Paper short abstract:

The paper discusses possible explanations inside and external to the discipline of anthropology for the lack of detailed ethnographic attention paid to non-indigenous people, experiences, practices and values in studies of shared settler-indigenous settings.

Paper long abstract:

Today most anthropologists conducting research with indigenous people and issues in settler nations like Australia, Canada and the United States would agree, in theory, that 'indigenous cultural practices, institutions, and politics become such in articulation with what is not considered indigenous within the particular social formation where they exist' (de la Cadena & Starn 2007:4). This paper asks why, then, anthropologists seem reluctant to pay as detailed ethnographic attention to non-indigenous people, experiences, social practices and sets of vales as they have long paid to indigenous people's lives? Based loosely on four frames for grasping culture as the ongoing organisation of diversity proposed by Hannerz (2015) - the state, the market, movements and consociality - the paper discusses possible explanations inside and beyond the discipline for some common responses to the presenter's research focus in the central Australian town of Alice Springs; a place long shared by a diversity of indigenous and non-indigenous people. The responses indicate that non-indigenous people don't seem to matter much in the final analysis of the everyday lived experiences of interactions and activities in shared indigenous-settler places. The paper argues for an expansion of conceptual and methodological approaches in order to capture the broader range and complexity of contemporary realities in indigenous-settler nations.

Paper short abstract:

This paper considers forms of settler belonging in a small outback town in the Kimberley region of northern Australia. The paper charts the collective anxiety of settler residents, not only about the ongoing viability and existence of the town, but also their place within it.

Paper long abstract:

This paper considers forms of settler belonging in a small outback town in the Kimberley region of northern Australia. Using the results of fieldwork undertaken with residents in 2016 and 2017, the paper examines the precarity of settler belonging in what is otherwise an Aboriginal town. Against the backdrop of declining local industries of pastoralism and mining, it charts the collective anxiety of settler residents, not only about the ongoing viability and existence of the town, but also their place within it. Rather than conceptualising these attachments as competing with or diminishing those of Aboriginal residents, the paper takes seriously the challenge of recognising settler assertions of belonging. What becomes apparent is how working class settlers, who have often led highly mobile lives, typify the philosopher Linn Miller's (2003) description of a 'longing for belonging' in contemporary Australia. It examines how precarity is mediated, namely by identification with the hopefulness and triumphant potential of forms of economic enterprise, especially that of the local shipping port which despite employing few people holds a particular position in the imaginations of settler residents.

Paper short abstract:

Many Chinese and other Asian men travelled to the north of Australia in the 19th Century, often producing children by Aboriginal woman. This paper examines the lives of these men, and the contestations over belonging that relate to their complex legacy.

Paper long abstract:

Northern Australia has long been seen as a 'polyethnic' space, marked by the long presence of Chinese and other Asian migrants. This paper examines the complex legacy left by these migrants, many of whom lived the remainder of their lives in Australia and created families of mixed Chinese and Aboriginal as well as European descent. The politics of such mixed identity reveals ambiguities about indigeneity in settler societies. In exploring these ambiguities through case studies from northern Australia's Gulf Country, this paper contributes to discussions about belonging to place and connecting to 'country' in Australia.

Paper short abstract:

This research explores the historical spaces of 'Missions' in Australia, with a focus on the Milingimbi Methodist Mission in Northeast Arnhem Land during the early years of the 20th century. The aim of such analysis is to draw attention to other histories not overtly heard within the archives.

Paper long abstract:

In much of historical and anthropological scholarship the role of 'missions' in Australian Aboriginal history remains under researched. Consequently in discourse, these mission spaces are often represented as homogenised and bounded entities, reduced to fit the archetypal evil of the colonising agenda. Missions, however were complex spaces of belonging, where sustained and intimate cross-cultural contact provided valuable material for intercultural analysis, especially gender-inflected. I therefore contend the dynamics and practices of the actors involved with missions during the early 20th century need further attention. This research presents an historical anthropological analysis, with a particular focus on the interactions, which occurred on the Milingimbi Methodist Mission in Northeast Arnhem Land during the interwar years. It draws across the breadth of archival material that was produced from these spaces. This includes material recorded by missionaries, anthropologists, and memoirs of descendants. Close attention across such records I argue will provide access into nuances relating to temporality and inter-subjectivities, discursive processes and material practices. The aim of such analysis is to draw attention to other histories not overtly heard within the archives. In doing so will also extend the existing literature outlining the complexity of Australia's settler-colonial past.

Paper short abstract:

Australian environmental thought - dominated by comparisons between indigenous and settler perspectives - has yet to fully engage with the contributions of non-Anglo migrants. This paper asks what kinds of environmental belonging emerge among migrants and refugees in the Mildura region (Vic.).

Paper long abstract:

Questions of belonging in relation to both society and nature in Australia have been extensively discussed in recent years in terms of the indigenous/non-indigenous binary. Australian environmental thought - influenced by comparisons between indigenous and settler perspectives - has yet to fully engage with the contributions of later migrants, particularly those of non-Anglo background. This paper asks what kinds of environmental belonging emerge among migrants and recently arrived refugees in Australia. Using examples from Mildura-Robinvale (Vic), one of the most ethnically diverse regions in rural Australia, the paper considers how diverse people and plants come to belong, or not. In showing the complex ways in which ethnicity and migration history influence environmental relations and understandings, the paper throws light back on to embedded assumptions in the indigenous/settler binary.

Paper short abstract:

Ideas and practices of horticultural labour inform the experiences of different, often racially-marked, groups. Shifting complexes of belonging resist simple delineations of indigenous-non indigenous or migrant-non migrant, and include fragile forms of attachment that emerge in spite of precarity.

Paper long abstract:

This paper explores the shifting ways in which belonging is sought, experienced, denied, and contested within the context of the horticultural industry in the Greater Shepparton Region in north-central Victoria. Specifically, it considers the ways in which ideas and practices of labour function to produce both belonging and not-belonging for different, often racially-marked, groups. Labour has long been a key motif in narratives of settler belonging, and takes on new purchase in the context of contemporary debates around seasonal labour, particularly fruit-picking. Temporary labour migrants increasingly form the bulk of seasonal labour workforces, in Shepparton as elsewhere across the country. Dedicated migration and labour schemes—including the Working Holiday Maker (backpacker) visa, and the Seasonal Worker Program targeted at Pacific Islanders—are designed to limit the belonging and rights claims of temporary migrants conducting seasonal labour, producing precarious workforces that are 'available when required, undemanding when not' (Anderson 2010). At the same time, the kinds of economic and social transformations associated with the rise of precarity also weigh upon the kinds of belonging and identity experienced by settler-descendants and more-settled migrants. Ethnographic research with farmers, and both migrant and 'local' seasonal workers, points to shifting complexes of belonging that resist simple delineations of indigenous-non indigenous or migrant-non migrant, and that include fragile forms of attachment to people and place that emerge even in spite of precarity.

Paper short abstract:

Drawing upon fieldwork with non-Aboriginal and Aboriginal bushfire managers in northern and southern Australia, this paper critically reflects on how indigeneity is being articulated in contemporary contexts in order to authorise different ends in the face of a flammable future.

Paper long abstract:

Settler Australians have long been aware that, prior to the arrival of their European forebears, the Australian continent was subject to extensive anthropogenic burning for millennia. Anthropologists, archaeologists, historians and others have periodically (re)discovered this dimension of Aboriginal peoples and their histories (Healy, 2008), frequently finding in it a source of hope for their own security. Thus, just as the forefather of Australian fire science wrote in 1973 that the 'only way' to prevent bushfire disasters was to burn the land 'in much the same way as the Aborigines did prior to the advent of the white man' (McArthur, 1973), a celebrated historian has recently argued that settlers will 'become truly Australian' once they revive the fire practices and culture of precolonial Aboriginal peoples (Gammage, 2011). In this way, bushfire has at once been a site of loaded and contested symbolic investment - both in terms of settlers' attempts to acquire indigeneity and contemporary ideals of Aboriginal culture and tradition (Neale, In Press; Martin, 2013) - and, until recently, minimal engagement with Aboriginal people. Drawing upon fieldwork with non-Aboriginal and Aboriginal bushfire managers in northern and southern Australia, this article critically reflects on how indigeneity is being articulated and mobilised in contemporary contexts in order to authorise and imagine different ends. The article closes by suggesting that one of the most potent functions of indigeneity is not only to legitimate the various actors involved but also to provide stability in the face of an obscure, changing, and threatening flammable future.

Paper short abstract:

Australian South Sea Islanders (ASSI) are uniquely placed as a long-term migrant group to Australia who both maintain kinship, sociocultural and identity links with the Pacific and nurture a sense of belonging to various Australian locales. We explore ASSI identity in terms of visions of home.

Paper long abstract:

Australian South Sea Islanders are a unique ethnic group, the Australian born descendants of Pacific Islander labourers recruited (forcibly or otherwise by blackbirding vessels and their crews) to work on sugar plantations in Australia in the 19th and 20th centuries. Australian South Sea Islanders were recruited mainly from Vanuatu and the Solomon Islands, but also came from many other islands in the Pacific, including: New Ireland and the islands in Milne Bay (Papua New Guinea), Samoa and Fiji.

Oral histories tell us that many Australian South Sea Islanders were kidnapped from their island homes and, upon arriving in Australia, had pay withheld and endured terrible living conditions.

With the introduction of the White Australia Policy, many Australian South Sea Islanders were then forcibly deported (often "dropped off" at whatever island the captain decided was "best" for them, regardless of their actual "home" island). This was devastating for many, as a lot of Australian South Sea Islanders had married locally, were born in Australia, and/or had never been to the Pacific Islands.

Today, many Australian South Sea Islands maintain kinship, sociocultural and identity links with the Pacific and nurture a sense of belonging to various Australian locales. In this paper, we use Insider and Islander anthropology to explore Australian South Sea Islander identity in terms of various interpretations and states of home.

Paper short abstract:

We describe the way PNG researchers have negotiated the differences between citizenship and indigeneity when working on a project concerning how the PNG community living in North Queensland look after the elderly. We also outline how other PNG community members deal with the same kinds of issues.

Paper long abstract:

This paper outlines the types of identification that emerged when a team of researchers with PNG affiliations, and multiple links to Australian families, worked on a project outlining how members of the PNG community in North Queensland cared for the elderly both in Australia and in PNG. We outline the complexity of the team's affiliations and indicate how such affiliations worked with, against and around, claims based on citizenship and indigeneity. We explore such processes by showing how some of the team's social relationships were transformed while working on the project. We argue these changes in the team's relationships of belonging were similar to those found among the wider PNG community in North Queensland.