| Aboriginality in Australia is contested ground. The identification and acknowledgement of aboriginality is the foundation of large scale political, social and economic movements in Australia. The debate over who is, and is not, "aboriginal" has had, and continues to have, significant impacts on Australian elections, policies, development, and ideology. Deeply divisive social issues throughout Australia spring from the confusing and contradictory delineations by which aboriginality is currently identified and validated.;The aborigines of Framlingham are well aware of the contradictions and inconsistencies that attend contemporary constructions of aboriginality. These descendants of, in large part, the Kirrea Whurrong tribe have been engaged in an over 300-year-old struggle to construct and maintain a viable "aboriginality" in response to colonization. For the Framlingham aborigines, a viable aboriginality serves multiple, often conflicting, purposes. First, and foremost, it provides them with the ability to maintain a communal sense of themselves as aborigines. Second, it establishes them as distinct from the European settler population in nearby Warrnambool. Third, it provides an advantageous platform from which to launch negotiations with local and federal government officials and institutions that impact the rights and benefits unique to Australia's aboriginal population. Fourth, it provides the means to define themselves as both distinct from, but connected to, more stereotypical forms of "aboriginality." Finally, it allows the Framlingham aborigines strategies through which to dictate to the European settler culture the degree to which they are willing to be co-opted in order to improve their lot in life.;This doctoral thesis examines a cross section of social events among the Framlingham aborigines, and between them and segments of the European settler culture, in order to explicate the strategies employed by the Framlingham aborigines in varied and contentious social contexts to maintain a viable aboriginality that reflects communal goals and values without sacrificing rewards related to westernized conceptualizations of "aboriginality." This thesis argues that for the Framlingham aborigines, aboriginality is defined, and made vital, in large part by conscious resistance to conceptions of aboriginality introduced from outside the community. |
