Diane Austin-Broos, Arrernte Present, Arrernte Past: Invasion, Violence, and Imagination in Indigenous Central Australia. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2009.

摘要

This masterful study brings together anthropology and history to examine twoncritical moments of change that forever shaped the Western Arrernte world. Innthe wake of the invasion of Central Australia toward the end of the nineteenthncentury, the first moment involved the Western Arrernte’s transition from anmobile, hunter-gatherer existence to sedentary, mission station life. Somenfifty years later, with the advent of the federal government’s policy of self-ndetermination, the second moment entailed a state-sponsored “return toncountry.” While this phase of history brought land rights and the cashneconomy to the Western Arrernte, namely in the form of royalty paymentsnand benefits from the welfare state, it eventually led to their current marginali-nzation in the market society. Austin-Broos’s primary goal in Arrernte Present,nArrernte Past is to account for the Western Arrernte’s experience of both thesenmoments of change. This approach makes a significant contribution to ethno-ngraphic scholarship on the Arrernte, which has focused mainly on the continu-nities of tradition, and to the historical study of Aboriginal Australia, which hasntended to elide indigenous interpretations of events.