when the object speaks, a postcolonial encounter - by aileen moreton robinson

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When the Object Speaks,

A Postcolonial Encounter:

anthropological representations andAboriginal women's selfpresentationsAileen MoretonRobinson

a

aFlinders University, Adelaide, Australia

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To cite this article: Aileen MoretonRobinson (1998): When the Object Speaks, A Postcolonial

Encounter: anthropological representations and Aboriginal women's selfpresentations, Discourse:

Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education, 19:3, 275-289

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Discou rse: studies in the cultural politics of education, Vol. 19, No. 3, 1998 275

When the O bject Speaks, A Postcolonial Encoun ter:anthropological representations and Aboriginal women'sself-presentations

A IL EE N M O R E T O N - R O B I N S O N , Flinders University, Adelaide, Australia

It remains the case that the ethnographer's translation/representation of aparticular culture is inevitably a textual construct, that as representation itcannot normally be contested by people to whom it is attributed, and that asa 'scientific text' it eventually becomes a privileged clement in the potentialstore of historical memory for the nonliteratc society concerned. In modernand modernizing societies, inscribed records have a greater power to shape, toreform, selves and institutions than folk memories do. They even construct folkmemories. (Asad, 1986, p. 163)Aboriginal women's autobiographies announce their cultural difference fromthe dominant White culture. This difference is quite complex and exists on anumber of levels, some of which are difficult for White readers to perceive, sostrong is their inclination to incorporate everything they read into their ownexperience. (Brewster, 1996, p. 39)Culture, far more than a mere catalogue of rituals and beliefs, is instead thevery stuff of which our subjectivities arc created. (Rosaldo, 1984, p. 150)

As an Aboriginal woman currently reviewing feminist literature in Australia, I havefound that representations of Aboriginal women's gender have been generated predom-inantly by women anthropologists. Australian feminists utilise this literature in theirwriting and teaching and accept its truths without question; the most often quotedethnographic text is Diane Bell's Daughters of the Dreaming (1983a).1 Feminists' lack ofcritical engagement with this literature implies that they are content to accept womenanthropologists' representations because Aboriginal women are not central to theirconstructions of feminism.2 Instead the Aboriginal woman is positioned on the margins,a symbol of difference; a reminder that it is feminists who are the bearers of truewomanhood.Despite this lack of enga gem ent by feminists, the an thropo logical lite rature from 1961to 1986 has been reviewed by an anthropologist, Francesca Merlan, who states that theliterature focuses on the status and role of Aboriginal women in relation to sexuality,reproduction, bestowal, marriage and religion. Merlan argues that the questions that0159-6306/98/030275-15 1998 Carfax Publishing Ltd

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276 A. Moreton-Robinsoninformed the research concern the nature of European women's involvement in theirsociety rather than arising 'from an appraisal of the problems confronting Aboriginalsocieties today' (Merlan, 1988, p. 63). The literature focuses on traditional socio-culturalsystems rather than specifying the continuity and change of the current situation.Merlan's advice to anthropology is:

to bridge the gulf between the study of culture contact as essentially history,and also, in a more realistic fashion than hasheretofore been thegeneral case,to make description of the relations ofAboriginal societies with European-Aus-tralian society a more legitimate part of social theory anddescription. (Merlan,1988, p. 64)Merlan's advice to anthropology is commendable and I endorse her critique, but shedoes not connect the problems in this literature to the methodology that privilegesanthropological representations. In this paper I argue that the 'traditional' versus'contemporary' representations of Aboriginal women in anthropological literature gener-ated by women anthropologists are problematic3 but continue to be our measure ofauthenticity. In taking this approach my concern is not to argue or imply that womenanthropologists are ethnographic liars nor am I seeking to provide a definitive statementon who is an Aboriginal woman. Instead my task is to show that the methodologydeployed by women anthropologists creates spurious representations which are chal-lenged by the self-presentation ofAboriginal women's autobiographical narratives. I willdeal briefly with the literature by women anthropologists and elucidate how themethodology creates a 'traditional' versus 'contemporary' binary which is problematiscdby theconflation of ' race' and 'culture'. I then unpack elements of the social constructionof subjectivity inAboriginal women's autobiographical narratives to demonstrate that thevoice of self-presentation offers different insights about the construction of gender. Iconclude by evaluating the disjuncturc between Aboriginal women's lived experiencesand anthropological constructs.

Anthropological Representations of the Aboriginal Woman: a problem ofmethodologyThe greater part of the published work of women anthropologists is concerned withspecific groups of Aboriginal women who are identified as traditional or traditionallyoriented.4 Although the use of the term 'traditionally oriented' is used as a way of lettinggo of any pretensions to a pristine culture the analyses are predicated on its ontologicalexistence. The ideological construction of 'culture' which informs the literature is basedon 'seeing authoritative meanings as the apriori totality which defines and reproduces theessential integrity of a given social order' (Asad, 1979, p. 607). Authentic culture is anapriori system of essential meanings embedded in traditions.

A few published works are concerned with Aboriginal women who are categorised asbeing half-caste, part Aborigine or of mixed descent.5 These texts are informed by anideological construction of 'race' which constitutes an apriori essential biologism based onskin colour. The deployment of both ideological constructs of 'culture' and 'race' resultsin the establishment of a traditional versus contemporary binarism within the texts.These texts relate both directly and indirectly to specific aspects of the role and status ofAboriginal women who are positioned as either 'traditional' or 'contemporary'. Inconstructing the ' traditional' the theoretical deployment of 'culture' and 'race' deniessubjectivity and everyday practice as the stuff of culture. The anthropologically con-

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When the Object Speaks 211

structed a priori authoritative meanings preserve and capture within texts the dehistori-cised exotic and biologically pure. The methodology allows for an illusory absence ofcolonisation which is nevertheless preserved. Aboriginal wom en living on rem ote govern-ment reserves or Christian missions under welfare conditions not of their own makingand over which they had little control were not seen to compromise their authenticity as'traditional' women because they spoke their language, did some ceremonies and werebiologically uncontaminated (Cowlishaw, 1986a, p. 227).6 When women anthropologistssuch as Reay (1951) and Barwick (1962) are confronted by the effects of colonial historyin their fieldwork among 'contemporary' Aboriginal women, the search for a prioriauthoritative meanings, which can only be found in 'traditional' Aboriginal culture,becomes problematic and we see:

The use of the terms half-caste, mixed bloods and part-Aborigine without therelevance of 'caste' and 'blood' to what were supposedly studies of culturebeing spelt out, imply a causal connexion between the dilution of the blood andthe loss of Aboriginal, that is, traditional practices. In some cases there werereferences to these matters but no systematic analysis was attempted.(Cowlishaw, 1986a, p. 226)

What becomes opcrationalised and takes precedence in their analyses is an a prioriessential biologism w hich is used to explain miscegenation an d social chang e. Th e impa ctof colonial history is acknowledged but not critically examined. Instead the 'traditional'versus 'contemporary' binarism operates to deccntre the historicity of Aboriginal women.Using the methodology to construct the 'contemporary' Aboriginal woman results incentring both the 'traditional' Aboriginal women and the White wom an. 'Conte mp orary'

Aboriginal women's authenticity and culture are positioned as ambiguous and oscillatebetween how they arc like or unlike their 'traditional' sisters or how they arc like orunlike their White sisters in their behaviour and practices. They are like their 'traditional'sisters in relation to the specific cultural remnants, like their White sisters in relation tospecific acquired behaviours, but unlike both because of their perceived racial differences.The use of an a priori essential biologism as the basis of interpre ting an d e xplaining thecultural differences of the 'contemporary' Aboriginal woman produces a contradiction.Biologically and culturally she is liminal while being on a trajectory of assimilation. Inother words, 'contemporary' Aboriginal women are becoming more like White womenin their practices because they do not look like the 'traditional' Aboriginal woman andthey lack traditional culture. The problem with this proposition is that assimilation is aninept explanation for different cultural constructions of gender. Learning to speak Englishand mimicking the customs of the coloniser does not mean that this fundamentallytransforms the self that has been socialised within Aboriginal social domains. What itmeans is that Aboriginal women learn to acquire new knowledges in order to act andfunction in contexts not of their choosing or under their control within the dominantculture. The accumulation of these knowledges docs not mean that they are assimilated.Instead what it points to is that Aboriginal subjectivity is multiple because of theconditions under which it has been and is shaped. However, multiple subject positionsdo not preclude the existence of a core subject position which has the ability to acquire,interpret and create different subject positions in different contexts. What womenanthropologists have failed to understand in their desire to explain the role and status ofAboriginal women is that the methodology precludes them from developing differentrepresentations of Aboriginal wom en's gender. Aboriginal wom en's cultures differ and donot fit within representations of cither the 'traditional' or 'contemporary' Aboriginal



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278 A. M oreton-Robinsonwoman. Aboriginal women continue to forge cultural practices under conditions and incontexts not of their choosing; and do so creatively. For Aboriginal women survivaldemands expertise in cultural translation and self-presentation within the dominantculture.

This leads me to ask: who is the intended audience of this anthropological literatureand what is the desire of the knower? At one level the intended audience is otheranthropologists. At another level the intended audience is the White women's move-ment because of the concern with whether or not women's oppression is universal. Theuniversality of the oppression of women is addressed through examining the role andstatus of 'traditional' and 'contemporary' Aboriginal women. The question is answeredby the revelation that 'traditional' and 'contemporary' Aboriginal women are op-pressed; where the analyses differ is in context and the degree of oppression. T hecontext and degree of oppression relate to the chosen cultural site under scrutiny. Theexistence of oppression in these sites also works to support the proposition that theoppression of women is culturally constructed. Focusing on 'traditional' or 'contempor-ary' Aboriginal women, who are represented as the different 'other', means that thisuniversal proposition is credible in feminist and other academic discourses. Womenanthropologists seek to investigate how 'traditional' and 'contemporary' Aboriginalwomen's role and status are in substance unlike or like those of their White sistersthrough the centring of their analyses on the areas of concern to White westernwomen's discourse. That is, the sites analysed reflect or symbolise those sites underinterrogation in western society by the women's movement, such as: marriage; kinship;women's economic activity; sexuality; reproduction; ritual; and socialisation. This is notto say that the Aboriginal women about whom they are writing are not concerned withthese aspects of their lives. What is at issue is that it is not they who set the terms ofreference for investigation, nor are they the intended audience of this literature. Ineffect they are positioned in a contradictory way because, while they arc the subject ofanalysis, they remain objects marginalised within the text. The literature is writtenabout them, not by them, for them or with them.

Their status as objects within the text relates to the methodology employed bywomen anthropologists. While the subject of women anthropologists' analyses arewomen this has not meant that a feminist methodology has been employed. Instead theliterature falls unde r w hat He nrietta M oore (1988, p. 1) calls an 'an thropolo gy ofwomen' in that the guiding principle for women anthropologists was challenging malerepresentations of the role and status of Aboriginal women. However, this challengewas within a methodological framework that does not allow for the theorisation ofAboriginal women's position as socially situated subjects of knowledge. Even Diane Bell(1983a), who is explicit about her feminist politics and method, is constrained bythe methodology which leaves her work reproducing constructs of 'culture' and 'race'that are consistent with the work of male anthropologists in Aboriginalist anthro-pology.8

All the fieldwork undertaken by women anthropologists occurred in contexts shapedby colonialism. As victims of their methodology, women anthropologists suppress theexperiences of Aboriginal women and provide distorted representations of their gender;representations that are explicitly linked to the ethnocentric notions embedded in theirmethodology and political positions on gender. These representations are acted uponand serve to disempower Aboriginal women because they have become 'truth' infeminist discourse and the dominant culture.9 As captives of their methodology, womenanthropologists have constructed representations of the Aboriginal woman based on a



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When theObject Speaks 279small number of the population. What of other Aboriginal women who did not receivethe anthropological gaze? Do they represent themselves in the same way?Aboriginal Women's Subjectivity: relationality and spiritualityAlthough Merlan states that biography is not equivalent to social description andanalysisshe urges us to bridge the gulf between biographical and research literature. Aboriginalwomen's life writings provide knowledge for thinking abou t and analysing intersubjectiverelations that shape gender. Aboriginal women have written about their lives in an erawhen protection and then assimilation were government policies. Under protection andassimilation policies, Ella Simon (1987), Alice Nannup (Nannup et ai, 1992), DaisyCorunna (Morgan, 1987), Molly Kelly and Daisy Kadibil (Pilkington 1996) are alldefined as half-castes on the basis of biological criteria by government and churchofficials. However, such labelling tells us little about the way in which Aboriginalsubjectivity is shaped and reshaped through their experiences.

The experiences revealed in Aboriginal women's autobiographical narratives10 showimportant differences about the way in which subjectivity is constructed through sites ofsubjugated knowledges." Through the use of collective memories, Aboriginal women'snarratives make visible and affirm the continuity and persistence of Aboriginal subju-gated knowledges in spheres of interdependent cultural domains which are peopled byboth spiritual and human beings. In these autobiographies spirituality permeates life inthat the universe is not blind or mechanical but aware and organic (Gunn-Allen, 1992,p. 80).Unlike most autobiographies, these narratives express collective relations betweena number ofAboriginal people transcending several generations underpinned byconnec-tions with their country and the spirit world. In each of the narratives Aboriginal peopleare connected either by descent, country, place or shared experiences. These relationsare personal in nature and are intrinsic to Aboriginal women's subjectivities in negotiat-ing Aboriginal and White cultural domains.12 In Aboriginal cultural domains anAboriginal woman's relationality is therefore never based upon the tolerance of othersbut the experience of the self as part of others.For Ruby Langford (1988), Delia Walker (Walker & Coutts, 1989), Alice Nannup(Nannup et al, 1992), Connie McDonald (McDonald & Finnane, 1996), Elsie Roughsey(1984), Ella Simon (1987), Molly Kelly, Daisy Kadibil and Grade Cross (Pilkington,1996), Daisy Corunna (Morgan, 1987), Glenyse Ward (Ward, 1988, 1991) and Rita

Huggins (Huggins & Huggins, 1994) their experiences of learning was through stories,observation and mimicking of adults and other children based on relationships ofreciprocity and obligation in Aboriginal domains on cattle stations, missions, reserves,with their families or other Aborigines. The most important relationships for Aboriginalwomen in their narratives are with either their surrogate or extended families. Aboriginalmothers and grandmothers demonstrate a spirit of generosity to their families andcommunities and, for children who have no experience of their families in the missiondormitories, it is the older children from whom they learn about the ethics of relational-ity. Aboriginal women's relationality is based on giving priority to personal relationsbased on principles of generosity, empathy and care which connote ideals of respect,consideration, understanding, politeness and nurturing. All of these women sought toimpart such ethics to their own children and grandchildren in later life.

Social relationships are important in all cultural domains but their nature differs, andthe moral universe that informs these relationships in Aboriginal cultural domains isoutside the experience of White people. Relationality is one dimension of this moral

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280 A. Moreton-Robinsonuniverse, which is spiritually interconnected. The world is understood by Aboriginalpeople as organic and populated by spirits that connect both places and people. SallyMorgan's grandmother and mother hear the corroboree in the swamp when Sally'sfather is ill and understand this as the spirit's recognition of the father's mental turmoil(Morgan, 1987). The corroboree is no longer heard after his death. When DaisyGorunna dies it is the call of the bird that tells Sally about the end of her grandmother'slife. Glenyse Ward learns of the spiritual beings in the caves near Wandering mission andknows that the children risk being taken if they venture out at night (Ward, 1988). AliceNannup returns to make peace with her country with the snake who lives in thewaterhole at Mallina by performing a water-based ritual (Nannup et al., 1992). RubyLangford receives a sign of bad news when late at night there are three knocks at herdoo r but no one is in sight (Langford, 1988). T he next m orn ing H aro ld Leslie is told hisfather has died.

Ella Simon tells of the stories given to her by her grandmother which were 'to makeus keep the law or just be better people' (Simon, 1987, p. 106). One concerned themuckarung (lizard), who was once a young Aboriginal woman who disobeyed the law bygoing near the men's bora ground. She was punished by being turned into themuckarung which sits on a log waving its front legs as if to signal 'go back, go back'. Thestory of the goi-on, which was something like a ghost, was used to stop Aboriginalchildren from wandering off and getting lost. Delia Walker tells of how the red waratahtree came to grow on the rock near the sea on the mid north coast of New South Wales:a young Aboriginal woman pined for her lover who had been killed in war, and whenher family arrived to look after her they found her tears had turned into a waterfall fromthe rock she was sitting on and the tree growing in the spot she had been sitting on(Walker & Cou tts, 1989, p. 8). The tree is still there today.Such stories and experiences illustrate the way in which the spiritual nature of theworld is culturally inscribed. The spiritual world is part of nature which is experiencedconsciously; spirituality is thus a physical fact because it is experienced as part of one'slife. As Brcwster comments 'such knowledge is incommensurate with a rational beliefsystem a nd as such it is tacit resistance to western ways of think ing' (Brewster, 1996, p . 9).Aboriginal women do not just see events and objects differently from W hite women; theyalso understand themselves as persons in quite different ways. In the narratives ofAboriginal women, White women are perceived as being impersonal and having intereststo protect, whereas Aboriginal women are represented as collective rather than individ-

ualistically oriented in their psychology. In these narratives, differences between Aborigi-nal women tend to be articulated in terms of country, mission or relationality rather thanrace or class. The narratives are not based on psychological deconstructions that seek toexplain why things happened in terms of actors' motivations and intentions, but insteadthey seek to describe how things happened because they are inclusive with theirexperiences. In these narrativesthe objectification of self... is articulated through personalised relations whichextend beyond the immediate family. The interconnectedness of self to othersis related to those with whom one is familiar: those with whom one is related,one grows up with or, more specifically, those with whom one engages inrelations of mutuality; ... where notions of generalised reciprocity shape andinform daily interactions. (Morris, 1989, p. 215)

Th e narratives of Aboriginal women show a mo ral ordering of sociality which emphasises

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When theObject Speaks 281mutual support and concern for those with whom they are interconnected and revealmuch about howrelationality and spirituality constitute Aboriginal w om en's subjectivity.

Gendered Racial Oppression and Aboriginal Women's ResistanceRacial oppression is evident in the narratives of Aboriginal wom en in the descriptions ofpersonal interaction with White people which form part of the 'social processes whichallow such differentiation to flourish as a set of practices and an ideology' (Cowlishaw,1988, p. 248). The control and subordination of these Aboriginal women and theirfamilies was legally sanctioned and enforced through policies of assimilation whichutilised biological criteria and cultural inferiority to separate and displace children fromtheir mothers, families and land. Scientific discourses in the White public domainprovided certain knowledge about the biological and cultural inferiority of Aborigineswhich informed the action and decisions of government and served as a rhetoric ofrationalisation for the implementation of its policies byagents who legitimately sou ght toimpose them.

In White domains, Aboriginal women were confronted with having to define theboundaries between themselves andWhite others because of the impersonal nature of thepower relations involved. Aboriginal women deployed the subject position 'servant' in analien White domain where the disciplinary process was directed at them with moral andphysical force. Government policies implemented onmissions, reserves and by employerswere aimed at producing disciplined servants, whowould comply with the requirementsof being in service, by alienating them from Aboriginal culture and their country.Individuals received punishment for contravening rules and learnt discipline, but resistedindividuation because they drew on their experiences andknowledge of another standardof being human. Alice Nannup tells of the beatings received for what she perceives asminor breaches of rules (Nannup et at, 1992, p. 74). Elsie Roughsey conveys theconstraints placed on the self in this domain by continually referring to the rules thatcontrolled all aspects of life on the mission and the terrible beatings meted out by theWhite authorities for minor breaches of these rules (Roughsey, 1984, p. 10).Ella Simon(1987), Ruby Langford (1988), Rita Huggins (Huggins &Huggins, 1994), Delia Walker(Walker & Coutts, 1989) and Daisy Corunna (Morgan, 1987) all experienced hard workand routines at the hands of the White missus. In these White cultural domains, thewomen are given authoritative direction and instructions which they learn in order tofunction in their roles as domestic servants. It was training in basic skills, not socialetiquette, that was being transferred by White managers and missionaries. In Whitecultural domains the intersubjectivity of relationships was not based on mutual under-standing and relationships of reciprocal recognition.

In White cultural domains Aboriginal women became subjects to be taught whileWhite women and men assumed the role of the knowing subject. Aboriginal people weretreated as though they had no knowledge, feelings or emotional attachments and wereperceived as being tabula rasa.13 The dehumanised position of Aboriginal women isexemplified repeatedly in the narratives. Daisy Corunna tells of when her daughterGladdie was taken from her by White Alice Brockman:When Gladd was 'bout three years ole, they took her from me. I'd been'spectin it. Alice told me Gladdie needed an education, so they put her inParkerville Children's Home. What could I do? I was too frightened to sayanythin'. I wanted to keep her with me, she was all I had, but they didn't want



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282 A. M oreton-Robinsonher there. Alice said she cost too much to feed, said I was ungrateful. Shewas wantin' me to give up my own flesh and blood and still be grateful.Aren 't black people allowed to have feelins'. (Morgan, 1987, p. 332)

Mr and Mrs Campbell arranged for Alice Nannup to be taken from her mother on thepretence of an education (Nannup el at, 1992, p. 39), while the missionaries kept ElsieRou ghsey from her family in the mission on M ornin gton Island (Roughsey, 1984, p . 7),and Rita Huggins was separated from her mother and father on the Cherbourg reserveto be trained for domestic service (Huggins & Huggins, 1994).

Despite individual acts of kindness, the experience of the majority of these womenwith White women and men is that they arc treated as having no feelings or opinionsabout themselves or the world in which they live. Glenyse Ward tells us her Whitemissus informed her that Glenyse was her black slave. Alice Nannup recounts herexperiences with Mrs Larsen, who tells Alice about her life but never asks about Aliceor her family. In the autobiographical narratives experiences of intersubjectivity inWhite cultural domains do not disrupt the resilience and importance of Aboriginalsociality. Throughout their lives most of these women socialise and operate in predom-inantly Aboriginal cultural domains. It is the knowledge, values and behaviour patternsof early childhood and life in Aboriginal domains that inform their subjectivity. Theyalso have an understanding that they have to deploy other subject positions in specificsituations as defined by White cultural norms.Different subjectivities are apparent in Aboriginal women's narratives. Glenyse Wardis the obedient servant to her White missus on the farm and a 'troublemaker' in thecompany of other girls on the mission (1991, p. 101). Connie McDonald is the shy

reflective daughter in the company of her 'half-caste' father but an articulate andoutspoken young girl when she deals with the missionaries (McDonald & Finnane,1996, p . 110). As policies changed, A boriginal w omen gained mo re freedom andcontrol over their lives and as they grew older, married and had children they assertedthemselves more in White cultural domains. The denial of Aboriginal women's socialcontext and emotional reality by White women and men was in contrast to Aboriginaldomains where they learned as children, through social interaction, that they are notseen as individuals but as someone's sister, daughter or grandaughtcr and that theybelong to a certain group of people.Political and legalistic control through the state informed by a racist ideology

influenced public discourse and was reflected in the behaviour of Whites towards theseAboriginal women. Private convictions or personal beliefs about biological and culturalinferiority inform the behaviour of White women like Alice Brockman, who tells DaisyCorunna that because she cannot afford to keep Daisy's daughter Gladys, the girl mustbe sent away. Towards the end of her life, Daisy implies that Alice Brockman knewwho fathered both Daisy an d h er dau ghter Gladys (Morgan, 1987, p. 332). Alice canlive with the product of her father's sexual indiscretion, namely Daisy, but seeks toremove the product of his incestuous rape, Gladys, without any consideration of thefeelings of both Daisy and Gladys. Through her actions Alice protects the family nameand social status of her father by positioning both Daisy and her daughter Gladys asless than human by denying aspects of their subjectivity. Alice is able to do so becauseshe believes in the inferior status of Daisy and Gladys, and knows that the state willsanction her world view by supporting her request to remove Gladys for 'economicreasons'.

Mr and Mrs Campbell both collude to deceive Alice Nannup's mother about an



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When the O bject Speaks 2 8 3education and in fact remove Alice from her family and country so that she can betrained as a domestic servant for White women (Nannup et ai, 1992, pp. 58-60). It is noaccident that the prepubescent Alice is taken away before she reaches the stage of sexualpromiscuity. White women's fear of Aboriginal women's sexuality was connected topreserving their social status as White men's possessions, a status connected to anideology of true womanhood which encompassed virtue, morality, reproduction of therace and civilisation (R iddett, 1992, p . 89).

Whether by individual intervention or coercion 'expressions of racism were notpremised on a random pattern of intolerant behaviour but rather inscribed into asystematic pattern of inclusion and exclusion' (Morris, 1989, p. 188). Such exclusions areevident in experiences of Aboriginal women. Delia Walker's husband was excluded fromreceiving medical treatment by a doctor who would not treat Aborigines (Walker &Coutts, 1989, p. 60). Alice Nannup was not allowed to eat in the boarding house diningroom despite the fact that her board and lodging were paid for, and she was stillexpected to assist in the kitchen for free (Nannup et al., 1992, p. 154). AlthoughAboriginal women's physical contact or presence were deemed to be polluting incontexts, in others their contact with material items was permitted for the purpose ofservitude. The preservation of the contradiction was necessary to maintaining theontological basis for hierarchy and discrimination.Aboriginal women's narratives reveal they were locked into pervasive and entrenchedrelations of power through which racial, sexual, economic, political and cultural oppres-sions were part of public discourse sanctioned by the state. However, despite theenveloping of Aboriginal women in these relations, they were not passive victims butparticipated in forms of resistance which were at times overt, but usually discrete and

indirect. Forms of resistance are also contradictory; for example, oppression ofteninduces feelings of inferiority and servility in the oppressed which can result in aconscious disavowal of being a member of the stigmatised group. Ella Simon oftenseparates herself from the category 'Aborigine' in her text (Simon, 1987) and Daisy andGladys Corunna both deny to Sally Morgan (1987) they are Aboriginal women,preferring instead to identify as Indian or White. The overt denial of Aboriginality incertain contexts, however, does not disrupt their socio-cultural practices in othercontexts. The constitution of their complex and multiple subject positions is produced bythe practices associated with the definitions and representations of Aboriginality devel-oped in public and legal discourses as much as it is shaped by an Aboriginal discourseof self-definition and den ial. Daisy, Gladys an d Ella may hav e resisted definitions of thedominant culture in particular contexts by denying Aboriginality but that did not changethe view of the stale, their White bosses or their socio-cultural practices.

In the autobiographical narratives of Aboriginal women there are numerous acts ofresistance occurring on a daily basis. All the women broke the rules of the mission orreserve and received punishment but that did not deter opposition. Stealing, lying,making use of property, mimicking and outright wilfulness, escape and sometimesviolence find expression in White cultural domains outside the mission or reserve inpublic spaces and households where these Aboriginal women participated in relations ofdomination and oppression.Christianity played an important part in the containment of Aboriginal women onreserves and missions. While it was supposed to assure their compliance and docility, italso exposed to them the hypocrisy of its own teachings through the gap between Whitepractice and beliefs. Christianity served as a tool of resistance in some contexts bycontributing to the moral grounds for projecting Aboriginal women's rights and value as



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284 A. Moreton-Robinsonhuman beings. Glenyse Ward draws on Christianity to make the decision finally to leaveher employer who treats her as a black slave:

I just couldn't keep on working for her after meeting people like the nuns andtheir friends and dear old Bill, who I was going to miss a lot. I felt in myselfthat I could not continue on anymore, no matter what the circumstances were.(Ward, 1991, p. 151)

In Aboriginal domains, the message of resistance is tied to the common experience ofracism and the way in which this impac ted on the constitution of subjectivity. Differentforms of subjectivity can in themselves be sites of resistance. Relationality and spiritualitysymbolise a rejection of the impersonal contractual relations of the dominant societywhere 'social patterns of individuation and atomisation are consistent with constructionsof a self-possessing a nd self app ropriatin g indiv idual' (Morris, 1989, p . 219). Theimportance of the extended family for Aboriginal women is integral to their subjectivitybecause it is where the historical experiences of these women are located as a site of theirknowledge and practice.

ConclusionThe anthropology of Aboriginal women is premised on authentic culture as an a priorisystem of essential meanings embedded in traditions and an a priori essential biologismbased on skin colour which privileges some Aboriginal women over others. Conceptual-ising the 'authentic' culture and other in this way circumscribes the possibility oftheorising cultural a nd social chang e (Asad, 1979, p. 609). It also produ ces a distortedmethodology which

instead of taking the production of 'essential meanings' (in the form ofauthoritative discourse) in given historical societies as the problem to beexplained ... takes the existence of essential meanings (in the form of authenticdiscourse) as the basic concept for defining and explaining historical societies.(Asad, 1979, p. 623)Any methodology that is based on a system of closures that define what is the object ofstudy and what methods will be used to obtain the data will produce a distortedrepresentation which requires interrogation. The ideological constructions of 'race' and'culture' are a part of the epistemology that informs the methodology employed bywomen anthropologists who have constructed particular representations of Aboriginal intheir texts

The power to define reveals inequalities in the relationship between women anthropol-ogists and the Aboriginal women they write about. Anthropological discourse operates ina domain where knowledge production is supported and valued by society. In thisdiscourse self-definition by Aboriginal women is not accorded the same value. Knowl-edge is never innocent, it is the key to power and meaning. It can be used tocommunicate as well as control. What is spoken, how it is spoken, when it is spoken,where it is spoken, why it is spoken and for whom it is spoken are linked to theknowledge/power nexus. As Cowlishaw argues,

While anthropologists would often prefer to avoid the crude political arenawhere the niceties of academic argument are ignored, they cannot avoidbecoming implicated in the control of knowledge which is part of the ideologi-

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When the O bject Speaks 28 5cal process whereby Aborigines are defined, delineated and controlled.(Cowlishaw, 1986a, p. 234)

Women anthropologists in Australia need to 'search for new ways of representing andunderstanding discourse within the context of social life' of Aboriginal women (Asad,1979, p. 609). This should also involvea sustained analysis of the epistemological assumptions that inform andprivilege Western thought and its cultural representations, and a deconstruc-tion of our desire to render the space of alterity into a generalised equivalence,wh ether between wom en o r between cultures. (Kirby, 1 991, p . 400)The space of alterity in Aboriginal women's narratives locates the manufacturing of adistinctive subjectivity. The experiences and knowledges exposed in the narratives byAboriginal women are both an expression of different cultural forms and a rejection ofW hite cultural d om ination and varying forms of oppression (Morris, 1989, p . 219).Different ethics, behaviour and values repudiate the moral and intellectual hegemonythat effects such domination and oppression. Aboriginal women's lives are part of thecolonised history of Aboriginal people's political and cultural struggle which shapes boththe conscious and unconscious social practices of everyday life in both Aboriginal andW hite dom ains (Larbalestier, 1991 , p . 91). T he cultural specificities of Aboriginalwomen's existence are embedded in historically constructed relationships with Whitepeople which continue to inform processes of intersubjectivity in Aboriginal and Whitedomains. State intervention into the lives of Aboriginal women was part of the socialprocesses that shaped the nature of these relationships. After the 1970s, which saw achange in government policies, many of these women obtained a tertiary education afterthey had raised their families. They acknowledge that they are now freer than when theywere young. However, their narratives show that they know such freedom has not comewithout cost nor has it changed in any fundamental way the nature of their sociality.Their sociality is still predominantly maintained and intimately connected to Aboriginaldomains.

The narratives of Aboriginal women reveal that they are embodied, and embedded ina network of social relationships in Aboriginal domains. The body for Aboriginal womenis the link to people, c ountry, spirits, hcrstory a nd the future and is a positive site of valueand affirmation as well as a site of resistance. As keepers of the family, Aborigina l womenare the bearers of subjugated knowledges.Aboriginal women's experiences speak of intersubjective relations with White womenwhich were contained by distance, unease, racial superiority and often cruelty. Whitewomen participated in gendered racial oppression both as unconscious and conscioussubjects through an ideology of true womanhood which positioned Aboriginal women asless feminine, less human and less spiritual than themselves. Aboriginal women'sresistance to such definitions show 'we have never totally lost ourselves within the other'sreality. We have never fallen into the hypnosis of believing that those representationswere our essence' (Dodson, 1994, p. 9). Aboriginal women's subjectivity is multiple andcomplex. The disjuncture between anthropological representations of Aboriginal womenand Aboriginal women's self-presentation makes the role of interpreter visible anddisrupts claims to speak from the space of alterity. The me thodology deployed by wo menanthropologists has been used to plant 'real people and places in the imaginary gardensof anthropological texts (Behar & Gordon, 1995, p. 10). Unlike anthropological repre-sentations of Aboriginal women, the self presentation of Aboriginal women discloses thecontinuity of colonisation in discursive and political practices. My analysis of Aboriginal



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When the Object Speaks 28711. I use Patrica Hill-Collins' definition (1991) of subjugated knowledges, which in turn is derived from the

work of Foucault. She argues that Black women's subjugated knowledges arc blocks of historicalknowledge that are present but disguised and have as much validity as western knowledges. Subjugatedknowledge is a 'particular, local, regional knowledge; a differential knowledge incapable of unanimitywhich owes its force only to the harshness with which it is opposed to everything s urrounding it' (Foucaultin Hill-Collins, 1991, p. 18).

12. I acknowledge that it is problematic to invoke a conceptual separation that is not as fixed in practice.However, I have chosen to do so for the purpose of recognising that different cultural knowledges operatein spaces that arc always ambiguous because of the overlap in different 'frameworks, discursive regimes,and reperto ires of mea nin g' (Ang, 1997, p . GO).

13. A blank slate to be written on.14. A summary exposition.

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when the object speaks, a postcolonial encounter - by aileen moreton robinson

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