a world collectivity of "indigenous peoples" in contrast to their various "others." Many observers have noted that the stimuli for internationalization of the indigenous category originated principally from particular nation-states-Anglo-American settler colonies and Scandinavia. All, I argue, are relevantly political cultures of liberal democracy and weighty (in different ways) in international institutional affairs. However, international indigeneity has not been supported in any unqualified way by actions taken in the name of several nation-states that were among its main points of origin. In fact, staunch resistance to the international indigenous project has recently come from four of them. In 2007, the only four voting countries to reject the main product of international indigenist activity over the past 30 years, the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, were Australia, the United States, Canada, and New Zealand. In these locations, forms of "indigenous relationship" emerged that launched international indigeneity and that strongly influenced international perceptions of what "indigeneity" is and who "indigenous peoples" may be. Some other countries say the model of indigenous relationship that they see represented by the "establishing" set is inapplicable to themselves (but have nonetheless had to take notice of expanding internationalist indigenism). The apparently paradoxical rejection of the draft declaration by the establishing countries is consistent with the combination of enabling and constraining forces that liberal democratic political cultures offer.

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In this article, I examine the recent emergence in Australia of two small, and now regularly enacted, rituals: "Acknowledgments" and "Welcomes to Country." These are expressions of recognition, or response to perceived neglect and injustice. Recognition has become a global theme, part of a broader politics of reparation focused on indigenous and other colonized and subordinated peoples, and includes practices of apology and reconciliation. In Australia, recognition implies expansion the of relationship between categories of people who have been on unequal, distant, and (at some levels) negligible terms as settlers and natives, colonizers and colonized. Practices of recognition are therefore ambiguous: What is to be recognized, and how is recognition to proceed? Here I consider these rituals and their putative origins, structure, content, variations, and affect of participants and audiences. Both rituals cast recognition in ways that continue recent decades of national emphasis on indigenous emplacement, judgments concerning originariness, and authenticity; "Welcomes" also recast relations in terms of a host-guest framework.The emergence of these rituals fosters new kinds of indigenous public expression and receptions of recognition as well as some standardization of both. It is an indication of change, as well as of its limits in indigenous-nonindigenous relationships. [recognition, reconciliation, rituals, apology, indigenous-nonindigenous relations, Australia] RESUMEN En este artículo, examino el reciente surgimiento en Australia de dos menores, y ahora regularmente efectuados rituales: "reconocimientos" y "bienvenidos al país." Estas son expresiones de reconocimiento, o respuesta a percibida negligencia e injusticia. Reconocimiento se ha convertido en un tema global, parte de una política más amplia de reparación focalizada en indígenas y otros pueblos colonizados y subordinados, e incluye prácticas de disculpa y reconciliación. En Australia, reconocimiento implica la expansión de la relación entre categorías de gente que ha estado en términos desiguales, distantes y (a algunos niveles) inapreciables como colonos y nativos, colonizadores y colonizados. Las políticas de reconocimiento son por lo tanto ambiguas: ¿Qué es lo que va a ser reconocido y cómo va a proceder el reconocimiento? Aquí, considero esos rituales y sus orígenes putativos, estructura, contenido, variaciones, y afecto de los participantes y audiencias. Ambos rituales estructuran reconocimiento en formas que continúan décadas recientes deénfasis nacional sobre emplazamiento, juicios con respecto a originariedad, y autenticidad; "el bienvenidos" también reestructura relaciones en términos de un marco anfitrión-huésped. La emergencia de estos rituales promueve nuevos tipos de expresión pública indígena y recepciones de reconocimiento así como también estandarización de ambos. Es una indicación de cambio, así como sus limites en relaciones indígenas-no indígenas. [reconocimiento, reconciliación, rituales, apología, relaciones indígenas-no indíg...

Scholars have recently paid more attention to narratives of colonial contact in Australia, as elsewhere (cf. Hill 1988). Western elements and characters (such as Captain Cook) have been widely documented in Australian Aboriginal narratives which nevertheless are clearly not close accounts of past events. This has promoted reconsideration of the distinction between 'myth' and 'history'. If we follow Turner's (1988) suggestion that myth is the formulation of 'essential' properties of social experience in terms of 'generic events', while 'history' is concerned with the level of 'particular relations among particular events', we need not restrict ourselves to seeing myth as charter for a social order distinct from western influence. In the paper I examine two stories of cultural and physical survival from the Katherine area, Northern Territory, and seek to identify in them fundamental themes and enduring narrative precipitates of social experience lived in intense awareness of colonial and post-colonial relationships between Aborigines and whites.

Elsey Station has been a familiar name to most Australians since the 1908 publication of Jeannie Gunn's popular We o f the never-never. She came to the Elsey in 1902 as the wife of the newly-appointed station manager Aeneas Gunn, and much of her narrative describes her rather uncommon situation as a woman in the man's world of the pastoral north. Her attitude toward the Aborigines who lived and worked at Elsey Station was plainly one of sympathy, and admiration for what she saw to be their good qualities, but We o f the never-never and her 1905 story, The little black princess, show no profound concern for, or understanding of, the shattering impact of pastoral development on the Aborigines of this area. A second book about Elsey Station was written by the pastoralist Harold E. Thonemann, who with E.H. Thonemann bought the Elsey leases together with the nearby Hodgson Downs property in 1914. His 1949 Tell the white man, based on the life history of an Aboriginal woman, conveys much more of the Aboriginal view of the pastoral occupation of their traditional lands, the disruption of their culture, and their own enforced dependence on the station. 'Making people quiet' is the vivid phrase that some present-day Elsey Aborigines use to describe the treatment of their ancestors in the early days of pastoral settlement, when Northern Territory Aborigines were generally regarded as a 'problem', a menace to stock and stockmen alike. The need to develop the north was generally accepted by Australians, and the 'Aboriginal question' was then phrased in terms of controlling Aborigines, keeping them from the cattle and, if possible, converting them into an economic asset. The history of 'pacification' of the pastoral north is still fairly frag mentary, and researchers have only recently begun to make any extensive *The linguistic research on which this paper is based has been supported by the Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies. Several months were spend gathering Magarayi material in 1977 and work with the Jembere community at Elsey Station is continuing. Others who have worked at Elsey Station include anthropologists A.P. Elkin, John Bern and Jan Larbalestier, and linguist Margaret Sharpe. I am grate ful to John Dymock for suggestions about the use of archival materials; to Dr F.H.