More than any other event in Australia’s legal, political and cultural history, the High Court of Australia’s 1992 Mabo decision challenged previous ways of thinking about land, identity, belonging, the nation and history. Now, more than a quarter of a century after Mabo, this book examines the broader impacts of this landmark legal decision on various forms of Australian culture and cultural practice. How is Australia’s post-Mabo imaginary being reflected, refracted and articulated in contemporary film, fiction, poetry, biography and other forms of cultural expression? To what extent has the discussion and practice of history, linguistics, anthropology and other branches of the humanities been challenged or transformed by Mabo? While the judges in Mabo recognised native title, they also denied Indigenous people sovereignty over the continent: how is First Nations sovereignty being articulated and creatively imagined in more recent post-Mabo discourse? This interdisciplinary book, offering a transnational perspective via scholars based in Australia, continental Europe and the UK, provides an overview of the diverse impact and discursive influence of Mabo on fields of artistic endeavour and cultural practice in Australia today.
Author(s): Geoff Rodoreda, Eva Bischoff
Series: Anthem Studies in Australian Literature and Culture
Publisher: Anthem Press
Year: 2021
Language: English
Pages: 210
City: London
Cover
Front Matter
Half title
Title page
Copyright information
Contents
Acknowledgments
Intro, Part I-V
Introduction
Why Is Mabo Significant?
Beyond Mabo: Towards Recognition and Indigenous Sovereignty
References
Part I Making History
Chapter 1 Activism Before Mabo
Land Rights, Law, Human Rights
Victorian Aboriginal People
Letters and Petitions, the Coranderrk Papers
William Cooper and the Australian Aborigines’ League
And on to Mabo
Conclusions
Acknowledgements
References
Chapter 2 Remembering Koiki and Bonita Mabo, Pioneers of Indigenous Education
Learning History from Its Makers
Koiki and Aunty Kath
Koiki and Queensland’s Unions
Black Community Education
References
Part II Mabo in Politics and Practice
Chapter 3 Responsibility = Ownership?
Tourism, Heritage and Mining
In Court
Conclusion
References
Chapter 4 The Contributions of Linguistics to Native Title Claims
Language and Linguistics in Native Title
Studying Place Names
Ethnonyms and Glossonyms
The Miriuwung–Gajerrong Native Title Claim
Acknowledgements
References
Part III Mabo and Film
Chapter 5 Australian Indigenous Filmmaking Beyond Mabo
Indigenous Film Policy and Production
An Indigenous Australian Film Production Framework, ICIPR and Land
The Position of Indigenous Sovereign Filmmaking in Australian Screen Culture
Conclusion
References
Chapter 6 Filmic Representations of Eddie Mabo in a Changing Cultural Imaginary
Appraising Mabo
Documenting Eddie Mabo
Featuring Eddie Mabo
References
Chapter 7 Torres Strait Screen Media ‘Post-Mabo’
Parallels in Politics and Media
Torres Strait Screen Media
Collaboration
Institutionalisation/Nationalisation
Diversification
Lone Star
Conclusion
References
Part IV Fiction and Poetry
Chapter 8 Melissa Lucashenko’s Mullumbimby
References
Chapter 9 Writing the Land, Writing Relations
That Deadman Dance as Songline
Where to Now? Imagining a Shared Future
References
Chapter 10 Aboriginal Jurisprudence in Philip Mclaren’s Lightning Mine
References
Chapter 11 Rewriting History, Rewriting Identity
The Rejection of Terra Nullius, Displacement and Identity
References
Part V Mabo and Memoir
Chapter 12 Are We Better Than This?
The Belated Activist
Stan Grant and the Public Arena
References
Chapter 13 Beyond Native Title
Writing after Mabo
The Medium of Memoir
Not ‘My Country’
References
End Matter
Contributors
Index
