DEFINING ANTHROPOLOGY – WHOSE PREROGATIVE?

The Hindmarsh Island case is one of a series of cases or inquiries, beginning perhaps with the Warumungu Land Claim, that have increasingly confronted not just anthropologists in Australia but the discipline of anthropology itself and what it means. The number of such cases is rising- for example, Daniel v State of WA (1999)1 and the State’s subpoena of all Michael Robinson’s material in relation to Ngarluma and Yindijibarndi peoples; Yorta Yorta and the judge’s criticism of particular anthropological evidence- to name just two of a number of recent ones. Hindmarsh Island, however, is the first in which an anthropologist has actually been sued for doing her job. It highlights, in a particularly lurid way, the extent to which anthropological practice has moved in this country from scrutiny largely from within the academy or the discipline to highly critical scrutiny from one of our society’s fundamental institutions – the courts and the rule of law. Within this framework for accountability, the terms of scrutiny are not set by the discipline but by others. The question is then not just about anthropological practice, but about the nature and credibility of the discipline itself. None of this is new, but the judgement of von Doussa J in Hindmarsh Island addresses or raises these issues in a more comprehensiv