Aboriginality: the affirmation of cultural identity in settled Australia

Aboriginal identity in settled Australia has been a largely neglected area of research. This neglect in interest and attention is partly the consequence of entrenched administrative and public views of Aborigines as 'acculturated' people dispossessed (through historical circumstances) of their cultural identity. Few enquiries have been made as to whether this is, in fact, an accurate assessment. Nor has the assumption that cultural identity is distinguished primarily by definitive signifiers, such as language, religion and social organisation, been challenged. This thesis examines the nature of Aboriginal cultural identity arguing that there is evidence for cultural discreteness - Aboriginality - despite some problematic entailments in Aboriginal social identity. The dilemmas of Aboriginal social identity begin with socialization. Children internalize their Aboriginal world in the context of socialization with a discrete Aboriginal context and amongst close kin. The harmony of this world is disrupted during secondary socialization when the Australian community's general devaluing of Aboriginality is evident. Coping with such disjunctions inclines people to believe and uphold an identity synonymous with an ideology of Aboriginality. But simultaneously, the conditions of Aboriginality foster other problems of identity. With significant kin obligations and relationships as the principal influences of social life, people constantly face difficulties of self/other differentiation and problems of marking off private space, thought and desire from the public, communal and kinship realm