Warlpiri sociality : an ethnography of the spatial and temporal dimensions of everyday life in a Central Australian aboriginal settlement

This thesis is an ethnography of contemporary Warlpiri sociality that focuses on the everyday life in a women’s camp (jilimi) at Yuendumu 300kms northwest of Alice Springs. As a result of sedentisation and institutionalisation in the 1940’s, subsequent integration into the cash economy from 1969, with the full cash payment of social security benefits directly to individual Warlpiri, and the deinstitutionalisation of Yuendumu in 1970 through the introduction of an elected Council, Warlpiri life has undergone many changes. In respect of the family, promised marriage arrangements have virtually disappeared and marriage relationships are frequently unstable and short-lived until people reach middle age. Young mothers now often have children from a succession of husbands. Shifts in the constitution of the nuclear family have led to an increase in individuals’ residential mobility and to women’s camps, or jilimi, taking on an increased significance. Jilimi, and their older female residents, have become a central social focus for young mothers, children and as well as to men currently unmarried. Life in the jilimi is intensely social not least since the great majority of people who pass through are unemployed and live on social security payments. People’s lives are almost entirely taken up with socialising both in the jilimi or in visiting close relatives elsewhere in Yuendumu and in other communities. The intensity of this social life leads, among other things, to outbreaks of conflict from time to time and at others is transformed by participation in ceremonial life, particularly mourning ceremonies (sorry business). My consideration of everyday life at Yuendumu begins with a formal analysis of the spatial organisations of Warlpiri residences, outlining the residential flux throughout Yuendumu’s ‘suburbs’, ideas of private-public space within individual residences, and their gendered nature, as well as indicating the daily cycle of sociality within them. I then examine the nature of contemporary marriage arrangements to underline crucial changes as well as some continuities that are a feature of life today. Contemporary marriage arrangements are shown to simultaneously be the cause and the effect of an intensification of residential mobility and ensuing living situations for both children and adults. This leads to a discussion of the emergent centrality of jilimi within the contemporary settlement context as manifested in their increased number and size and complexity of residential composition. Singling out one particular jilimi as the ethnographic centre of the thesis, I introduce its spatiality and some of its main residents as protagonists for the ensuing chapters. I then analyse the flow of people through the jilimi, categorising different types of residents, by their varied lengths and reasons for their stays, which underscores the extreme mobility that is a paramount feature of contemporary everyday life. A detailed analysis of sleeping arrangements is shown to be a sensitive index of the state of interpersonal relations within the jilimi and to provide insights into Warlpiri personhood. I then look at the activities that take place during the day outlining the movements of people in and out of the jilimi with an emphasis on those aspects to do with provisioning around the sharing of food and other resources. The contrast between the restedness of the night and intensified social engagement during the day is brought to the fore by examining the criss-crossing paths of social engagements during the day. The intensity of interaction, along with boredom, leads to frequent outbreaks of fighting which are considered in the context of a discussion of the various temporal dimensions within which everyday life happens. These incorporate both the mundane everyday and those occasions when social life us broadened out to encompass people from other kinship networks and communities. The thesis concludes with a reflection on the reasons for and impact of this intensified sociality on Walpiri people’s contemporary lives