Mixed Relations: Asian-Aboriginal Contact in North Australia |
Mixed Relations: Asian-Aboriginal Contact in North Australia
University of Western Australia Publishing
March 2006
384 pages
250 x 170 mm
Hardcover ISBN: 9781920694418
Regina Ganter, Professor, School of Humanities
Griffith University, Queensland, Australia
Awards
- Won – 2007 NSW Premier’s Awards (Community and Regional History Prize)
- Won – 2007 Ernest Scott History Prize
Australian histories too often imply that the nation’s history began in Botany Bay in 1788. But Australia was not an isolated continent, and long before white settlement, Macassan trepangers had made contact with Aboriginal people along the Northern Coastline, weaving trading networks that extended from China to the Kimberley and Torres Strait. It was this Asian–Aboriginal link that gave rise to the northern pearling industry, a subsequent driver of regional economic development.
Mixed Relations explores successive waves of contact in northern Australia and the impact of circumstances—political, legal and economic—on members of the polyethnic communities. Based on extensive fieldwork, including hundreds of interviews, it provides a fresh insight into the national narrative and poses challenging questions about the Australian identity in the twenty-first century.
Tags: Australia, Regina Ganter, University of Western Australia Publishing