[Anthropgrad] Friday seminar 19th October

[Patrick Guinness]

        The seminar this Friday 19th October at 3pm in Milgate room is
by Bree Blakeman. 

        Title:
        "Ethnography of the Intercultural as Self and Other: Local
Yolngu
        theor(ies) of identity, value and motivation in remote NE Arnhem
Land"
        
        Abstract:
        My project will be looking at Yolngu/Balanda 'intercultural'
relations
        and the local Yolngu theor(ies) of such relations. Yolngu is the
term
        used by the Aboriginal people of north-east Arnhem Land to refer
to
        themselves in contrast with Balanda, being the term used to
refer to
        white people, or Europeans. 
        
        Informed primarily by cultural schema theory this project seeks
to
        contribute most immediately to three bodies of literature. I
hope to
        contribute to the 'Australianist' ethnography of the
intercultural by
        recasting what I perceive to be the two prevailing conceptual
dilemmas
        in a Yolngu socio-cultural setting, from a somewhat different
        theoretical perspective, with a focus on individual life
experience,
        mind, emotion and identity. Beyond a description of
        'difference-yet-relatedness' in this intercultural setting I
hope to
        recast efforts to conceptualise this
'difference-yet-relatedness'
        through a study of comparative identity construction from the
Yolngu
        perspective. I hope to go some way to account for the 'why' of
such
        dynamics with a focus on emotion, value and motivation. I also
hope 	that this ethnographic focus will serve to recast current
efforts to
        conceptualise Aboriginal agency outside the paradigm of hegemony
and
        resistance. I hope to build upon Yolngu ethnography by relating
the
        Yolngu socio-cultural context to that of wider Australian
society and
        this body of literature to the 'ethnography of the
intercultural'. 
        
        Most importantly, however, as an account of what Yolngu think
about,
        value in, and desire from intercultural relations, I hope to
contribute to work such as Morphy's, which seeks to understand how
Yolngu envisage their future(s) on the homelands (Morphy, 2005), as
part of a general effort to contribute to their struggle to determine
their 'cultural future(s)' (Myers, 2006), in an intercultural setting
that is far from benign.
        
        See you there.