Department of Anthropology
Doctoral Research
Articulating Culture(s): Being Black in Wilcannia
By Lorraine Gibson
The Aboriginal people of the town of Wilcannia in Far Western New South Wales have been widely depicted through dominant society discourses and images as having no culture. Through an ethnographic examination of what it means to be black in Wilcannia from both black and white perspectives, this thesis explores different ways of knowing and being. It describes the mechanisms through which ‘culture’ is tacitly and reflexively produced, performed and interpreted by Aboriginal people of the town, as well as the ways in which non-Aboriginal locals and dominant society consider these forms of ‘culture’ more broadly. The work offers counter-discourses to the dominant society claim that Aboriginal people of Wilcannia have no ‘culture’.
In general terms, this thesis is about cultural identity, cultural recognition and difference. Recognition is by necessity a relational phenomenon. Therefore, the thesis is concerned with the ways in which non-Aboriginal people in Wilcannia perceive local Aboriginal people, and with the ways in which Aboriginal people perceive themselves in relation to one another as well as to whites. A special focus rests on how these perceptions are shaped and produced by underpinning ideologies inhering within certain dominant society categories and concepts. Some of the concepts and categories explored are those related to the themes of ‘work’, ‘productivity’, ‘success’ and ‘opportunity’.
The thesis asks ‘what is culture?’ What does this concept mean to Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal people in Wilcannia and more broadly? What is it made to mean and why does this matter? In responding to these questions, ‘culture’ as category and concept is shown in its chameleon colours: colours which, for the most part, remain unproblematically hidden as they operate practically and discursively through ‘taken for granted’ and ‘everyday’ assumptions.
Given that Aboriginal people as a discursive category have become increasingly indexed by the products of art (Merlan 2001:681) this ethnography also engages with the category of ‘art’ and explores the ways in which ‘art’ and ‘culture’ are understood in more ‘taken for granted’ ways by whites and blacks in Wilcannia as well as more broadly. These are powerful and productive discursive categories that manifest in social actions and have social effects.
Wilcannia is a place where concepts about blackfellas and whitefellas are constantly being played out in practice and through discourse. What appear to be ‘common’ understandings and ‘common’ terms are revealed to be ambiguous and ambivalent as well as differently understood. The easy binary categories of blackness or whiteness are often drawn on as a means to justify misunderstanding or to remove the work of clarifying inter-cultural confusion. This thesis engages with this confusion and its experience.
Et harum quidem rerum facilis est et expedita distinctio.