Paper short abstract:

Kinship systems play an important role in shaping in how and why conflict is practiced in traditional Aboriginal society. This paper examines the tensions between kinship, concepts of ownership and conflict using historical examples.

Paper long abstract:

Concepts of ownership within human societies play an important role in determining the practical distribution of resources. In traditional Australian Aboriginal society the distribution of resources is bound to the ideological concepts of communal ownership rights and responsibilities towards land. Ownership not only determined who had access to resources but was also tied to a religious sense of belonging too and caring for land. These ideas of "ownership" also existed with other user relationships with the land, which were also based on kinship and which held their own responsibilities and rights. Prior to European settlement, Aboriginal society in Victoria had developed a complex multi-layered decentralised political organisation based on kinship and land relationships that had incredible longevity. While this political system was extremely long-lived it was not without social tensions and conflict. Political power in Victorian Aboriginal society rested with old men, who gained their status through personal prestige, retaining key social and religious knowledge and expanding kinship relationships. As kinship relationships were the major way to gain access to resources and political power, individual's attempts to establish or resist the existing social order was shaped by kinship power relations and structures. Using early accounts of European settlers to Victoria, such as James Dawson and George Augustus Robinson, this paper examines the kinship relationships, political structures and the emergence, practice and management of conflict in Victoria Aboriginal society prior to and at the time of European contact.