Indigenous Participation in Australian Economies Historical and anthropological perspectives Indigenous Participation in Australian Economies Historical and anthropological perspectives Edited by Ian Keen THE AUSTRALIAN NATIONAL UNIVERSITY E P R E S S E P R E S S Published by ANU E Press The Australian National University Canberra ACT 0200, Australia Email: [email protected] This title is also available online at: http://epress.anu.edu.au/ip_citation.html National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication entry Title: Indigenous participation in Australian economies : historical and anthropological perspectives / edited by Ian Keen. ISBN: 9781921666865 (pbk.) 9781921666872 (ebook) Notes: Includes bibliographical references. Subjects: Aboriginal Australians--Economic conditions. Business enterprises, Aboriginal Australian. Aboriginal Australians--Employment. Economic anthropology--Australia. Hunting and gathering societies--Australia. Australia--Economic conditions. Other Authors/Contributors: Keen, Ian. Dewey Number: 306.30994 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher. Cover design and layout by ANU E Press Cover image: Camel ride at Karunjie Station ca. 1950, with Jack Campbell in hat. Courtesy State Library of Western Australia image number 007846D. Printed by Griffin Press This edition © 2010 ANU E Press Contents Acknowledgements. .vii List.of.figures. ix Contributors. xi 1 ..Introduction. 1 Ian Keen 2 ..The.emergence.of.Australian.settler.capitalism.in.the.. nineteenth.century.and.the.disintegration/integration.of.. Aboriginal.societies:.hybridisation.and.local.evolution.. within.the.world.market. 23 Christopher Lloyd 3 ..The.interpretation.of.Aboriginal.‘property’.on.the.. Australian.colonial.frontier . 41 Ian Keen 4 ..From.island.to.mainland:.Torres.Strait.Islanders.in.the.. Australian.labour.force. 63 Jeremy Beckett 5 ..Exchange.and.appropriation:.the.Wurnan.economy.and. Aboriginal.land.and.labour.at.Karunjie.Station,.. north-western.Australia . 73 Anthony Redmond and Fiona Skyring 6 ..Dingo.scalping.and.the.frontier.economy.in.the.north-west.. of.South.Australia. 91 Diana Young 7 ..Peas,.beans.and.riverbanks:.seasonal.picking.and.. dependence.in.the.Tuross.Valley. 109 John White 8 ..‘Who.you.is?’.Work.and.identity.in.Aboriginal.New.South.. Wales. 127 Lorraine Gibson 9 ..Sustainable.Aboriginal.livelihoods.and.the.Pilbara.. mining.boom. 141 Sarah Holcombe 10 ..Realities,.simulacra.and.the.appropriation.of.Aboriginality.. in.Kakadu’s.tourism. 165 Chris Haynes v Index. 187 Acknowledgements This volume arose out of a panel on Indigenous participation in the Australian economy at the joint annual conference of the Australian Anthropological Society, the Association of Social Anthropologists (UK), and the Association of Social Anthropologists of Aotearoa (New Zealand) in Auckland 2008. I would like to thank the organisers of the conference, especially Professor Veronica Strang and Dr Mark Busse, and participants in the panel, especially Professor Jon Altman who was the discussant. The panel arose out of a research project funded by an ARC Linkage grant (LP0775392), based at the Australian National University and with the National Museum of Australia as the industry partner. The researchers on the project: Professor Christopher Lloyd, Dr Anthony Redmond, Dr Fiona Skyring, Mr John White, and myself, contributed both to the panel and to this volume. I thank in particular Dr Michael Pickering of the National Museum of Australia, and staff of the School of Archaeology and Anthropology at the Australian National University for their support. I am grateful to two anonymous referees for their helpful comments, Jan Borrie who edited the manuscript, and Karen Westmacott and Duncan Beard of the ANU E-press for shepherding the manuscript through the publication process. vii List of figures Figure 2.1 Overlapping sectors of the hybrid economy Figure 5.1 Camel ride at Karunjie Station ca. 1950, with Jack Campbell in hat Figure 5.2 Relationships between local clans and non-local men at Karunjie Figure 5.3 Gudurr with photo of Rust and Salmond 2008 Figure 6.1 Sorting dingo skins at Ernabella 1957 Figure 7.1 Number of pay claims per month for bean and pea picking, The Bodalla Company 1959–60. Figure 9.1 Sustainable livelihoods framework (from Davies et al. 2008:57) Figure 9.2 Paraburdoo mine looking north-west Figure 10.1 Location of Kakadu National Park within Australia Figure 10.2 Details of boundaries, key features and relevant mining locations within Kakadu Figure 10.3 Seasonal calendar for the Kakadu region in the Gundjeihmi (Maiali) language ix Contributors Jeremy Beckett, Emeritus Associate Professor, University of Sydney Lorraine Gibson, Vice-Chancellor Innovation Research Fellow, Macquarie University Chris Haynes, Honorary Research Fellow, Discipline of Anthropology and Sociology, The University of Western Australia Sarah Holcombe, Research Fellow, National Centre for Indigenous Studies, The Australian National University Ian Keen, Visiting Fellow, School of Archaeology and Anthropology, College of Arts and Sciences, The Australian National University Christopher Lloyd, Professor of Economic History, University of New England Anthony Redmond, consultant anthropologist and Visiting Fellow, Centre for Aboriginal Economic Policy Research, The Australian National University Fiona Skyring, consultant historian John M. White, PhD scholar, School of Archaeology and Anthropology, College of Arts and Sciences, The Australian National University Diana Young, Director, Anthropology Museum, University of Queensland xi 1. Introduction IAN.KEEN This volume arises out of a panel on Indigenous participation in Australian ‘frontier’ economies at the annual conference of the Australian Anthropological Society, held jointly with the British and New Zealand anthropological associations in Auckland in December 2008. The panel arose in turn out of an Australian Research Council (ARC) Linkage Grant project on Indigenous participation in Australian colonial economies involving the National Museum of Australia as the partner organisation and the School of Archaeology and Anthropology at The Australian National University. The researchers engaged in this project (2007–10) were Ian Keen (The Australian National University), Christopher Lloyd (University of New England), Anthony Redmond (Centre for Aboriginal Economic Policy Research, The Australian National University), Michael Pickering (National Museum of Australia), John White (The Australian National University) and Fiona Skyring (consultant historian). These researchers were among the contributors to the panel and most are represented in this volume. The organisers of the panel invited other scholars to contribute papers on the general theme, several of whom have contributed to this volume. The resulting chapters bring new theoretical analyses and empirical data to bear on a continuing discussion about the variety of ways in which Indigenous people in Australia have participated in the colonial and post-colonial economy. Invisibility in economic histories Indigenous Australians have been more or less invisible in many economic histories of Australia (for example, Abbott 1969; Fitzpatrick 1941; Griffin 1967; Shaw 1965). Where they are mentioned, topics include frontier violence, sheep and cattle stealing and differences in concepts of property (for example, Bain 1975; Shann 1948; Shaw and Nicholson 1966; Sinclair 1983; Wells 1989). Butlin (1993) outlined a pre-colonial, colonial and national economic history of Australia, but neglected the degree of variation in both Indigenous economy and Indigenous participation in the colonial and national economy. He regarded Aborigines as having been largely excluded from the market economy, apart 1 Indigenous.Participation.in.Australian.Economies from in the pastoral industry. An early exception to this trend was the work of Geoffrey Bolton (1969), who proposed a model of the ‘feudal’ position of Aborigines in the pastoral industry and who discussed Aboriginal labour in various other sectors including independent wolfram mining by Aboriginal people. C. D. Rowley’s work (1970a, 1970b) arising out of the Aborigines Project of the Social Sciences Research Council of Australia brought about a sea change in the recognition of Indigenous involvement in the colonial economy. Rowley records Aboriginal participation in several sectors including the provision of labour on small farms, the pastoral industry and other rural work; and labour in exchange for rations from government agencies, in the cedar industry and in land clearing. Rowley documents attempts to create self-sufficient Aboriginal settlements and to teach farming skills and he outlines policy and legislative contexts including master–servant legislation in Western Australia. He theorises internal Aboriginal economic relations in terms of ‘reciprocity’, which shaped Indigenous expectations in relations with settlers in his view. Reynolds’ With the White People (1990) covers a similarly broad scope of relations between Aborigines and settlers including relations with explorers, work as trackers and domestic servants, farm work and the pearling industry. This volume, and the research project from which it arises, seeks to contribute to the body of anthropological and historical studies of Indigenous participation