Warlpiri Land Tenure: a Test Case in Legal Anthropology

Maddock, Kenneth

doi:10.1002/j.1834-4461.1981.tb02910.x

Cited by 14 publications

(6 citation statements)

References 4 publications

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“…Following Hiatt (), Young () argued that, in the Aboriginal Land Rights (Northern Territory) Act 1976 , the definition of ‘local descent group’ as a basis for ‘traditional ownership’ was narrow, relying too much on Radcliffe‐Brown's () idea of tenure from patrilineal descent. The range of bases and forms of Aboriginal land holding has long been debated by anthropologists who sought to broaden understandings of tenure beyond descent‐based criteria (see Hamilton ; Maddock ; Myers ; Stanner ). Anthropologists sought to develop dynamic, generative models of person–land relations (Langton ; Povinelli ; Rose ) to address the situation of remote indigenous Australians and also those whose lands were usurped by early agricultural expansions in the coastal regions of Australia.…”

Section: Caring For Country: Origins and Developmentmentioning

confidence: 99%

Caring for Country: History and Alchemy in the Making and Management of Indigenous Australian Land

Pleshet

2018

Oceania

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This paper traces the history of 'caring for country' tropes in writing about indigenous Australian land and land management. While 'caring for country' initially referred to dynamic land use and ownership practices, it progressively became a less historical, more primordial, conception of indigenous land ownership, use, and management. In reviewing constructions of 'land' in scholarly literatures and policy debates, I seek to explain how they interact with local indigenous practices and idioms.Drawing on examples from the cultural and linguistic fields of Aṉangu, speakers of Pitjantjatjara and Yankunytjatjara, I examine a variety of concurrent uses of 'country', 'caring', or 'nurturance' and 'caring for country'. A cross-linguistic perspective on these objectificationsin English, Aboriginal English, and central Australian indigenous languagesshows how they may attend selectively to the historical specificity of indigenous experience. But this, I argue, may be the key to their efficacy in intercultural projects. Coded messages in bilingual documents reflect a kind of agency whereby Aṉangu choose to leave equivocal histories unstated and thereby reconstitute government projects in terms that work for them. The referential flexibility around idioms of land and nurturance is a kind of alchemy in language and social life that is the condition of the success of actual land management activities. Terms including 'country' and 'caring for country' elide the socio-political dynamics that otherwise complicate actual rights and uses of land. That is why they can form the social basis of common activities, the production of 'congeniality' both within Aṉangu social life and at the interface with outsiders, in land management and other fields.

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Section: Caring For Country: Origins and Developmentmentioning

confidence: 99%

Caring for Country: History and Alchemy in the Making and Management of Indigenous Australian Land

Pleshet

2018

Oceania

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“…Contemporary customary property rights in developing nations have been extensively studied and in some cases have come to be recognized as legitimate by the state (Cernea, 1981;Fleming, 1983;Fortmann, 1985;Meek, 1949;Noronha and Lethem, 1983;McCutcheon, 1981;Shepherd DRAFT-NOT FOR CITATION OR QUOTATION and Richter, 1979;Uhlig, 1980;Vadya et al, 1980;Weinstock, 1983). In developed countries the customary law and usufructuary rights of certain ethnic minorities have received recognition through treaties or under the rubric of aboriginal rights (Bennett, 1978;Maddock, 1981, Cohen, 1986Wilkinson, 1987). Native American law is probably the most familiar example in the United States.…”

Section: Leg^pliuralismmentioning

confidence: 99%

Locality and custom: Non-aboriginal claims to customary usufructuary rights as a source of rural protest

Fortmann

1990

Journal of Rural Studies

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“…This division of ritual roles which also governs land rights is to be found in other central and northern tribes (Maddock 1981). At the first level, everyone is 'ownwer' of his or her father's land and 'manager' of his or her mother's and also spouse's land (Glowczewski 1981).…”

mentioning

confidence: 97%

A Topological Approach to Australian Cosmology and Social Organisation

Glowczewski¹

2009

Mankind

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Warlpiri Land Tenure: a Test Case in Legal Anthropology

Cited by 14 publications

References 4 publications

Caring for Country: History and Alchemy in the Making and Management of Indigenous Australian Land

Caring for Country: History and Alchemy in the Making and Management of Indigenous Australian Land

Locality and custom: Non-aboriginal claims to customary usufructuary rights as a source of rural protest

A Topological Approach to Australian Cosmology and Social Organisation

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