An Appreciation of Difference

WEH Stanner's writings on post-colonial development and assimilation policy urged an appreciation of Indigenous people's distinctive world views and aspirations. Stanner contributed much to public understandings of the Dreaming and the significance of Aboriginal religion. His 1968 broadcast lectures, After the Dreaming, continue to be among the most widely quoted works in the field of Aboriginal studies. He also produced some exceptionally evocative biographical portraits of Aboriginal people.

Stanner was a public intellectual whose work reached beyond the walls of the academy, and he remains a highly significant figure in Aboriginal affairs and Australian anthropology. Educated by Radcliffe-Brown in Sydney and Malinowski in London, he undertook anthropological work in Australia, Africa and the Pacific.

Hinkson and Beckett have drawn together some of Australia's leading academics working in Aboriginal studies to provide an historical and analytical context for Stanner's work, as well as demonstrating the continuing relevance of his writings in the contested field of Aboriginal affairs.

Production Details

• Paperback
• 130mm x 150mm x 18mm
• 312pp
• Released October 2008
• ISBN 9780855756604

Contents

Foreword
Illustrations
Acknowledgments
Contributors
‘Going more than half way to meet them’- On the life and legacy of WEH Stanner
Part 1: diverse fields
Chapter 1: ‘A chance to be of some use to my country’- Stanner during World War II
Chapter 2: Stanner and Makerere- On the ‘insuperable’ challenges of practical anthropology in post-war East Africa
Chapter 3: WEH Stanner and the foundation of the Australian Institute for Aboriginal Studies, 1959–1964
Chapter 4: Stanner- Reluctant bureaucrat Barrie Dexter
Part 2: in pursuit of transcendent value
Chapter 5: Frontier encounter- Stanner’s Durmugam
Chapter 6: Journey to the source- In pursuit of Fitzmaurice rock art and the High Culture
Chapter 7: Stanner’s veil- Transcendence and the limits of scientific inquiry
Chapter 8: ‘Religion’, ‘magic’, ‘sign’ and ‘symbol’ in Stanner’s approach to Aboriginal religions
Chapter 9: ‘Joyous maggots’- The symbolism of Yolngu mortuary rituals
Chapter 10: Indigenous songs as ‘operational structures of transactional life’- A study of song genres at Wadeye
Part 3: land and people
Chapter 11: Stanner and Aboriginal land use- Ecology, economic change, and enclosing the commons
Chapter 12: ‘Too sociological’? Revisiting ‘Aboriginal territorial organization’
Chapter 13: Stanner, Milirrpum, and the Woodward Royal Commission
Chapter 14: Counting the cost- Stanner and the Port Keats/Wadeye population
Part 4: a public intellectual
Chapter 15: WEH Stanner and the historians
Chapter 16: After the Dreaming- The Boyer lecturer as social critic
Chapter 17: From ‘After the Dreaming’ to ‘After land rights’- WEH Stanner’s legacy as Indigenous policy intellectual
Index

About The Cover

Cover images: (front) WEH Stanner in his room at University House, Australian National University, c. 1958; (back, L-R) Major WEH Stanner, 2/1st North Australia Observer Unit, c. 1942, AWM, PO4393.001; Stanner at a campfire, Fitzmaurice River, c. 1958; Stanner during fieldwork in the Daly River region, c. 1932.