Article published in:
Land and Language in Cape York Peninsula and the Gulf Country
Edited by Jean-Christophe Verstraete and Diane Hafner
[Culture and Language Use 18] 2016
► pp. 361–382

Going forward holding back

Modern bicultural living

| University of Queensland
There is a certain tension in Aboriginal affairs in northern Australia, as Aboriginal people are attracted to the material aspects of modernisation while at the same time resisting deeper levels of social and cultural transformation. People of remote Aboriginal towns today are far more mobile than were their grandparents’ generation, acquiring four wheel drive vehicles or using other means of transport to greatly extend their range of travel into remote homelands and into regional cities. This mobility, together with the impact of modernisation through government policy and wider social interactions, has led to a varied range of potential and actual life styles, from attempts to live on the land in remote homeland locations, to mixed sedentary/hunter-gatherer living in remote Aboriginal towns, to migration to life in the city. From an analysis of these three settings based on the Aboriginal town of Lockhart River, Cape York Peninsula, it is evident firstly that modern technologies are appreciated for their utility in ‘making life easy’ and interesting. It is also evident, however, that the compelling solidarities of kin ties and obligations bind people in a diasporic community that has priority over the compelling forces of cultural change through Western systems of governance, commercialism, individuality and competition. A variety of emerging bicultural lifestyles is evident.
Published online: 18 February 2016
https://doi.org/10.1075/clu.18.17tho
References

7. References

Altman, Jon
2011 A Genealogy of ‘Demand Sharing’: From pure anthropology to public policy. In Ethnography & the Production of Anthropological Knowledge, Essays in honour of Nicolas Peterson, Yasmine Musharbash & Marcus Barber, eds., pp. 187–199. Canberra: ANU E Press.Google Scholar
Australian Board of Missions (ABM)
1924 Reports of Sub-Committee, Missions and Missionaries 2 April, Sydney.
1967 ABM Review, August.Google Scholar
Anderson, Chris
1984 The Political and Economic Basis of Kuku-Yalanji Social History. PhD Dissertation, University of Queensland.Google Scholar
Bayton, John
1965 Cross Over Carpentaria. Brisbane: W.R. Smith & PatersonGoogle Scholar
Bjelke-Petersen, Joh
1967 Cabinet Document re Relocation of the Lockhart River Community, 13 June, File 19A/47, Dept of Family Services and Aboriginal and Islander Affairs, Brisbane.Google Scholar
Bleakley, John
1922 Letter to the Minister (?) from Office of Chief Protector of Aboriginals, South Brisbane, 21 March, regarding the Anglican Mission proposal for the establishment of a Mission Station at Pascoe River.Google Scholar
Butler, Sally
2007 Our Way. Contemporary Aboriginal Art from Lockhart River. St Lucia: University of Queensland Press.Google Scholar
Chase, Athol
1980 Which Way Now? Tradition, Continuity and Change in a North Queensland Aboriginal Community. PhD Dissertation, University of Queensland.Google Scholar
1981 ‘All kind of nation’: Aborigines and Asians in Cape York Peninsula. Aboriginal History 5: 7–19.Google Scholar
Crowley, Terry & Bruce Rigsby
1979 Cape York Creole. In Tim Shopen, ed. Languages and their Status. Cambridge, Mass: Winthrop Publishers. 153–207.Google Scholar
Done, John
1987 Wings Across The Sea. Brisbane: Booralong Publications. Compiled by Barbara Stevenson (daughter).Google Scholar
Grenfell, Michael & David James with Philip Hodkinson, Diane Reay and Derek Robbins
1998 Bourdieu and Education. Abingdon: Palmer Press.Google Scholar
Gudeman, S
2001 The Anthropology of Economy: Community, Market and Culture. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Howard, Richard
1911 Annual report of the Chief Protector of Aboriginals for 1910, Queensland Parliamentary Papers.Google Scholar
Idriess, Ion
1959 The Tin Scratchers. Sydney: Angus and Robertson.Google Scholar
Killoran, Patrick
1967 Letter to the Director, Dept. of Social Services, 16 May, File 6F/45, Dept of Family Services and Aboriginal and Islander Affairs, Brisbane.Google Scholar
McGregor, Russell
2011 Indifferent Inclusion: Aboriginal People and the Australian Nation. Canberra: Aboriginal Studies Press.Google Scholar
Memmott, Paul, Stephen Long & Linda Thomson
2006 Indigenous mobility in rural and remote Australia. Melbourne: Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute.Google Scholar
Peterson, Nicolas
1993 Demand sharing: Reciprocity and the pressure for generosity among foragers. American Anthropologist 95: 860–874. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
2004 Myth of the “walkabout”. Movement in the Aboriginal domain. In John Taylor & Martin Bell, eds. Population Mobility and Indigenous Peoples in Australasia and North America. London: Routledge. 223–238.Google Scholar
2005 What can the pre-colonial and frontier economies tell us about engagement with the real economy? Indigenous life projects and the conditions for development. In Diane Austin-Broos & Gaynor Macdonald, eds. Culture, Economy and Governance in Aboriginal Australia. Sydney: Sydney University Press. 7–18.Google Scholar
Prout, Sarah
2008 On the move? Indigenous temporary mobility practices in Australia. CAEPR Working Paper No. 48. Canberra: CAEPR, ANU.Google Scholar
Smith, Benjamin
2004 The social underpinnings of an "outstation movement" in Cape York Peninsula, Australia. In John Taylor & Martin Bell, eds. Population Mobility and Indigenous Peoples in Australasia and North America. London: Routledge. 239–261.Google Scholar
Sutton, Peter
2008 After consensus. Griffith Review 21: 201–206.Google Scholar
Taylor, John & Martin Bell
2004 Continuity and change in Indigenous Australian population mobility. In John Taylor & Martin Bell, eds. Population Mobility and Indigenous Peoples in Australasia and North America. London: Routledge. 13–43.Google Scholar
Thompson, David
1976 A Phonology of Kuuku-Ya’u & Addendum: Distribution of Dialects along the East Coast and Hinterland of the Cape York Peninsula, Queensland. In Peter Sutton, ed. Languages of Cape York. Canberra: Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies. 213–235.Google Scholar
1985 ‘Bora is like Church’. Aboriginal Initiation ceremonies and the Christian Church at Lockhart River, Qld. Sydney: Australian Board of Missions.Google Scholar
1988 Lockhart River “Sand Beach” Language. An Outline of Kuuku Ya’u and Umpila. Darwin: Summer Institute fo Linguistics.Google Scholar
1995 ‘Bora Belonga White Man’, Missionaries and Aborigines at Lockhart River Mission. MA Thesis, University of Queensland. Revised edition, July.Google Scholar
2013 Freedom to Choose: Responding to Change in a Mobile Environment among Aboriginal People of Lockhart River, Cape York Peninsula. PhD Dissertation, University of Queensland.Google Scholar
Young, Elspeth & Kim Doohan
1989 Mobility for Survival: A process Analysis of Aboriginal Population Movement in Central Australia. Darwin: North Australia Research Unit.Google Scholar