Indigenous History

In 1968 Australian Anthropologist WEH Stanner pinpointed a profound silence about the relationship between settler Australians and Aboriginal people. He argued settler Australian people unconsciously refused to discuss with Aboriginal people historical matters of their history, their possession and dispossession of Country. The legacies of this silence and dispossession have been profound. Since Stanner’s famous call to awaken Aboriginal history in Australia, much work has been done to create new foundations of Aboriginal history which continue to emerge. These histories often cross disciplinary boundaries of the academy including history, anthropology, geography, philosophy, science and more. As historian Bain Attwood has commented, in Australia the telling of Aboriginal history clashes with political agendas and with people. The legitimacy of Australia’s nationhood is often embroiled in Indigenous historiographical debate, and depending on whose experience of history is heard, different stories emerge.