This thesis is based on fieldwork I carried out between December 1987 and June 1989 while living with the residents of a small Warlpiri Outstation Community situated ca. 75 km north-west of Tennant Creek in the Northern Territory of Australia.
Colonialism is a process whereby incommensurate gender regimes impact differently on women and men and this is reflected in the indigenous response which affects the socialization of Western things.
The notion of the indigenous KIRDA-KURDUNGURLU reciprocity is shown to be consistent with a gender system and to articulate all exchange relations as pro-creative social relationships. This contrasts with the Western capitalist system of production and social reproduction of gendered individuals in that it does not ascribe gender to biological differences between women and men but is derived from a land based social division between Sister-Brother.
Social relationships are put under great strain in an effort to socialize Western things for Warlpiri internal use,
I argue that the colonization of Aboriginal societies is an ongoing process. Despite the historical shift from a physical all-male frontier to the present day cross-cultural negotiations between Aborigines and Non-Aborigines, men still privilege men. The negotiation process for ownership of a Community Toyota is the most recent phenomenon where this can be observed. Male privilege is established by linking control over the access to the Community Toyota with traditional rights to land.
However, the Toyota as Western object has a Western gender identity as well. By pitting women against men it engages people in social conflict which is brought into existence through an organisation of Western concepts based on an alien gender regime.
But Western things, especially the Community Toyota, resist socialization because the Warlpiri do not produce these things. Warlpiri people know this and, to satisfy their need for Western things, they engage them in a process of social differentiation. By this process they can be seen actively to maintain the Western system in an effort to maintain themselves as Warlpiri and to secure the production of Western things.
This investigation of the cultural response to Western influences shows that indigenous gender relations are only maintained through a socially stressful process of socializing Western things.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:ADTP/217105 |
| Date | January 1993 |
| Creators | Stotz, Gertrude, mikewood@deakin.edu.au |
| Publisher | Deakin University. |
| Source Sets | Australiasian Digital Theses Program |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Rights | http://www.deakin.edu.au/disclaimer.html), Copyright Gertrude Stotz |
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