Abstract
This paper takes an ethnographic approach to non-anthropocentric cultures. The method is to follow a logic of connectivity and fit. Building on 30 years of research with Aboriginal Australians, including work on numerous claims to land, I explore the ecological patterns of the Simpson Desert into which humans pattern their social, ecological and cultural relations. I sidestep questions of ‘nature’ entirely, in order to examine the workings of the life of country in one of the world’s least hospitable deserts. By following the pulses of water and life, it becomes possible to see something of a human culture that itself pulses and flows within the patterns of surrounding life. The result is a poetics of flow that arises from the action of water, works its way through the revitalization of life, and is articulated by humans in all domains: livelihood, social relations, Dreaming interactions, and performance.
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Notes
See for example: http://www.spiritsafaris.com/blog/?p=316.
Information gained from Wangkangurru people’s evidence in a land claim presented under the Aboriginal Land Rights (NT) Act 1976. Evidence from nearby river systems suggests that this type of adaptation is at least 13,000 years old, and perhaps much older, see Smith (1989, pp. 93–105).
Nancy Howell’s research with Dobe !Kung people of the Kalahari in southern Africa assessed the data in light of the critical fatness hypothesis and concluded that normal fatness levels of the !Kung may often have been close to the critical level and may have played a role in preventing or delaying conception. (see Howell 1979) It is most probable that these factors were operative among Aboriginal people in arid and semi-arid zones, and that women’s critical fat levels responded to cycles of rain and drought leading to post-rain fertility just as for most other mammals (Howell 1979). See also Rose (2007).
Information gained from Arrernte people's evidence in land claims which were presented under the Aboriginal Land Rights (NT) Act 1976, and from Kimber and Smith 1987.
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Rose, D.B. Arts of flow: poetics of ‘fit’ in Aboriginal Australia. Dialect Anthropol 38, 431–445 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10624-014-9347-0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10624-014-9347-0