Native Title Research in Australian Anthropology

Abstract

Anthropology's involvement with Australian Indigenous people seeking to obtain legal rights, particularly in the context of the Native Title Act, has been subject to considerable critique both within and outside of the academy. The collected papers in this volume provide a constructive case for best approaches in this applied anthropological research, given the apparent constraints of the legal environment and the necessity to retain professional anthropological integrity. Issues of cultural change and identification of the relevant traditional 'law and custom' continuing through time are among a range of matters at the intersection of Australian and Aboriginal customary law. This collection assembles papers that demonstrate the relevance and significance of applied research in this area.

Forensic social anthropology: an Australian perspective

“…2020; Memmott 2013; Memmott, Stacy, Chambers & Keys 2001), and migration (Winn 2013), the great majority are employed primarily in what has been termed the ‘native title sector’ (McGrath, Stacey & Wiseman 2013; Morphy 2006; Ritter 2009). This is a sector in which, apart from the Federal Court, the Australian federal government is the primary participant, being both the authority responsible for enforcing the Native Title Act 1993 (Cth)2 and for funding the majority of other participants in the sector, including the corporate representatives of Indigenous community claimants (Asche & Trigger 2011; Burke 2011; Langton & Frith 2010; Palmer 2018; Ritter 2009; 2010; Trigger et al. 2013).…”

“…Although forensic social anthropologists in Australia are engaged across a range of legal settings, including consumer rights (Martin 2013), child removal and family violence (Langton et al 2020;Memmott 2013;Memmott, Stacy, Chambers & Keys 2001), and migration (Winn 2013), the great majority are employed primarily in what has been termed the 'native title sector' (McGrath, Stacey & Wiseman 2013;Morphy 2006;Ritter 2009). This is a sector in which, apart from the Federal Court, the Australian federal government is the primary participant, being both the authority responsible for enforcing the Native Title Act  (Cth) 2 and for funding the majority of other participants in the sector, including the corporate representatives of Indigenous community claimants (Asche & Trigger 2011;Burke 2011;Langton & Frith 2010;Palmer 2018;Ritter 2009;Trigger et al 2013). These latter participants are made up primarily of Indigenous-run, government-funded corporations known collectively as 'native title representative bodies' (NTRBs), which employ social anthropologists as either internal staff or external contractors.…”

The Returns of Recognition: Ngarinyin Experiences of Native Title, Encounter and Indeterminacy in the Kimberley Region of Northern Australia

“…This investment is not just the product of individual aspirations but carries a sense of participation as a jural responsibility, both to country and to future generations of Aboriginal people. The sincerity with which Aboriginal people pursue and celebrate native title recognition has at times tempered my own cynicism, for what I have otherwise conceived of as native title's limited potential to have transformative impacts on the material conditions of Aboriginal people's lives (see also Asche and Trigger :221). To be clear, it is not my intention to ‘defend the institution of native title’ (Vincent ), but to ask what it offers the Aboriginal people that appear so committed to it (see Martin ; Trigger ).…”

My Country, Mine Country: Indigenous people, mining and development contestation in remote Australia

“…The Roper River Mission, now known as Ngukurr, is also adjacent to the Coast Track, the route traversed by Leichardt, and used to settle and stock much of the Top End and the Kimberley. Significant ceremonial and kinship connections exist between Indigenous people in this region and Indigenous groups in both Arnhem Land and the southern Gulf of Carpentaria (Asche, Scambary and Stead 1998). Similarly such links extend from Roper River south west to Newcastle Waters, the site of the first Northern Territory pastoral strike, which was catalytic in the Gurindji walk-off (Attwood 2003;Hardy 2006).…”

“…Crossings of major Gulf rivers were usually those used by Indigenous people (Roberts 2005: 43). For example, Leichardt's Bar, the crossing of the Roper River in the Northern Territory, is a registered sacred site of the Ngalakan people under the Northern Territory Sacred Sites Act 1989 (Asche, Scambary and Stead 1998;Holcombe and Scambary 2002). In addition stock routes were established along Indigenous trade routes that had been established in pre-contact times due to their proximity to water and bush resources (Roth, in Trigger 1992).…”