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Paper short abstract:

This paper discusses anthropological materials created in the course of native title claims and raises questions about what sort of knowledge these materials are and what might be involved in returning it in post-determination contexts.

Paper long abstract:

As the focus of native title transitions from the determination of native title to the management of determined lands the issue of what to do with the connection reports, genealogies, maps, photographs and film that anthropologists have created to substantiate claims, emerges. Within the Northern Territory, and perhaps elsewhere, it is likely that it will be Prescribed Bodies Corporate that will be one of the main vehicles for the transferal of these materials to Aboriginal people. As we are at the beginning of this process it is useful to think through some of the issues surrounding the creation and return of anthropological materials. Key to this thinking is the recognition that these materials are not only information, but are forms of knowledge that undergo physical (from oral and performative acts to written and visual documents) and social transformation. This latter, social transformation, can be characterised as proceeding from an Aboriginal social system that genealogically identifies individuals to store, transmit and retrieve knowledge, which is then reconfigured by anthropologists into written and visual documents to be used as evidence in claims. If Prescribed Bodies Corporate are to be the primary vehicle through which this body of knowledge is re-introduced back into the hands of the Aboriginal people who originally produced it, some appreciation of what it actually is that that is being made available should be useful to consider. Issues that will be discussed include; making and transforming knowledge, the authority of documents, knowledge and person, and, socialising knowledge.