Les actes de colloques du musée du quai Branly Jacques Chirac 4 | 2014 Australian Aboriginal Anthropology Today: Critical Perspectives from Europe International Symposium on Australian Aboriginal Anthropology – January 22-24th, 2013 Electronic version URL: http://journals.openedition.org/actesbranly/515 DOI: 10.4000/actesbranly.515 ISSN: 2105-2735 Publisher Musée du quai Branly Jacques Chirac Electronic reference Les actes de colloques du musée du quai Branly Jacques Chirac, 4 | 2014, « Australian Aboriginal Anthropology Today: Critical Perspectives from Europe » [Online], Online since 13 June 2014, connection on 12 September 2020. URL : http://journals.openedition.org/actesbranly/515 ; DOI : https://doi.org/10.4000/actesbranly.515 This text was automatically generated on 12 September 2020. © Tous droits réservés 1 The wide circulation of Australian Aboriginal ethnographies during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries can be said to have significantly shaped the anthropological study of myth, ritual, kinship, art, or hunting and gathering economies. Despite important political changes brought about since the 1960s by indigenous campaigns for the recognition of their land and other related rights, their increasing visibility on national and international stages, and their creative adjustments to State and other outside interventions, this intellectual legacy continues to inform much of the scholarship produced by non-Australianist anthropologists in Europe. By contrast in Australia, the practice of anthropology has been profoundly challenged by this highly charged context. Researchers are required to negotiate their positioning according to diverging and ever-shifting political, economic and social agendas while conforming at the same time to ethical standards set by their institutions that evaluate research in terms of its “benefits” for the studied groups. For many anthropologists working in Aboriginal Australia, whose data can be utilized by various corporate interests or potentially subpoenaed in court, the tension between applied and implicated anthropology ultimately raises the question of scientific responsibility. Many European anthropologists have contributed to those debates in and out of Australia, through long fieldwork involvement with different Aboriginal peoples. This symposium, which is the first event of its kind in France, brought together thirty scholars from Australia, Europe and northern America, to critically explore the theoretical and empirical underpinnings of Aboriginal anthropology today. The tensions linking Aboriginal cultural activism to anthropological reflexivity, past scientific knowledge to current research, Australian academic traditions to European scholarship, as well as the implications of research politics in the production of anthropological knowledge, were addressed through five thematic panels which reflect the diversity of current anthropological work in Aboriginal Australia. EDITOR'S NOTE Scientific committee: Laurent Berger, Barbara Glowczewski, Laurent Dousset, Marika Moisseeff, Jessica De Largy Healy Les actes de colloques du musée du quai Branly Jacques Chirac, 4 | 2014 2 TABLE OF CONTENTS Tuesday, January 22nd 2013 Research politics and the production of anthropological knowledge Session introduction Laurent Dousset The present and the ethnographic present: change in the production of anthropological knowledge about Aboriginal Australia Nicolas Peterson “Sitting around the fire ashes”. An epistemology of personal acquaintance Franca Tamisari Paintings, Publics, and Protocols: the early paintings from Papunya Fred Myers From academic heritage to Aboriginal priorities : anthropological responsibilities Barbara Glowczewski Wednesday, January 23rd 2013 The State and recognition of Aboriginal rights, land, and history Places, performative kinship and networking in the Western Desert. A contemporary perspective Sylvie Poirier Recognising the significance of the ‘mainland’ presence on Palm Island, past and present Lise Garond Intrumentalizations of history and the Single Noongar claim Virginie Bernard We are not a Christian mob, we want that UAM land back Bernard Moizo Introduction to the discussion Barbara Glowczewski Les actes de colloques du musée du quai Branly Jacques Chirac, 4 | 2014 3 Sustainable environments and new economies in Aboriginal Australia Introduction Laurent Berger The language of ‘rights’ in the analysis of Aboriginal property relations Ian Keen Australian Indigenous ‘artists’ critical agency and the values of the art market Géraldine Le Roux Conservation as development in Northern Australia: from policies to ethnography Élodie Fache Speaking for the land. Looking at Aboriginal tourism today through the Bardi-Jawi example (Kimberleys, Western Australia) Céline Travesi Foundation and continuity: Kimberley Aboriginal geopolitics Martin Préaud Thursday, January 24th 2013 Kinship, gender, and social relatedness Introduction Michael Houseman A quality of being: embodied kinship among the Tiwi of Northern Australia Andrée Grau From structure to substance and back: materialities in Australian Aboriginal kinship Laurent Dousset The Body in Linguistic Representations of Emotions in Dalabon (Northern Australia) Maïa Ponsonnet Payback and Forward: Relatives as a Source of Weakness or Strength Marika Moisseeff Ritual, art, and performance in Aboriginal Australia Introduction Marika Moisseeff Fora of Identity: From Public Ceremonies through Acrylic Painting to Evangelical Preaching Françoise Dussart Remediating sacred imagery on screens: Yolngu experiments with new media technology Jessica De Largy Healy Les actes de colloques du musée du quai Branly Jacques Chirac, 4 | 2014 4 The East Kimberley painting movement: performing colonial history Arnaud Morvan ‘Under Western Eyes’: a short analysis of the reception of Aboriginal art in France through the press Philippe Peltier A history of art from the Tiwi Islands: the source community in an evolving museumscape Eric Venbrux Les actes de colloques du musée du quai Branly Jacques Chirac, 4 | 2014 5 Tuesday, January 22nd 2013 Les actes de colloques du musée du quai Branly Jacques Chirac, 4 | 2014 6 Tuesday, January 22nd 2013 Laurent Dousset (dir.) Research politics and the production of anthropological knowledge Les actes de colloques du musée du quai Branly Jacques Chirac, 4 | 2014 7 Session introduction Laurent Dousset Les actes de colloques du musée du quai Branly Jacques Chirac, 4 | 2014 8 1 Well good afternoon and thank you very much. I am very honored to be chairing this first session, in particular with the prestigious floor and speakers that will present and discuss one of the most important issues I think, at the moment, in Australian anthropology. Well, my role is limited to that of BBC’s Doctor Who, as the time lord kind of thing. But I will nevertheless say one or two words. Just two sentences, about a minute, not more, about what I think is the most important issue in this session and Sylvie Poirier will have the very difficult task to discuss the various papers at the end of the session. A few words because as most of you would know, or would have followed, there have been heavy discussions on the AAS Net, the Australian Anthropological Society discussion list in the last few months and years about the issues we are tackling this afternoon. Some of these discussions haven’t always followed the academic politeness one would expect from some of our colleagues, but they nonetheless tackle very important questions, very important issues which are relevant for and in the framework of the involvement of anthropology in public policies and public opinions. Of course, anthropology has always been involved in public policy directly or indirectly, but I think these questions have crystalised further and to a culminating point in the last couple of years. Also, I think with the abandonment of meta-discourses and meta-theories, I think this move to a culturalist and more local approach of ethnographic issues has further culminated into the anthropologists’ responsibilities in his own field. The question is maybe not that much whether we should or should not get involved in applied anthropology, but the question is probably, what is it to do “implied anthropology” with opposition to “applied anthropology”, and I think implications and indigenisations of our scientific questions have become an important issue. How much can we or should we take into account when we define so-called scientific questions and problems? How much is it a salvation to take into account this embodied interconnection and interrelation we have with our hosts? 2 So, after what is in my opinion of this general framework, I would immediately invite the first speaker, Nick Peterson from the Australian National University who will obviously tackle one of the important questions that is behind what I just said, which is that of the ethnographic present. AUTHOR LAURENT DOUSSET Chair - (EHESS) Les actes de colloques du musée du quai Branly Jacques Chirac, 4 | 2014 9 The present and the ethnographic present: change in the production of anthropological knowledge about Aboriginal Australia Nicolas Peterson AUTHOR'S NOTE I would like to thank Chris Gregory for a stimulating exchange on the topic of this paper. 1 Well first, I’d just like to thank the organizing committee and the museum invitation. It’s a wonderful chance to be here, I haven’t been here before. And also Phillippe Peltier and Anne-Christine Taylor and Jessica De Largy Healy for taking us