Native Title in Australia: An Ethnographic PerspectiveNative title has often been one of the most controversial political, legal and indeed moral issues in Australia. Ever since the High Court's Mabo decision of 1992, the attempt to understand and adapt native title to different contexts and claims has been an ongoing concern for that broad range of people involved with claims. In this book, originally published in 2003, Peter Sutton sets out fundamental anthropological issues to do with customary rights, kinship, identity, spirituality and so on that are relevant for lawyers and others working on title claims. Sutton offers a critical discussion of anthropological findings in the field of Aboriginal traditional interests in land and waters, focusing on the kinds of customary rights that are 'held' in Aboriginal 'countries', the types of groups whose members have been found to enjoy those rights, and how such groups have fared over the last 200 years of Australian history. |
Contents
1 Kinds of rights in country | 1 |
2 Local organisation before the land claims era | 38 |
3 Aboriginal country groups | 54 |
4 Atomism versus collectivism | 85 |
5 Underlying and proximate customary titles | 111 |
6 The system question | 135 |
7 Kinship filiation and Aboriginal land tenure | 173 |
8 Families of polity | 206 |
Notes | 232 |
253 | |
274 | |
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Common terms and phrases
Aboriginal Australia Aboriginal Land Commissioner Aboriginal society Aboriginal Studies Aboriginal tradition affiliations ancestors anthropological anthropologists Arnhem Land belong Berndt Canberra Cape York Peninsula clan classical Aboriginal cognatic descent group connection context cultural Daly River descent group distinction Dreaming entitlements estate groups ethnographic evidence example exogamy father filiation genealogical Groote Eylandt Hiatt horde Howitt identity indigenous individual Jawoyn Keen kin terms kind kinship Land Claim Land Council Land Rights land tenure language group laws and customs linguistic Malak marriage Meggitt membership Merlan mother names native title native title rights non-Aboriginal Northern Land Council Northern Territory one’s particular patrifilial patrilineal person Peterson Pintupi primary proximate Queensland Radcliffe-Brown recognised refer relation relationships relevant rights and interests rights in country Rigsby ritual role sense social organisation Stanner subgroups subsection Sutton totemic traditional laws tribal tribe W.E.H. Stanner Warlpiri Western Desert Wik-Ngathan Wiradjuri Yolngu Yorta Yorta