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Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education

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When the Object Speaks, A Postcolonial Encounter: anthropological representations and Aboriginal women's selfpresentations
Aileen MoretonRobinson
a a

Flinders University, Adelaide, Australia

Available online: 03 Jul 2007

To cite this article: Aileen MoretonRobinson (1998): When the Object Speaks, A Postcolonial Encounter: anthropological representations and Aboriginal women's selfpresentations, Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education, 19:3, 275-289 To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/0159630980190302

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When the Object Speaks, A Postcolonial Encounter: anthropological representations and Aboriginal women's self-presentations
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AILEEN M O R E T O N - R O B I N S O N , Flinders University, Adelaide, Australia

It remains the case that the ethnographer's translation/representation of a particular culture is inevitably a textual construct, that as representation it cannot normally be contested by people to whom it is attributed, and that as a 'scientific text' it eventually becomes a privileged clement in the potential store of historical memory for the nonliteratc society concerned. In modern and modernizing societies, inscribed records have a greater power to shape, to reform, selves and institutions than folk memories do. They even construct folk memories. (Asad, 1986, p. 163) Aboriginal women's autobiographies announce their cultural difference from the dominant White culture. This difference is quite complex and exists on a number of levels, some of which are difficult for White readers to perceive, so strong is their inclination to incorporate everything they read into their own experience. (Brewster, 1996, p. 39) Culture, far more than a mere catalogue of rituals and beliefs, is instead the very stuff of which our subjectivities arc created. (Rosaldo, 1984, p. 150) As an Aboriginal woman currently reviewing feminist literature in Australia, I have found that representations of Aboriginal women's gender have been generated predominantly by women anthropologists. Australian feminists utilise this literature in their writing and teaching and accept its truths without question; the most often quoted ethnographic text is Diane Bell's Daughters of the Dreaming (1983a).1 Feminists' lack of critical engagement with this literature implies that they are content to accept women anthropologists' representations because Aboriginal women are not central to their constructions of feminism.2 Instead the Aboriginal woman is positioned on the margins, a symbol of difference; a reminder that it is feminists who are the bearers of true womanhood. Despite this lack of engagement by feminists, the anthropological literature from 1961 to 1986 has been reviewed by an anthropologist, Francesca Merlan, who states that the literature focuses on the status and role of Aboriginal women in relation to sexuality, reproduction, bestowal, marriage and religion. Merlan argues that the questions that 0159-6306/98/030275-15 1998 Carfax Publishing Ltd

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informed the research concern the nature of European women's involvement in their society rather than arising 'from an appraisal of the problems confronting Aboriginal societies today' (Merlan, 1988, p. 63). The literature focuses on traditional socio-cultural systems rather than specifying the continuity and change of the current situation. Merlan's advice to anthropology is: to bridge the gulf between the study of culture contact as essentially history, and also, in a more realistic fashion than has heretofore been the general case, to make description of the relations of Aboriginal societies with European-Australian society a more legitimate part of social theory and description. (Merlan, 1988, p. 64) Downloaded by [University of Technology Sydney] at 18:33 23 April 2012 Merlan's advice to anthropology is commendable and I endorse her critique, but she does not connect the problems in this literature to the methodology that privileges anthropological representations. In this paper I argue that the 'traditional' versus 'contemporary' representations of Aboriginal women in anthropological literature generated by women anthropologists are problematic3 but continue to be our measure of authenticity. In taking this approach my concern is not to argue or imply that women anthropologists are ethnographic liars nor am I seeking to provide a definitive statement on who is an Aboriginal woman. Instead my task is to show that the methodology deployed by women anthropologists creates spurious representations which are challenged by the self-presentation of Aboriginal women's autobiographical narratives. I will deal briefly with the literature by women anthropologists and elucidate how the methodology creates a 'traditional' versus 'contemporary' binary which is problematiscd by the conflation of 'race' and 'culture'. I then unpack elements of the social construction of subjectivity in Aboriginal women's autobiographical narratives to demonstrate that the voice of self-presentation offers different insights about the construction of gender. I conclude by evaluating the disjuncturc between Aboriginal women's lived experiences and anthropological constructs. Anthropological Representations of the Aboriginal Woman: a problem of methodology The greater part of the published work of women anthropologists is concerned with specific groups of Aboriginal women who are identified as traditional or traditionally oriented.4 Although the use of the term 'traditionally oriented' is used as a way of letting go of any pretensions to a pristine culture the analyses are predicated on its ontological existence. The ideological construction of 'culture' which informs the literature is based on 'seeing authoritative meanings as the a priori totality which defines and reproduces the essential integrity of a given social order' (Asad, 1979, p. 607). Authentic culture is an a priori system of essential meanings embedded in traditions. A few published works are concerned with Aboriginal women who are categorised as being half-caste, part Aborigine or of mixed descent.5 These texts are informed by an ideological construction of 'race' which constitutes an a priori essential biologism based on skin colour. The deployment of both ideological constructs of 'culture' and 'race' results in the establishment of a traditional versus contemporary binarism within the texts. These texts relate both directly and indirectly to specific aspects of the role and status of Aboriginal women who are positioned as either 'traditional' or 'contemporary'. In constructing the 'traditional' the theoretical deployment of 'culture' and 'race' denies subjectivity and everyday practice as the stuff of culture. The anthropologically con-

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structed a priori authoritative meanings preserve and capture within texts the dehistoricised exotic and biologically pure. The methodology allows for an illusory absence of colonisation which is nevertheless preserved. Aboriginal women living on remote government reserves or Christian missions under welfare conditions not of their own making and over which they had little control were not seen to compromise their authenticity as 'traditional' women because they spoke their language, did some ceremonies and were biologically uncontaminated (Cowlishaw, 1986a, p. 227).6 When women anthropologists such as Reay (1951) and Barwick (1962) are confronted by the effects of colonial history in their fieldwork among 'contemporary' Aboriginal women, the search for a priori authoritative meanings, which can only be found in 'traditional' Aboriginal culture, becomes problematic and we see: Downloaded by [University of Technology Sydney] at 18:33 23 April 2012 The use of the terms half-caste, mixed bloods and part-Aborigine without the relevance of 'caste' and 'blood' to what were supposedly studies of culture being spelt out, imply a causal connexion between the dilution of the blood and the loss of Aboriginal, that is, traditional practices. In some cases there were references to these matters but no systematic analysis was attempted. (Cowlishaw, 1986a, p. 226) What becomes opcrationalised and takes precedence in their analyses is an a priori essential biologism which is used to explain miscegenation and social change. The impact of colonial history is acknowledged but not critically examined. Instead the 'traditional' versus 'contemporary' binarism operates to deccntre the historicity of Aboriginal women. Using the methodology to construct the 'contemporary' Aboriginal woman results in centring both the 'traditional' Aboriginal women and the White woman. 'Contemporary' Aboriginal women's authenticity and culture are positioned as ambiguous and oscillate between how they arc like or unlike their 'traditional' sisters or how they arc like or unlike their White sisters in their behaviour and practices. They are like their 'traditional' sisters in relation to the specific cultural remnants, like their White sisters in relation to specific acquired behaviours, but unlike both because of their perceived racial differences. The use of an a priori essential biologism as the basis of interpreting and explaining the cultural differences of the 'contemporary' Aboriginal woman produces a contradiction. Biologically and culturally she is liminal while being on a trajectory of assimilation. In other words, 'contemporary' Aboriginal women are becoming more like White women in their practices because they do not look like the 'traditional' Aboriginal woman and they lack traditional culture. The problem with this proposition is that assimilation is an inept explanation for different cultural constructions of gender. Learning to speak English and mimicking the customs of the coloniser does not mean that this fundamentally transforms the self that has been socialised within Aboriginal social domains. What it means is that Aboriginal women learn to acquire new knowledges in order to act and function in contexts not of their choosing or under their control within the dominant culture. The accumulation of these knowledges docs not mean that they are assimilated. Instead what it points to is that Aboriginal subjectivity is multiple because of the conditions under which it has been and is shaped. However, multiple subject positions do not preclude the existence of a core subject position which has the ability to acquire, interpret and create different subject positions in different contexts. What women anthropologists have failed to understand in their desire to explain the role and status of Aboriginal women is that the methodology precludes them from developing different representations of Aboriginal women's gender. Aboriginal women's cultures differ and do not fit within representations of cither the 'traditional' or 'contemporary' Aboriginal

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woman. Aboriginal women continue to forge cultural practices under conditions and in contexts not of their choosing; and do so creatively. For Aboriginal women survival demands expertise in cultural translation and self-presentation within the dominant culture. This leads me to ask: who is the intended audience of this anthropological literature and what is the desire of the knower? At one level the intended audience is other anthropologists. At another level the intended audience is the White women's movement because of the concern with whether or not women's oppression is universal. The universality of the oppression of women is addressed through examining the role and status of 'traditional' and 'contemporary' Aboriginal women. The question is answered by the revelation that 'traditional' and 'contemporary' Aboriginal women are oppressed; where the analyses differ is in context and the degree of oppression. The context and degree of oppression relate to the chosen cultural site under scrutiny. The existence of oppression in these sites also works to support the proposition that the oppression of women is culturally constructed. Focusing on 'traditional' or 'contemporary' Aboriginal women, who are represented as the different 'other', means that this universal proposition is credible in feminist and other academic discourses. Women anthropologists seek to investigate how 'traditional' and 'contemporary' Aboriginal women's role and status are in substance unlike or like those of their White sisters through the centring of their analyses on the areas of concern to White western women's discourse. That is, the sites analysed reflect or symbolise those sites under interrogation in western society by the women's movement, such as: marriage; kinship; women's economic activity; sexuality; reproduction; ritual; and socialisation. This is not to say that the Aboriginal women about whom they are writing are not concerned with these aspects of their lives. What is at issue is that it is not they who set the terms of reference for investigation, nor are they the intended audience of this literature. In effect they are positioned in a contradictory way because, while they arc the subject of analysis, they remain objects marginalised within the text. The literature is written about them, not by them, for them or with them. Their status as objects within the text relates to the methodology employed by women anthropologists. While the subject of women anthropologists' analyses are women this has not meant that a feminist methodology has been employed. Instead the literature falls under what Henrietta Moore (1988, p. 1) calls an 'anthropology of women' in that the guiding principle for women anthropologists was challenging male representations of the role and status of Aboriginal women. However, this challenge was within a methodological framework that does not allow for the theorisation of Aboriginal women's position as socially situated subjects of knowledge. Even Diane Bell (1983a), who is explicit about her feminist politics and method, is constrained by the methodology which leaves her work reproducing constructs of 'culture' and 'race' that are consistent with the work of male anthropologists in Aboriginalist anthropology.8 All the fieldwork undertaken by women anthropologists occurred in contexts shaped by colonialism. As victims of their methodology, women anthropologists suppress the experiences of Aboriginal women and provide distorted representations of their gender; representations that are explicitly linked to the ethnocentric notions embedded in their methodology and political positions on gender. These representations are acted upon and serve to disempower Aboriginal women because they have become 'truth' in feminist discourse and the dominant culture.9 As captives of their methodology, women anthropologists have constructed representations of the Aboriginal woman based on a

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small number of the population. What of other Aboriginal women who did not receive the anthropological gaze? Do they represent themselves in the same way? Aboriginal Women's Subjectivity: relationality and spirituality Although Merlan states that biography is not equivalent to social description and analysis she urges us to bridge the gulf between biographical and research literature. Aboriginal women's life writings provide knowledge for thinking about and analysing intersubjective relations that shape gender. Aboriginal women have written about their lives in an era when protection and then assimilation were government policies. Under protection and assimilation policies, Ella Simon (1987), Alice Nannup (Nannup et ai, 1992), Daisy Corunna (Morgan, 1987), Molly Kelly and Daisy Kadibil (Pilkington 1996) are all defined as half-castes on the basis of biological criteria by government and church officials. However, such labelling tells us little about the way in which Aboriginal subjectivity is shaped and reshaped through their experiences. The experiences revealed in Aboriginal women's autobiographical narratives10 show important differences about the way in which subjectivity is constructed through sites of subjugated knowledges." Through the use of collective memories, Aboriginal women's narratives make visible and affirm the continuity and persistence of Aboriginal subjugated knowledges in spheres of interdependent cultural domains which are peopled by both spiritual and human beings. In these autobiographies spirituality permeates life in that the universe is not blind or mechanical but aware and organic (Gunn-Allen, 1992, p. 80). Unlike most autobiographies, these narratives express collective relations between a number of Aboriginal people transcending several generations underpinned by connections with their country and the spirit world. In each of the narratives Aboriginal people are connected either by descent, country, place or shared experiences. These relations are personal in nature and are intrinsic to Aboriginal women's subjectivities in negotiating Aboriginal and White cultural domains.12 In Aboriginal cultural domains an Aboriginal woman's relationality is therefore never based upon the tolerance of others but the experience of the self as part of others. For Ruby Langford (1988), Delia Walker (Walker & Coutts, 1989), Alice Nannup (Nannup et al, 1992), Connie McDonald (McDonald & Finnane, 1996), Elsie Roughsey (1984), Ella Simon (1987), Molly Kelly, Daisy Kadibil and Grade Cross (Pilkington, 1996), Daisy Corunna (Morgan, 1987), Glenyse Ward (Ward, 1988, 1991) and Rita Huggins (Huggins & Huggins, 1994) their experiences of learning was through stories, observation and mimicking of adults and other children based on relationships of reciprocity and obligation in Aboriginal domains on cattle stations, missions, reserves, with their families or other Aborigines. The most important relationships for Aboriginal women in their narratives are with either their surrogate or extended families. Aboriginal mothers and grandmothers demonstrate a spirit of generosity to their families and communities and, for children who have no experience of their families in the mission dormitories, it is the older children from whom they learn about the ethics of relationality. Aboriginal women's relationality is based on giving priority to personal relations based on principles of generosity, empathy and care which connote ideals of respect, consideration, understanding, politeness and nurturing. All of these women sought to impart such ethics to their own children and grandchildren in later life. Social relationships are important in all cultural domains but their nature differs, and the moral universe that informs these relationships in Aboriginal cultural domains is outside the experience of White people. Relationality is one dimension of this moral

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universe, which is spiritually interconnected. The world is understood by Aboriginal people as organic and populated by spirits that connect both places and people. Sally Morgan's grandmother and mother hear the corroboree in the swamp when Sally's father is ill and understand this as the spirit's recognition of the father's mental turmoil (Morgan, 1987). The corroboree is no longer heard after his death. When Daisy Gorunna dies it is the call of the bird that tells Sally about the end of her grandmother's life. Glenyse Ward learns of the spiritual beings in the caves near Wandering mission and knows that the children risk being taken if they venture out at night (Ward, 1988). Alice Nannup returns to make peace with her country with the snake who lives in the waterhole at Mallina by performing a water-based ritual (Nannup et al., 1992). Ruby Langford receives a sign of bad news when late at night there are three knocks at her door but no one is in sight (Langford, 1988). The next morning Harold Leslie is told his father has died. Ella Simon tells of the stories given to her by her grandmother which were 'to make us keep the law or just be better people' (Simon, 1987, p. 106). One concerned the muckarung (lizard), who was once a young Aboriginal woman who disobeyed the law by going near the men's bora ground. She was punished by being turned into the muckarung which sits on a log waving its front legs as if to signal 'go back, go back'. The story of the goi-on, which was something like a ghost, was used to stop Aboriginal children from wandering off and getting lost. Delia Walker tells of how the red waratah tree came to grow on the rock near the sea on the mid north coast of New South Wales: a young Aboriginal woman pined for her lover who had been killed in war, and when her family arrived to look after her they found her tears had turned into a waterfall from the rock she was sitting on and the tree growing in the spot she had been sitting on (Walker & Coutts, 1989, p. 8). The tree is still there today. Such stories and experiences illustrate the way in which the spiritual nature of the world is culturally inscribed. The spiritual world is part of nature which is experienced consciously; spirituality is thus a physical fact because it is experienced as part of one's life. As Brcwster comments 'such knowledge is incommensurate with a rational belief system and as such it is tacit resistance to western ways of thinking' (Brewster, 1996, p. 9). Aboriginal women do not just see events and objects differently from White women; they also understand themselves as persons in quite different ways. In the narratives of Aboriginal women, White women are perceived as being impersonal and having interests to protect, whereas Aboriginal women are represented as collective rather than individualistically oriented in their psychology. In these narratives, differences between Aboriginal women tend to be articulated in terms of country, mission or relationality rather than race or class. The narratives are not based on psychological deconstructions that seek to explain why things happened in terms of actors' motivations and intentions, but instead they seek to describe how things happened because they are inclusive with their experiences. In these narratives the objectification of self... is articulated through personalised relations which extend beyond the immediate family. The interconnectedness of self to others is related to those with whom one is familiar: those with whom one is related, one grows up with or, more specifically, those with whom one engages in relations of mutuality; ... where notions of generalised reciprocity shape and inform daily interactions. (Morris, 1989, p. 215) The narratives of Aboriginal women show a moral ordering of sociality which emphasises

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mutual support and concern for those with whom they are interconnected and reveal much about how relationality and spirituality constitute Aboriginal women's subjectivity.

Gendered Racial Oppression and Aboriginal Women's Resistance Racial oppression is evident in the narratives of Aboriginal women in the descriptions of personal interaction with White people which form part of the 'social processes which allow such differentiation to flourish as a set of practices and an ideology' (Cowlishaw, 1988, p. 248). The control and subordination of these Aboriginal women and their families was legally sanctioned and enforced through policies of assimilation which utilised biological criteria and cultural inferiority to separate and displace children from their mothers, families and land. Scientific discourses in the White public domain provided certain knowledge about the biological and cultural inferiority of Aborigines which informed the action and decisions of government and served as a rhetoric of rationalisation for the implementation of its policies by agents who legitimately sought to impose them. In White domains, Aboriginal women were confronted with having to define the boundaries between themselves and White others because of the impersonal nature of the power relations involved. Aboriginal women deployed the subject position 'servant' in an alien White domain where the disciplinary process was directed at them with moral and physical force. Government policies implemented on missions, reserves and by employers were aimed at producing disciplined servants, who would comply with the requirements of being in service, by alienating them from Aboriginal culture and their country. Individuals received punishment for contravening rules and learnt discipline, but resisted individuation because they drew on their experiences and knowledge of another standard of being human. Alice Nannup tells of the beatings received for what she perceives as minor breaches of rules (Nannup et at, 1992, p. 74). Elsie Roughsey conveys the constraints placed on the self in this domain by continually referring to the rules that controlled all aspects of life on the mission and the terrible beatings meted out by the White authorities for minor breaches of these rules (Roughsey, 1984, p. 10). Ella Simon (1987), Ruby Langford (1988), Rita Huggins (Huggins & Huggins, 1994), Delia Walker (Walker & Coutts, 1989) and Daisy Corunna (Morgan, 1987) all experienced hard work and routines at the hands of the White missus. In these White cultural domains, the women are given authoritative direction and instructions which they learn in order to function in their roles as domestic servants. It was training in basic skills, not social etiquette, that was being transferred by White managers and missionaries. In White cultural domains the intersubjectivity of relationships was not based on mutual understanding and relationships of reciprocal recognition. In White cultural domains Aboriginal women became subjects to be taught while White women and men assumed the role of the knowing subject. Aboriginal people were treated as though they had no knowledge, feelings or emotional attachments and were perceived as being tabula rasa.13 The dehumanised position of Aboriginal women is exemplified repeatedly in the narratives. Daisy Corunna tells of when her daughter Gladdie was taken from her by White Alice Brockman: When Gladd was 'bout three years ole, they took her from me. I'd been 'spectin it. Alice told me Gladdie needed an education, so they put her in Parkerville Children's Home. What could I do? I was too frightened to say anythin'. I wanted to keep her with me, she was all I had, but they didn't want

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her there. Alice said she cost too much to feed, said I was ungrateful. She was wantin' me to give up my own flesh and blood and still be grateful. Aren't black people allowed to have feelins'. (Morgan, 1987, p. 332) Mr and Mrs Campbell arranged for Alice Nannup to be taken from her mother on the pretence of an education (Nannup el at, 1992, p. 39), while the missionaries kept Elsie Roughsey from her family in the mission on Mornington Island (Roughsey, 1984, p. 7), and Rita Huggins was separated from her mother and father on the Cherbourg reserve to be trained for domestic service (Huggins & Huggins, 1994). Despite individual acts of kindness, the experience of the majority of these women with White women and men is that they arc treated as having no feelings or opinions about themselves or the world in which they live. Glenyse Ward tells us her White missus informed her that Glenyse was her black slave. Alice Nannup recounts her experiences with Mrs Larsen, who tells Alice about her life but never asks about Alice or her family. In the autobiographical narratives experiences of intersubjectivity in White cultural domains do not disrupt the resilience and importance of Aboriginal sociality. Throughout their lives most of these women socialise and operate in predominantly Aboriginal cultural domains. It is the knowledge, values and behaviour patterns of early childhood and life in Aboriginal domains that inform their subjectivity. They also have an understanding that they have to deploy other subject positions in specific situations as defined by White cultural norms. Different subjectivities are apparent in Aboriginal women's narratives. Glenyse Ward is the obedient servant to her White missus on the farm and a 'troublemaker' in the company of other girls on the mission (1991, p. 101). Connie McDonald is the shy reflective daughter in the company of her 'half-caste' father but an articulate and outspoken young girl when she deals with the missionaries (McDonald & Finnane, 1996, p. 110). As policies changed, Aboriginal women gained more freedom and control over their lives and as they grew older, married and had children they asserted themselves more in White cultural domains. The denial of Aboriginal women's social context and emotional reality by White women and men was in contrast to Aboriginal domains where they learned as children, through social interaction, that they are not seen as individuals but as someone's sister, daughter or grandaughtcr and that they belong to a certain group of people. Political and legalistic control through the state informed by a racist ideology influenced public discourse and was reflected in the behaviour of Whites towards these Aboriginal women. Private convictions or personal beliefs about biological and cultural inferiority inform the behaviour of White women like Alice Brockman, who tells Daisy Corunna that because she cannot afford to keep Daisy's daughter Gladys, the girl must be sent away. Towards the end of her life, Daisy implies that Alice Brockman knew who fathered both Daisy and her daughter Gladys (Morgan, 1987, p. 332). Alice can live with the product of her father's sexual indiscretion, namely Daisy, but seeks to remove the product of his incestuous rape, Gladys, without any consideration of the feelings of both Daisy and Gladys. Through her actions Alice protects the family name and social status of her father by positioning both Daisy and her daughter Gladys as less than human by denying aspects of their subjectivity. Alice is able to do so because she believes in the inferior status of Daisy and Gladys, and knows that the state will sanction her world view by supporting her request to remove Gladys for 'economic reasons'. Mr and Mrs Campbell both collude to deceive Alice Nannup's mother about an

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education and in fact remove Alice from her family and country so that she can be trained as a domestic servant for White women (Nannup et ai, 1992, pp. 58-60). It is no accident that the prepubescent Alice is taken away before she reaches the stage of sexual promiscuity. White women's fear of Aboriginal women's sexuality was connected to preserving their social status as White men's possessions, a status connected to an ideology of true womanhood which encompassed virtue, morality, reproduction of the race and civilisation (Riddett, 1992, p. 89). Whether by individual intervention or coercion 'expressions of racism were not premised on a random pattern of intolerant behaviour but rather inscribed into a systematic pattern of inclusion and exclusion' (Morris, 1989, p. 188). Such exclusions are evident in experiences of Aboriginal women. Delia Walker's husband was excluded from receiving medical treatment by a doctor who would not treat Aborigines (Walker & Coutts, 1989, p. 60). Alice Nannup was not allowed to eat in the boarding house dining room despite the fact that her board and lodging were paid for, and she was still expected to assist in the kitchen for free (Nannup et al., 1992, p. 154). Although Aboriginal women's physical contact or presence were deemed to be polluting in contexts, in others their contact with material items was permitted for the purpose of servitude. The preservation of the contradiction was necessary to maintaining the ontological basis for hierarchy and discrimination. Aboriginal women's narratives reveal they were locked into pervasive and entrenched relations of power through which racial, sexual, economic, political and cultural oppressions were part of public discourse sanctioned by the state. However, despite the enveloping of Aboriginal women in these relations, they were not passive victims but participated in forms of resistance which were at times overt, but usually discrete and indirect. Forms of resistance are also contradictory; for example, oppression often induces feelings of inferiority and servility in the oppressed which can result in a conscious disavowal of being a member of the stigmatised group. Ella Simon often separates herself from the category 'Aborigine' in her text (Simon, 1987) and Daisy and Gladys Corunna both deny to Sally Morgan (1987) they are Aboriginal women, preferring instead to identify as Indian or White. The overt denial of Aboriginality in certain contexts, however, does not disrupt their socio-cultural practices in other contexts. The constitution of their complex and multiple subject positions is produced by the practices associated with the definitions and representations of Aboriginality developed in public and legal discourses as much as it is shaped by an Aboriginal discourse of self-definition and denial. Daisy, Gladys and Ella may have resisted definitions of the dominant culture in particular contexts by denying Aboriginality but that did not change the view of the stale, their White bosses or their socio-cultural practices. In the autobiographical narratives of Aboriginal women there are numerous acts of resistance occurring on a daily basis. All the women broke the rules of the mission or reserve and received punishment but that did not deter opposition. Stealing, lying, making use of property, mimicking and outright wilfulness, escape and sometimes violence find expression in White cultural domains outside the mission or reserve in public spaces and households where these Aboriginal women participated in relations of domination and oppression. Christianity played an important part in the containment of Aboriginal women on reserves and missions. While it was supposed to assure their compliance and docility, it also exposed to them the hypocrisy of its own teachings through the gap between White practice and beliefs. Christianity served as a tool of resistance in some contexts by contributing to the moral grounds for projecting Aboriginal women's rights and value as

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human beings. Glenyse Ward draws on Christianity to make the decision finally to leave her employer who treats her as a black slave: I just couldn't keep on working for her after meeting people like the nuns and their friends and dear old Bill, who I was going to miss a lot. I felt in myself that I could not continue on anymore, no matter what the circumstances were. (Ward, 1991, p. 151) In Aboriginal domains, the message of resistance is tied to the common experience of racism and the way in which this impacted on the constitution of subjectivity. Different forms of subjectivity can in themselves be sites of resistance. Relationality and spirituality symbolise a rejection of the impersonal contractual relations of the dominant society where 'social patterns of individuation and atomisation are consistent with constructions of a self-possessing and self appropriating individual' (Morris, 1989, p. 219). The importance of the extended family for Aboriginal women is integral to their subjectivity because it is where the historical experiences of these women are located as a site of their knowledge and practice.

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Conclusion The anthropology of Aboriginal women is premised on authentic culture as an a priori system of essential meanings embedded in traditions and an a priori essential biologism based on skin colour which privileges some Aboriginal women over others. Conceptualising the 'authentic' culture and other in this way circumscribes the possibility of theorising cultural and social change (Asad, 1979, p. 609). It also produces a distorted methodology which instead of taking the production of 'essential meanings' (in the form of authoritative discourse) in given historical societies as the problem to be explained ... takes the existence of essential meanings (in the form of authentic discourse) as the basic concept for defining and explaining historical societies. (Asad, 1979, p. 623) Any methodology that is based on a system of closures that define what is the object of study and what methods will be used to obtain the data will produce a distorted representation which requires interrogation. The ideological constructions of 'race' and 'culture' are a part of the epistemology that informs the methodology employed by women anthropologists who have constructed particular representations of Aboriginal in their texts The power to define reveals inequalities in the relationship between women anthropologists and the Aboriginal women they write about. Anthropological discourse operates in a domain where knowledge production is supported and valued by society. In this discourse self-definition by Aboriginal women is not accorded the same value. Knowledge is never innocent, it is the key to power and meaning. It can be used to communicate as well as control. What is spoken, how it is spoken, when it is spoken, where it is spoken, why it is spoken and for whom it is spoken are linked to the knowledge/power nexus. As Cowlishaw argues, While anthropologists would often prefer to avoid the crude political arena where the niceties of academic argument are ignored, they cannot avoid becoming implicated in the control of knowledge which is part of the ideologi-

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cal process whereby Aborigines are defined, delineated and controlled. (Cowlishaw, 1986a, p. 234) Women anthropologists in Australia need to 'search for new ways of representing and understanding discourse within the context of social life' of Aboriginal women (Asad, 1979, p. 609). This should also involve a sustained analysis of the epistemological assumptions that inform and privilege Western thought and its cultural representations, and a deconstruction of our desire to render the space of alterity into a generalised equivalence, whether between women or between cultures. (Kirby, 1991, p. 400) The space of alterity in Aboriginal women's narratives locates the manufacturing of a distinctive subjectivity. The experiences and knowledges exposed in the narratives by Aboriginal women are both an expression of different cultural forms and a rejection of White cultural domination and varying forms of oppression (Morris, 1989, p. 219). Different ethics, behaviour and values repudiate the moral and intellectual hegemony that effects such domination and oppression. Aboriginal women's lives are part of the colonised history of Aboriginal people's political and cultural struggle which shapes both the conscious and unconscious social practices of everyday life in both Aboriginal and White domains (Larbalestier, 1991, p. 91). The cultural specificities of Aboriginal women's existence are embedded in historically constructed relationships with White people which continue to inform processes of intersubjectivity in Aboriginal and White domains. State intervention into the lives of Aboriginal women was part of the social processes that shaped the nature of these relationships. After the 1970s, which saw a change in government policies, many of these women obtained a tertiary education after they had raised their families. They acknowledge that they are now freer than when they were young. However, their narratives show that they know such freedom has not come without cost nor has it changed in any fundamental way the nature of their sociality. Their sociality is still predominantly maintained and intimately connected to Aboriginal domains. The narratives of Aboriginal women reveal that they are embodied, and embedded in a network of social relationships in Aboriginal domains. The body for Aboriginal women is the link to people, country, spirits, hcrstory and the future and is a positive site of value and affirmation as well as a site of resistance. As keepers of the family, Aboriginal women are the bearers of subjugated knowledges. Aboriginal women's experiences speak of intersubjective relations with White women which were contained by distance, unease, racial superiority and often cruelty. White women participated in gendered racial oppression both as unconscious and conscious subjects through an ideology of true womanhood which positioned Aboriginal women as less feminine, less human and less spiritual than themselves. Aboriginal women's resistance to such definitions show 'we have never totally lost ourselves within the other's reality. We have never fallen into the hypnosis of believing that those representations were our essence' (Dodson, 1994, p. 9). Aboriginal women's subjectivity is multiple and complex. The disjuncture between anthropological representations of Aboriginal women and Aboriginal women's self-presentation makes the role of interpreter visible and disrupts claims to speak from the space of alterity. The methodology deployed by women anthropologists has been used to plant 'real people and places in the imaginary gardens of anthropological texts (Behar & Gordon, 1995, p. 10). Unlike anthropological representations of Aboriginal women, the self presentation of Aboriginal women discloses the continuity of colonisation in discursive and political practices. My analysis of Aboriginal Downloaded by [University of Technology Sydney] at 18:33 23 April 2012

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women's autobiographical narratives provides an aperfuH for thinking about different constructions of gender in Aboriginal domains. An analysis that shows that in a postcolonial encounter, when the object speaks, her voice challenges the authority of anthropological representations and their complaisant acceptance within Australian feminism.

Acknowledgements
I sincerely thank Dr Belinda Mackay, Dr Claire Runciman, Jennifer-Tannoch Bland and Ian Robinson for their comments, support and encouragement. Downloaded by [University of Technology Sydney] at 18:33 23 April 2012 Correspondence: Aileen Moreton-Robinson, Women's Studies, Flinders University, Bedford Park, South Australia, 5042, Australia.

NOTES
1. 2. 3. See for example texts by Bottomley, de Lcpervanch & Martin (1991); Pettman (1992); Saundcrs and Evans (1992); Kaplan (199G); Caine & Pringle (1995). It is interesting to note that while Australian feminists have not engaged with anthropology the reverse has occurred. I refer in particular to the work of Gillian Cowlishaw (1990) and Vicki Kirby (1989). As recently as 1996 we see in Lcs Hiatt's essay on the 'Woman question in anthropology' in Arguments
about Aborigines: Australia and the evolution of social anthropology (1996) the representation of the true Aboriginal

4.

5. 6.

7.

8.

woman as the 'traditional' Aboriginal woman. He cites the work of Kaberry, Hamilton, Berndt, Bell, White, Goodale, Cowlishaw and Mcrlan. There arc no other Aboriginal women. I refer here to the works of Berndt (1949-1950, 1962, 1964, 1978, 1979, 1981, 1982, 1983, 1986, 1989), Bell (1981a,b, 1983a,b, 1984-1985, 1987), Hamilton (1971, 1975, 1978, 1980, 1981, 1982a,b), Kaberry (1935-1936a,b, 1939), Goodalc (1971, 1982, 1986), Burbank (1985), Iillcy (1989), Mcrlan (1986, 1988) and Cowlishaw (1978, 1981, 1982, 1986a,b,c, 1988, 1990, 1993; Cowlishaw & Lea, 1990). In particular I refer to the work of Barwick (1978) and Rcay (1949, 1951-1952, 1962, 1963, 1970; Reay & Sitlington, 1948). The pervasiveness of this position can be ascertained from the works of Phyllis Kaberry's Aboriginal Woman, Sacred and Profane (1939) and Diane Bell's Daughters of the Dreaming (1983a). Kaberry acknowledges that the women she speaks about live on stations but what impact that has on their lives is left unexamined. While Bell is mindful of the need to give historical context to the lives of the women at Warrabri settlement this is disconnected to the ritual domain. Iicll manages to keep the binarism intact by creating two domains, one being ritual and the other being whatever is going on or what has happended in these women's lives outside of the ritual context. That is, it is the ritual domain that gets positioned as the traditional and the other domain becomes the contemporary. Three theories emerge from the literature about Aboriginal gender relations: men are dominant and women subordinate; men and women have interdependent roles in society; or they have separate but complementary relations. I use the term 'Aboriginalist anthropology* to refer to anthropological work written about Aborigines. An
example of such work is Desert People: a study of the Walbiri Aborigines of Central Australia by M J . Meggitt

9.

10.

(1962). Meggitt writes this ethnography from the confines of a reserve but gives the impression that colonisation has not impacted on the Walbiri. A recent case in point is the Hindmarsh Island affair, where the authenticity of the Aboriginal women claimants was measured by the anthropological representation of the 'traditional' woman in both the media and the Commission of Inquiry. For further discussion refer to Nile & Ryan (1996). Brewster argues that because Aboriginal women's texts arc the product of collaboration it would be inappropriate to label them as autobiographies; instead she refers to these books as autobiographical narratives because of their distinguishing characteristic is their first-person narrative (Brewstcr, 1996, p. 9). I extend Brcwster's definition to include another distinguishing charateristic and that is that experience is fundamentally social not something ascribed to individuals.

When the Object Speaks

11.

287

12.

13. 14.

I use Patrica Hill-Collins' definition (1991) of subjugated knowledges, which in turn is derived from the work of Foucault. She argues that Black women's subjugated knowledges arc blocks of historical knowledge that are present but disguised and have as much validity as western knowledges. Subjugated knowledge is a 'particular, local, regional knowledge; a differential knowledge incapable of unanimity which owes its force only to the harshness with which it is opposed to everything surrounding it' (Foucault in Hill-Collins, 1991, p. 18). I acknowledge that it is problematic to invoke a conceptual separation that is not as fixed in practice. However, I have chosen to do so for the purpose of recognising that different cultural knowledges operate in spaces that arc always ambiguous because of the overlap in different 'frameworks, discursive regimes, and repertoires of meaning' (Ang, 1997, p. GO). A blank slate to be written on. A summary exposition.

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