The Politics of Identity
Who counts as Aboriginal today?
Winner of the Stanner Award, 2013.
In this award-winning work Carlson explores the complexities surrounding Aboriginal identity today. Drawing on a range of historical and research literature, interviews and surveys, The politics of identity explores Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal understandings of Aboriginality and the way these are produced and reproduced across a range of sites and contexts.
Carlson points to the multiple, yet narrow definitions of Aboriginal identity that have existed throughout Australia's colonial history and its continuing impact upon contemporary Aboriginal identities. Emphasising Indigenous debates and claims about Aboriginality, The politics of identity explores both the community and external tensions around appropriate measures of identity and the pressures and effects of identification.
An analysis of online Indigenous communities on social media that have emerged as sites of contestation adds to the growing knowledge in this area, both nationally and globally. This is a brave and personal contribution to the often vexed subject of Aboriginal identity and offers a distinctive and fresh line of analysis.
Production Details
- Paperback
- 230mm x 155mm x 18mm
- 256pp
- Released February 2016
- ISBN 9781925302134
Excerpt
Contents
About the Author
Bronwyn Carlson is an Aboriginal woman who was born and lives on D’harawal Country in NSW Australia. She is the first Indigenous Australian at the University of Wollongong to be granted an Australian Research Council, Discovery Indigenous Award in 2014 for her research on Aboriginal identity and community on social media.
She is currently an Associate Professor in Indigenous Studies at the University of Wollongong.