Christianity, cultural change and the negotiation of rights in land and sea

Abstract

Various aspects of Christian belief and practice have been documented as significant across Aboriginal Australia. In recent years, many communities have been involved in seeking to achieve traditional rights in land and sea as recognised in Australian law. Asserting and proving these rights entails demonstrating continuity of traditional law and custom since the establishment of British sovereignty. While legal discourse indicates that this does not exclude cultural change, law and custom must continue to derive from pre‐sovereignty traditions. This article addresses the extent to which Christian belief and practice have been articulated and researched in applied anthropological work, against the background of relevant academic studies. If a sophisticated theory of cultural change and continuity is germane to researching land claims and native title, what is the significance of Christian syncretism in Aboriginal relations with place and the inheritance of ancestral connections to ‘country’? Several case studies are examined.

You gotta throw away culture once you become Christian: How ‘culture’ is Redefined among Aboriginal Pentecostal Christians in Rural New South Wales

“…This approach is apparent where, drawing on Cowlishaw's concept of overwriting (Cowlishaw 1999: 14-15), Austin-Broos makes clear that processes of rupture and continuity are mutually inclusive (Austin-Broos 2010: 15). Similarly, some recent studies of Aboriginal Christianity examine the particularity of the local contact processes in which vernacular Christianity has been formed as such (Austin-Broos 2003, 2010Brock 2003;Myers 2010;Trigger and Asche 2010;Van Gent 2003). These analyses suggest that a new direction towards exploring Aboriginal creativity can be found even in the context of exploring 'culturelessness' or 'loss itself' as in the studies of 'settled' Australia.…”

Native Title Research in Australian Anthropology

“…While we do not share the view that tradition-based native title connections are necessarily 'refracted through the distorting lens of traditionalism' (Martin 2009, 108-9, our emphasis), the risk of insufficient recognition of cultural change on the part of the Australian legal system is clear enough. Anthropological analysis of change in the context of native title claims could, in our view, be more open to innovative adaptation of cultural traditions, such as the attribution of spirituality to introduced species and the embrace of Christianity (Trigger 2008;Trigger and Asche 2010). This is a matter addressed by Macdonald in her paper in this volume, which we discuss in more detail below.…”

The politics of indigeneity, identity and representation in literature from north Australia's Gulf Country

“…Like her husband, Elsie Roughsey offers a sustained reflection on tradition and change, which neither wholeheartedly embraces nor rejects the adaptations to the culture of the wider Australian society occurring at the time. Gulf Aboriginal peoples, as evident in the writing of the Roughseys, while expressing resistance also broadly responded with openness and 'epistemological generosity' towards new ideas and phenomena associated with colonialism as well as contemporary life (Trigger, 1992;Trigger & Asche, 2010).…”