Postcolonial Sociology? Conceptualising Urban Indigeneity
George Morgan, School of Humanities / Centre for Cultural Research, University of Western Sydney
In the mid twentieth century some Australian anthropologists predicted their discipline's conceptual tools would have declining utility for understanding contemporary Aborginality. For example, JA Barnes, head of anthropology at the University of Sydney wrote in 1960 : Just as Aborgines have become more like their white neighbours in the last one hundred years, so has the study of tribal societies become assimilated to the study of societies in general. But while historians and anthropologists have accepted the challenges of post-colonialism, sociology has had less to say. This paper will argue that to address the substantial social problems faced by many of those who identify as Aboriginal requires both the exercise of sociological imagination and the involvement of both indigenous and non-indigenous voices in public debates. In the era of 'coercive paternalism' (or 'tough love') it is inappropriate to see European and indigenous social orders as completely separate and incommensurable. To essentialise either or both, is no longer strategic. If contemporary Aboriginality is the product of many social determinations, some of which are independent of colonialism, then understanding and defining the self that is to be determined becomes a substantially more complicated task.
