Putting the anthropological imagination under the spotlight, this book represents the experience of three generations of researchers, each of whom have long collaborated with the same Indigenous community over the course of their careers. In the context of a remote Indigenous Australian community in northern Australia, these researchers—anthropologists, an archeologist, a literary scholar, and an artist—encounter reflexivity and ethnographic practice through deeply personal and professionally revealing accounts of anthropological consciousness, relational encounters, and knowledge sharing. In six discrete chapters, the authors reveal the complexities that run through these relationships, considering how any one of us builds knowledge, shares knowledge, how we encounter different and new knowledge, and how well we are positioned to understand the lived experiences of others, whilst making ourselves fully available to personal change. At its core, this anthology is a meditation on learning and friendship across cultures.
Table of Content
ForewordChapter 1: Introduction – The Scene for a Reflexive Practice
The start of a story
Collaboration and change
Our approach to the book
Yanyuwa families, country and Law
On becoming reflexive
Overview
ReferencesChapter 2: Writing From the Edge: Writing What Was Never Meant to be Written
Introduction
Living on the edge: Suffering and loss
Field notes and reflections: Transitioning into the academy
Writing of knowledge
Songs, stories and relationships
Knowing loss and finding words
Final thoughts
Contributor Response, by Philip Adgemis
References
Chapter 3: Mobility of Mind: Can We Change our Epistemic Habit Through Sustained Ethnograpic Encounters?
Introduction
What do I know?
How did this happen?
Mobility of mind: Epistemic habit in the context of fieldwork encounters
Sustained ethnographic encounters as acts of testimony and witnessing
Did I always know?
Why have Yanyuwa taught me?
Am I permitted to know an Indigenous epistemology in a settler colonial context?
Final thoughts
Contributor Response, by John Bradley
References
Chapter 4: Mapping the Route to the Yanyuwa Atlas
Introduction and orientation
Changes, shifts and paradoxes
On the road to Borroloola
Getting lost: The idea of a map
Moving in from the edges
Art as ways to express
Creased maps and field jottings
Jijijirla that comes around again
Country and loss
Publishing and what next?
Contributor Response, by Liam Brady
References
Chapter 5: ‘Invisible Things in Nature’: A Reflexive Reading of Alexis Wright’s Carpentaria
Introduction
Carpentaria’s unexpectedness
The many strands that make up Carpentaria
ReadingCarpentaria in the light of an apprenticeship in Yanyuwa Cosmology
Reading Wright’s Rainbow Serpent
Final reflection
Contributor Response, by Amanda Kearney
References
Chapter 6: Encounters with Yanyuwa Rock Art: Reflexivity, Multivocality, and the ‘Archaeological Record’ in Northern Australia’s Southwest Gulf Country
Introduction
Reflexivity in archaeology practice
Archaeology and the southwest Gulf country
Research questions and entering the field
Looking for a donkey
Kurrmurrnyini and sorcery rock art
Discussion and final thoughts
Contributor Response, by Nona Cameron
References
Chapter 7: So Did You Find Any Culture Up Here Mate?: Young Men, ‘Deficit’ and Change.
Introduction
Realisations and motivations
Discourse and deficit framings: ‘Some people just hate us’
Expectations and intersubjective connections
Change and the shame in not knowing
Reflections
Contributor Response, by Frances Devlin-GlassReferences
About the author
Amanda Kearney is Matthew Flinders Fellow and Professor of Indigenous and Australian Studies at Flinders University, Australia.John Bradley is Associate Professor and Deputy Director of the Monash Indigenous Centre at Monash University, Australia.
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