This thesis interrogates the relationship of archaeological models and indigenous understandings of origins in the East Kimberley region of Northern Australia and the Aru Islands of Eastern Indonesia. Archaeological models of prehistoric migration construct these places as part of the same landmass in the recent human period and at times of lower sea levels. Yet, the indigenous groups who currently inhabit these places assert and rely upon their localised understandings of autochthony and mythological creationism. The existence of these competing models has led me to examine the degree to which the practice of archaeology in these locations constructs human prehistory in a way that necessarily disempowers the indigenous cosmology there. Below I examine the construction and content of these different stories about the same place to show how it is that they are essentially competing, conflicting and contradictory claims to truth. I show how each of these asserted cosmological positions emerge from the various cultural systems that sponsor and perpetuate them and I pay special attention to the role of institutionally authorised experts within each of the cosmological positions described. I also seek to demonstrate the ways in which the distribution of expert knowledge plays a core role in a naturalised social order and the ongoing construction of cultural identity in their respective communities. I then interrogate the relationships that these differing forms of knowledge have with each other - paying close attention to the specifics of context in which they are evoked. I conclude that the examination of how these competing claims to truth are distributed in space reveals their influence in the ongoing construction of identity in their respective communities.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:ADTP/221366 |
| Date | January 2007 |
| Creators | Corrigan, Brendan |
| Publisher | University of Western Australia. School of Social and Cultural Studies |
| Source Sets | Australiasian Digital Theses Program |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Rights | Copyright Brendan Corrigan, http://www.itpo.uwa.edu.au/UWA-Computer-And-Software-Use-Regulations.html |
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