TOBY MIu.ER EXPORTING TRUTH FROM ABORIGINAL AUSTRAUA IPORTIONS OF OUR PAST BECOME PRESENT AGAIN, WHERE ONLY THE MELANCHOLY LIGHT OF ORIGIN SHINES ' J don't think there can be any doubt that Aborigines have been the most important Australian exporters of social theory and cultural production to the northern hemisphere over the past century. How could one come to such a conclusion? When Jock Given approached me to write this paper, he referred to a recent essay of mine. It began like this: 'When Australia became modem, it ceased to be interesting'. I ran the argument there that Aboriginal Australia had provided Europe with a 'photographic negative' of itself. The essence of the north, by the blllowtng engines and disputatious parliaments of the modern, could be secreted by examining 'the prediarnarue realities of the Antipodean primordial' (Miller T 1994. 206-7). Once Australia was a sovereign state, and able to deny Aboriginal people citizenship, it was merely one more place filled with whitefellas. 'Australians' were transformed in northern hemisphere theory from dashing blacks living OUt of time into dull Anglo-Celts living out of place. Bur today, the country is returned to the lists of international intellectual pleasure. Lawrence Grossberg announces it as the site for cultural studies on the cover of Stephen Muecke's book about Aborigmaliry and cultural studies (1992) and elsewhere (Grossberg 1994, 17), and postrnodern Aboriginal-style cover an provldes a marketing ploy for Routledge's greatest hits of Australian cultural and media theory (Turner G 1993). So I arrived here with that provocation, derived from a previous publishing folly. My more general brief - to discuss the international circulation of Australian sociocultural ideas - is subsumed somewhat by this heritage, but not, I think, No 76- May 1995 unnecessarily. Of course, we could look for the global trace of contemporary Australia by a form of desperate content analysis. Adding up references to it in the Manhanan fiction of Jay Mcinerney, for example: eight in Bright Lights, Big City (986) if you count the 1984 New York Post, none if you don't; four in Ransom (] 987); ten in Story ofMy Life (989) if you count each mention of Nell's, three if you don't; and none in Brightness Falls (992). Or we could turn to the 1995 'Down Under' episode of The Stmpsons, in which a State Department representative briefs the family on bilateral relations: 'As I'm sure you remember, in the late 1980s the US experienced a short-lived infatuation with Australian culture (this is accompanied by a cartoon-slide of Paul Hogan as 'Crocodile' Dundee]. For some bizarre reason, the Aussies thought this would be a permanent thing. O( course it wasn't [the latter spoken before a slide of a boarded-up film theatre With 'Yahoo Serious Festival' on the decrepit building].' Alternatively, much could be said about the contributions made by the country's principal passport-holders in this field. My own quick list, compiled from popular repute and academic citauonal texts follows, in as idiosyncratic an order as possible: WK Hancock, Nick Cave, George Miller, Hedley Bull, Fred Emery, Coral Bell, RW Connell, Felix the Cat, Elizabeth Grosz/Gross, Martin Indyk, Meaghan Morris, Joan Sutherland, Dennis Altman, Patrick While, VG Childe, Tony Bennett, Mudrooroo Nyoongah/ Mudrooroo/M ud roo roo Na rrogin/Col in Johnson,JiII Ker Conway, Errol Flynn, INXS, Colin Clark, Rolf Harris, Gillian Armstrong, B Wongar, Robert Hughes, CliveJames, Yothu Yindi, Rupert Murdoch, Michael Taussig, Alan Donagan, Bob/Roberr/RIV Hodge, 7
Transcript
TOBY MIu.ER
EXPORTING TRUTH FROM ABORIGINAL AUSTRAUAIPORTIONS OF OUR PAST BECOME PRESENT AGAIN,WHERE ONLY THE MELANCHOLY LIGHT OF ORIGIN SHINES'
J don't think there can be any doubt thatAborigines have been the most importantAustralian exporters of social theory andcultural production to the northernhemisphere over the past century. Howcould one come to such a conclusion?
When Jock Given approached me to writethis paper, he referred to a recent essay ofmine. It began like this: 'When Australiabecame modem, it ceased to be interesting'.I ran the argument there that AboriginalAustralia had provided Europe with a'photographic negative' of itself. Theessence of the north, s~creted by theblllowtng engines and disputatiousparliaments of the modern, could besecreted by examining 'the prediarnaruerealities of the Antipodean primordial'(Miller T 1994. 206-7). Once Australia was asovereign state, and able to deny Aboriginalpeople citizenship, it was merely one moreplace filled with whitefellas. 'Australians'were transformed in northern hemispheretheory from dashing blacks living OUt of timeinto dull Anglo-Celts living out of place. Burtoday, the country is returned to the lists ofinternational intellectual pleasure. LawrenceGrossberg announces it as the site forcultural studies on the cover of StephenMuecke's book about Aborigmaliry andcultural studies (1992) and elsewhere(Grossberg 1994, 17), and postrnodernAboriginal-style cover an provldes amarketing ploy for Routledge's greatest hitsof Australian cultural and media theory(Turner G 1993).
So I arrived here with that provocation,derived from a previous publishing folly. Mymore general brief - to discuss theinternational circulation of Australiansociocultural ideas - is subsumed somewhatby this heritage, but not, I think,
No 76- May 1995
unnecessarily. Of course, we could look forthe global trace of contemporary Australiaby a form of desperate content analysis.Adding up references to it in the Manhananfiction of Jay Mcinerney, for example: eightin Bright Lights, Big City (986) if you countthe 1984 New York Post, none if you don't;four in Ransom (] 987); ten in Story ofMy Life(989) if you count each mention of Nell's,three if you don't; and none in BrightnessFalls (992). Or we could turn to the 1995'Down Under' episode of The Stmpsons, inwhich a State Department representativebriefs the family on bilateral relations: 'AsI'm sure you remember, in the late 1980s theUS experienced a short-lived infatuationwith Australian culture (this is accompaniedby a cartoon-slide of Paul Hogan as'Crocodile' Dundee]. For some bizarrereason, the Aussies thought this would be apermanent thing. O( course it wasn't [thelatter spoken before a slide of a boarded-upfilm theatre With 'Yahoo Serious Festival' onthe decrepit building].'
Alternatively, much could be said aboutthe contributions made by the country'sprincipal passport-holders in this field. Myown quick list, compiled from popularrepute and academic citauonal texts follows,in as idiosyncratic an order as possible: WKHancock, Nick Cave, George Miller, HedleyBull, Fred Emery, Coral Bell, RW Connell,Felix the Cat, Elizabeth Grosz/Gross, MartinIndyk, Meaghan Morris, Joan Sutherland,Dennis Altman, Patrick While, VG Childe,Tony Bennett, Mudrooroo Nyoongah/Mudrooroo/M ud rooroo Narrogin/Col inJohnson,JiII Ker Conway, Errol Flynn, INXS,Colin Clark, Rolf Harris, Gillian Armstrong, BWongar, Robert Hughes, CliveJames, YothuYindi, Rupert Murdoch, Michael Taussig,Alan Donagan, Bob/Roberr/RIV Hodge,
7
EKporting Truth from Aboriginal Australia
Peter Weir, Gunther Kress, Air Supply, EltonMayo, Kylie Minogue, Malcolm Williamson,AL Burns, Fred Schepisl, julius Stone, BorisFrankel, Sidney Nolan, Rick Springfield,Graeme Turner, Tracey Moffatt, Paul Hogan,MAK Halliday, Jane Campion, JudyWajcman, Wilfrid Thomas, John Passmore,andjack Davis. I do not seek to minimise thesignificance of their achievements or ofothers who might be added (brieferresidents such as Enoch Powell, John Fiske,or the Bee Gees). I want to argue, however,that no set of nominated individualsexercises the significance outside Australiathat Aborigines have done, and continue todo, as a collectivity, via their uptake byforms of social and cultural rheorisationdedicated to understanding moderniry andirs post,
I wish to emphasise the followinglimitation to the paper at this point. It isnegative critique. I am concerned here withthe use of Aboriginaliry as a theoretical tropeby white people, not wirh the actual detailsof what could or could not be regroupedretrospectively under that sign. I am writing,therefore, as an historian of whiteintellectual discourse outside Australia, notof black thought itself.
If you turn to the principal European andAmerican sociocultural writers from the1820s to the 1960s - Georg Hegel, Karl Marx,Sigmund Freud, Emile Durkheim, MarcelMauss, Frederick Engels, Gaetano Mosca,AR Radcliffe-Brown, Ruth Benedict, TalcottParsons, Claude Levi-Strauss and CliffordGeertz are my arbitrarily selected samplehere - you find Aboriginal Australians'notions of human classification, duty andsocial organisation taken as critical keys tounderstanding lost truths of humanness(something I first noted following aconversational aside from John Hartley).These truths are held to have beensubmerged in European and Americanmodernity through the sweeping changes ofindustrialisation, urbanism, representativedemocracy and production-line culture. Notmany of these theorists had much to do withAustralians face-co-face (Mauss, forexample, acted as a translator betweenFrench and Australian troops during theGreat War and called himself a museumethnographer (Fournier 1993, 332; Mauss1993, 7)); but nor did they need to for thepurposes of their work. So what did they
8
make of this distant world? Durkheimprovides half of the faux quotation thatgives this essay a title. He saw the study ofAboriginal people as a way to make'portions of our past become present again'0961, 22). Europe's modernity hadweakened its version of the affective bondsthat provided the grout holding societiestogether, in favour of an intense process ofindividuation. Nevertheless, 'the ensembleof mental habits' clearly on view in blackAustralia was still at work in Europe;submerged perhaps, but operant asclassjficatorv mechanisms for coordinationand hierarchisation (Durkheim & Mauss1970,88). Only the primitive, particularly itsAustralian variety, could provide Benedictwith her desired 'laboratory within whichwe may study the dtversiry of humaninstitutions' (1959, 17, 26, 33). And forFreud, the 'savage and semi-savage races'are of 'peculiar interest for us, for we canrecognise in their psychic life a wellpreserved, early stage of our owndevelopment'. His Totem and Taboo placesparticular faith in combining knowledge ofFirst Peoples from 'folklore' with 'thepsychology of the neurotic', from analysis.He goes off in search of correspondencesbetween the two, and the 'youngestcontinent, namely Australia' offers a perfectinstance via Aboriginal institutions andbeliefs (1946, 3-5, 40).
SEARCHING FOR THE MODERNJohn Hartley argues that the exterminationof the Aboriginal people proposed by thelikes of the Sydney Morning Herald in 1844,and taken up by populisr activity in NewSouth Wales and Van Diemen's Land, wasactually more than a racism that marked outdifferences between white and black in agruesome way. It was also a means ofdifferentiating the colonists from Britain, anexpression of singularity that helped to
bring a national identity into discourse. Thiswas part of the long haul to shift the signifierof 'Australians' to indicate 'white inhabitants'rather than 'Aborigines', who instead cometo be known as 'our Aborigines' or'Aboriginal Australians'. They lost the mastersignifier along the way. By 1951, the Heraldand Weekly Times' Great Jubilee Book,issued to commemorate the first half-centuryof Federation, could respond to its question'Who are the Australians?' with a British!
Madia InlOIlllation Australia
European answer. The volume's onlyreference to Aborigines came 'for therecord', listed alongside Chinese, Afghansand Indians as the country's 'full-bloodednon-Europeans'. Conversely, generations ofyoung Britons had their version of themission ciuilisatrtce enunciated in textbooksthat utilised the Empire's positive treatmentof Aboriginal people as an index of us moralsuperiority (Hartley 1992, 201·4; Stratton1989, 133-4). Clearly, Aborigines weretesring grounds for Britain: to be clearedfrom their territories by colonial subjectsbent on a project of nation-building via theeconomical use of space and time, bur/andto be protected in 'hose territories by distantgovernors dedicated to a project of empirebuilding via {he moral management of thosesame coordinates. 'At home' (in Australia),dealing brutally with the problem of theindigenous people became a meter ofprogress, of fitness for independence. 'Backhome' (in Britain), showing clemency toAboriginal people was a measure ofmaturity, of fltness for world leadership.
Outside this specific imperial technology,a complex dialectical play betweeneconomics and government, Abortginaliryavant la lettre was critical for anunderstanding of the project of modernity.Hegel regarded (black) Australians as'culturally inferior' and 'immature' even inthe form of their geography 0988,163,162),Durkheim's sociological classic TheElementary Forms of tbe Religious Life, firstpublished in 1912, was based on Aboriginalmaterial, specifically the Arunta people. Thisis somewhat hidden in many Englishtranslations, which leave our 'he subtitle, WSysteme Totemtque en Australie (TheAustraltan System ofTo/ems) or render it asA Study in Religious Society. Durkheim'sarmchair account of totemisrn and the basisof religious forms of life remained thestandard account of the phenomenon foryears. His explanation of how the socialworld of ritual imposes obligations on irsmembers towards venerated objects wasfundamental to theorising the strangerelationship enacted between Christians andthe first day of the week, and then on tounderstanding Inrersublecnvlry in generalterms (Radcliffe-Brown 1976, 123, 130).Durkheim's earlier work with Mauss (1970),also based on 'the Australians', establishedagendas for theorisation and fieldwork in
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the developing area of social anthropologyin Britain, France and the Netherlands.Symbolic classjfactions were investigatedfrom China to Greece, in accordance withAboriginal standards (Needham 1970, xxxiii),
Elementary Forms examines 'the mostprimitive and simple religion which isactually known'; simple in terms of straightforward social organisation, and simplebecause it is sealed off from other forms ofsacred life, unlike the leaky ecumenicism/conflict of European faiths. Durkheimdefines his work as an attempt to explain an'actual reality which is near to us, and whichconsequently is capable of affecting ourideas and our acts'. This 'reality is man, andmore precisely the man of toda y'. Aboriginalways of life are deemed 'better adapted thanany other to lead to an understanding of thereligious nature of man'. His choice isdetermined by the promise that thepremodern will enable him to 'find thecommon foundation of the religious lifeunderneath the luxuriant vegetation' thatoverlays it in industrial society'Sheterogeneity and bizarre propensity forindlviduauon. Although "he lower religions'are 'rudimentary and gross', that very fact'makes them instructive, for they thusbecome convenient for experiments' 0961,13, 17·8, 21). Across the political divide,Engels' theorisation of the origins ofcapitalist society draws heavily oncomparative material that includesAboriginal tribes, whose legal system hemuch admires 0978, 15-6, 46-51).
This unspollt terrain also providesmaterial for the fin de steele ItalianMachiavellians, or elite theorists, such asMosca. His thesis of the inevitability ofoligarchy draws on anthropological reportsof Aboriginal life to stress not so muchevolutionary superiorlry as the power ofimported know ledges, technologies,diseases and warfare to displace priormodes of production. This is the liberal sideto Mosca that seeks to counter notions ofinnate white rule by reference [0 thehistorical specifics of white domination0939,21-3). For Parsons, on the other hand,there is a clear heuristic pleasure in equatingAboriginal Australia with primitive forms ofsocial organisation, because of its economicsimplicity and kinship affinities. Thesequalities make 'Australian society'
9
Exporting Trulh from Aboriginal Australia
undifferentiated, a sin for high-priests of themodern but also a useful measure of rheirown evolutionary narcissism 0966, 35-6,41).
And for linguists and anthropologistsacross the world, 'Australians' has conrinued(0 signify black, not white,life (Dixon 1980).So when Radcliffe-Brown delivers the HenryMyers lecture to the Royal AnthropologicalInstitute in 1945 on 'Religion and Society',his discussion of rribal kinship is glossed asan account of 'Australian society'. There is adual significance in this seeminglyunorthodox alignment of signifier andsignified. Firstly, Radcliffe-Brown is drawingconclusions about the structural homologyand aetiological intersection of the twoconcepts in his tide. They are thought tooffer models for seeing 'religions in action'elsewhere 0976, 169). In the process,differences between Aboriginal groups areerased (Stratton 1989, 134-35). Secondly,and this is an implicit point, 'Australia' is ofimerest insofar as it signifies 'Aboriginal'.The country's status as a white settler colonypromises little if anything for rhe domain ofsocial theory. Once 'Australians' are white,they are truly uninteresting.
The disarticulation of the sign from irsreferent undergoes a fascinatingrearticulation in Australian sociology.Introductory texts for undergraduates oftencomprise valuable discussions of Aboriginalsocial conditions. But their theory sectionscontinue to be exegeses and distillations ofEuropean social thought, minus theoriginary Context. In short, theorists ofmodemiry who relied on exported accountsof Aboriginal life to undergird their work areimported to Australia sans their anchor. So itbecomes possible for Donald Edgar inIntroduction 10 Australian Society toreference Durkheirn's ElementaryFormsas ameans of knowing 'the emotional bonds towhich we attach moral ideals'. There is noindication that this book was grounded inAboriginal society. In fact, Edgar's exemplarof how contemporary Australian readers mighttest Durkheim's seemingly transcendentalfinding is seeing what happens if these protosociologists 'refuse ro stand up for God Savethe Queen' ()980, 94-5).
fO
modernity to its unsteady successor.Consider these four sites:
• Philip Kaufman's The Rigbl Stuff (983)includes two spectacular encountersbetween NASA astronauts and tribalAustralians. The first is a complexdiscussion over the relative merits ofAboriginal and North American guidancesystems; the second, a mysric momenr ofsalvation for Ed Harris's troubled capsulecourtesy of the smoke from an Aboriginalceremony.
• Tracey Moffatt's films draw applause fromfeminist theorists EAnn Kaplan (989) andPatricia Mellencamp, notably in the latter'sbrilliant, redemptive reclamation of theavant-garde and history for womendirectors of colour 0993-94).
• Wim Wender's Until tbe End of tbe World(992) returns us to the pre-Psy<::bo days ofHollywood horror via a mad scientist whois assisted by Aboriginal technicians in hisefforts to visualise dreams (ie blackAustralian cosmology made palatable formedia mavens).
.At New York's Asia Sociery in 1988, BillyStockman and Michael Nelson of thePapunya Tula Arts cooperative construct a'sandpainung'. The Asia Society ships inthree tons of sand from Long Island toassist in the production of central Desertmimesis. But Stockman and Nelson preferto paint on the masonite floor (Which isnice and red) because rhe watered sanddoes not develop the surface they areaccustomed to working with.Nevertheless, the men consent to use theintroduced materials when admonishedby Asia Society officials that 'weadvertised sandpainring' (Myers 1994,679-80, 690).And black Australians signify something
important in recent self-help technologies aswell. Consider rhe work of Marlo Morgan.She went to Australia because the US healthsystem was not supporting her work for'weI/ness'. The immensely successful bookdetailing her experiences there withAboriginal people (23 weeks on the NewYork Times Book Review best sellers' list in1994-95) and its accompanying videotapeMutant Message Doumunder (993) are veryenlightening; and I choose that word Withcareful abandon. For Morgan is a rrulyredemptive, American soul. She reachesdeep into the rich lode of Protestant desire
Media Information Australia
and denial to mock her own secularity andpomp, leavening it with a primitivistspiritualism that can then be peddled onretreats for the terminally anxious (who arealso terminally affluent) at the 'SurvivalCentre', where her reminiscences andprescriptions from Australia were recordedon tape. Tne video slick logos promoting hercompany nave outline maps of Australia andthe USsuperimposed on one another and ablack kangaroo nestled against (one out of)cross-sections of teeth, buttes from JohnFord's Stagecoach (939) drive throughMonument Valley, or perhaps the upperreaches of a cactus. The slick also indicatesthat although Morgan's 'education spansfour continents and includes multipledegrees' she encountered 'her most valuablereachers not at the universities and clinicsbut instead the primitive, illiterate AustralianAborigine bush people of the wild outbackdesert'. She is recorded in a single-cameraset-up in a medium shot that sometimeszooms uncertainly in to medium close-up:redolent of stand-up comedy or, perhaps,given the narrative that unfolds, JMarried aMonster from Outer Space (Gene Fowler Jr,1958).
Morgan removes her watch at thecommencement of the video-lecture inorder to mimic Aboriginal time, undertakesto dig a hole in the stage to create a 'potty',and then offers the following about going toAustralia: 'I gave away everything I had andleft Kansas'. It was her first time as an adultmat she had not possessed the key to a door.After initial inner-city encounters shecategorises urban Aborigines as alcoholics.White AUStralians respond to her critiques oftheir neglect by saying 'Abos' do nor have aEuropean sense of lime, will not learn toread and write, and go 'walkabout', makingthem unemployable. Marlo mocks her owncondescension as a person claiming to
understand life, money, and the self. Suchnotions are 'pretty asinine'. But the companysucceeds and she feels very proud.
When she meets tribal Aborigines, Morganis required to undergo a hugetransformation. They offer her 'a big rag ...and it was well-used' in order that she can be'cleansed' by wearing no underclothing. Aspart of her initiation into Aboriginal ways,she is made 'filthy'. She is undergoing'testing' to go beyond behaviour and looks,to question 'in the very moral of my bones in
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my guts ... who was I really?' Such selfexamination is essential because of theAborigines' experience with meddlingministrations from Christians. Then she isinvited on a 'walkabout ... across Australia'(this is illustrated on the video by a signreading 'WARNING NOTHING AVAILABLENEXT 1000 KILOMETRES'). Morgan explainsthat she cannot go because of bills andgovernments and foreignness. But she isthen told she has been chosen: she needsthis experience if she is to develop as aperson. On the walk, her feet are grievouslyinjured. BUI she pUIS up with bleeding,blisters, and intense heat. Now in the middleof a grand process of renewal, Morgantranscends pain, 'walking around on thesestubs you're borrowing. They aren't reallyyours'. Fourteen hundred miles are coveredin four months: 'They unwound everything Istood for ... There isn't anything in me thar isthe same as it was then ... I don't eat thesame, I don't look rhe same'. Each morningin rhe desert 'I would look our. And there'snothing out there. Really nothing', Butblacks are excited about each day and whatto do. For them, 'every day is a wonderfulday'. As they get up each morning,Aboriginal people in the desert stand 'like asatellite dish' and speak 'to the world':persona nul/ius at work in terra nul/ius.
She learns that 'You are not your body', aninsight that leads to loud applause from theCartesians in her 'Survival Centre' audience.'You only have a body .... Let your self getout of the way'. Ego disappears. In theprocess, Morgan learns from hercompanions that all people have all talentsand that it is 'very important to live inharmony with the universe'. No pollutionhas ever been caused by Aborigines, nor anyenvironmental hazards. All materials thatthey use 'can go back to the earth'. For theseare non-judgmental, non-hierarchicalpeople. Disputes are resolved by putting aperson physically in the place of heradversary (a nice tribal instance of Gestaltpsychology and ideal communicativerationality). Aborigines are 'like wonderful,wonderful children', bUI 'wise' as well. Thiswisdom is contrasted with her own folly. Sheis a 'mutant' (their term for white peoplewho do not eat naturally occurring food,have allergies to nature, and suffer mentalillness). Unlike the mutants, tribal peopleroutinely live ro 110. These remarkable
11
Exporting Truth from Aboriginal Australia
actuarial findings arise because Aborigines'have avoided the Australian governmenrtotally'. At this point. the tape cuts to agraphic of black birds in flight, then back toMorgan: 'J now see ... like an Aborigine'.And whereas '[he mutant response' to, forexample, a child's nightmares may be denialof the dream's reality, the Aboriginal (andpost-mutant) reaction is (Q get metaphysicalabout it.
Prayer is said for her 'on the day thar I wasreleased to go back TO my society'. But she isnow thoroughly primordialised and haseven 'developed a hoof' on the bottom ofher foot. Morgan 'felt beautiful' until she sawherself in the window of a store, 'at the levelof a beggar'. Previously critical of streetpeople begging, she now understands. Theprayer of departure had talked aboutchanging the mutants: 'they seem tounderstand truth, but it'S buried'. The chiefcriticism of such figures is theirephemerality. The Aborigines said of her,'We have selected this mutant as ourmessenger', a bird 'to tell the world that thereal people are leaving'. Her arms areupraised at this point, perhaps in praise toher publishing house.
What is going on here?A projection back to Eden was integral to
the longing of the modem to know itselfthrough a differentiation from the 'primitive'.Put another way, the use of Aboriginal life toillustrate the teleological motion endorsingadvanced industrial societies also containedits share of melancholic nostalgia forsimpliciry. With the shift to the postmodern,this idealisation reestablishes the citabiliry of'Australia', as we can see in the work of LeviStrauss. He regards 'the Australians' as'backward on the economic level', but 'so farahead of the rest of humanity' in terms ofharmonious social relationships that thecomplexity of their organisation can only becomprehended via 'modern mathematics'.The ties of marriage bonds and theirassociated theorisation as law embodysuccessful life management and representthe first speculations over what this entails(Levi-Strauss 1983, 343).
Similarly, Warlpiri art becomes a centralstrut in Daniel Miller's reclamation ofmaterial culture as an inevitable form ofobjecrification, rather than something that ispart of an alienating decline into industrial
12
and postindustrial society as per theromanticism of Hegel and Marx (Miller D1987). Looking back on the difflculries ofunlversallslng about 'man' from a base inethnographic reportage, Geertz wonderswhether we can 'grasp him' via 'thosefantastic Australian marriage rituals'. (Ipresume he is not referring to the lateSenator Murphy's legacy of the Family LawAct.) In sync with the new particularism ofthe postmodem, but still in the thrall of thegenerality of classical theory, Geenzsuggests that 'the cultural particularities ofpeople - in their oddities' may reveal thebest possible trace 'of what ic is to begenerically human'. In a notorious phrase,he avows: 'Every man has a right to createhis own savage for his own purposes' 0973,43, 347). And the new uptake of Mauss as ascion of anti-depth perforrnativitv in hisaccount of infinitely disposable masks of/asthe self shows little direct engagement wirhthe Aboriginal ideas on personhood that arecritical to his position (Mauss 1993, 12, forrecent rediscovery, see Carrithers et aI1993).
This tendency for outsiders to find themodern and the posrrnodern in blackAustralia, with white Australians proceedingto follow their theoretical lead minus itsempirical underpinning, reaches its apogeein the second half of my titular fauxquotation, with Jean Baudrillard'sidentification of 'rhe southern lands, whereonly the melancholy light of origin shines'.He nominates 'Australia' as 'a kind ofspaceship' on an other-worldly orbit. Like atrue Hollywood NASA-man or 'SurvivalCentre' graduate, Baudrillard manages toconnect 'the telepathic ecosystem of theAborigines' with our 'hypermodern,hyperreal future' (1990, 161, 164).
For its pan, cultural studies' relentlessquest for new l'ields to conquer helps in thiscolonisation of Aboriginal life; with adifferent intellectual agenda from modernsocial theory and psy-discourse, but usingremarkably similar methods. The mammoth(600-page) new book Cultural Politicsrepresents a major play by Basil Blackwell toproduce an undergraduate-style text thatuses cultural studies to explore non-mediaarts. Significantly for my purposes here,authors Glenn Jordan and Chris Weedon golooking for {heir subtitle - Class, Gender,Race and tbe Postmodern World - from abase in Wales chat allows them to write
Media Information Australia
about the rest of us. Specifically, theirdemonisation of 'the white middle classethnographer' (never named or engagedwith) and their appropriation of Aboriginalliterature (never considered in terms of itstheoretical/critical apparatus, just read fromGlamorgan) underwrites attempts to find outabout the overall nature of 'CULTURE,POWER and SUBJECTIVITY' 0995, 490,498).
And they are not alone. Consider theModern Language Association, a US-basedorganisation of 32,000 litterateurs - what athought that is. Its flagship journal, PMLA,recently published a theme issue on'Colonialism and the Postcolonial Condition'dedicated to foregrounding the relationshipof criticism to the self and its other. Theintroductory essay is illustrated with theBritish theorist and photographer VietorBurgin's 'double image of Australia's history'from the invasion bicentenary. His Untitledis comprised of two adjacent squares. Onehas a white backdrop with a map ofAustralia, coloured black, and '1788' in blacktype. The other is a reverse print, with '1988'in white type (Hutcheon 1995,8). Here, thepostcolonial is sharpening the politicisedproject of contemporary cultural critics,simultaneously decentnng imperialism infavour of peripheral sites and focusing onhow the" Western core has defined itselflogocencrically via the otherness of colour.
This tendency extends into a love of thecounter-indicative, evidenced by seeminglyendless secondary references to the nonvictim status of Aboriginal viewers oftelevision, such as the beliefs of youngaudience members that African-Americansituation comedy actors are Aboriginal, orthe fact that tribal communities interpretHollywood films on video against the grain(originally reported in Hodge & Tripp 1986,138-42, and Michaels 1994, 81-95; cited inFiske 1988, 316, 320; Fiske 1989, 57, 137,166; Fiske 1993, 128; Hay 1992, 361).Similarly, Sean Cubitt's readership inLiverpool enables him to herald 'Warlpiriexperirnents with television in WesternAustralia' as 'Third Video', dedicated toresistive communication via an intenselocalism that demonstrates the anomie,falsely individual address of 'Western lV'0993, 173).
Another sign of the postrnodern: it's hardnow to produce the old form of classic
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TobV Miller
ethnography, one that essays acomprehensive engagement with an overallway of life. Anthropology is fallen under themetacrirical spell cast by textual analysis,and the area's distributional lodestone - USpublishing - increasingly seeks crossdisciplinary sales fields combined withAmerican subject matter. We can see theintersection of these tendencies in the formof two recent books by major NorthAmerican scholars: Fred Myers' PintuptCountry, Pintupi Self (1991) and EricMichaels' Bad Aboriginal Art (1994). Thecontrasts and connections between thesetwo books serve to summarise andexemplify what I have been trying to saythroughout this article.
Ptntupi Country may well be one of thelast grand-scale ethnographic accounts oftribal Australia. Much has already beendocumented, and few groups continuehunting and gathering as a form of life. As Iindicated above, intellectual fashion decreesthe need for self-reflexivity, autocritlque,and a new kind of fieldwork (time spentover the word-processor and the mirror).This is not to say that Myers' work is out oftime (consider the feminist uptake byWeiner 1992, 98-130). It is very careful totheorise the self, both the one who writesand those who are written about. As well asthis, Myers overtly imports and refines socialtheory in the context of what he encounters,acknowledging the uniqueness and theordinariness of life in the desert. He refers to'Pintupi political theory', a memorablephrase indeed. (If you look at whiteAustralian works of 'political theory',Aboriginal materials are sparse indeed, evenwhen 'the primitive' is troped [Condren1985; Miller JDB 1967,1981; for primitivism,see Bull 1977, 59-60).) Myers talks verypointedly about how Pintupi theoryexcludes communicative ethics: politicalculture takes a neo-Wittgensteinian formthat projects each experience into aforthcoming posslbiliry, where precedent isall, but is itself known through anintersection with the moment at hand (1991,284-5).
Despite this careful work, his efforts drewintense obloquy from Michaels (1987a,1987b) in a multiply published reviewarticle. This led to a point-by-pointrefutation (Myers 1987). That intellectualhistory is left untraced, however, with the
13
Exporting Truth from Aboriginal Australia
latest reprint of 'If 'All Anthropologists AreLiars...', in Bad Aboriginal Art. The essayprovides Dick Hebdige, of Valencia,California, by way of Birmingham and otherBritish centres, with a take-off point fordistinguishing Michaels' work fromconventional social and cultural theory, withMyers as his bad object. Hebdige finds 'acomprehensive critical agenda for crosscultural communications research in the1990s' in the Michaels book (Hebdige 1994,x), This is not surprising; it is one more stagein a lengthy history of First World peoplewriting about tribal Aboriginal forms of lifeand then exporting this back home, with asubsequent elevation of status forthemselves and a renewal of critique foracademic theorlsarion. What surprises,given his own activities in this domain, isHebdige's amnesia about systems of thoughtand forms of academic translation.Committed to repeat a well-established past,he welcomes the fact that Michaels' Warlpirifieldwork surpasses 'the status of a casestudy', which would amount (0 'adiminution'. Instead of some 'poignantfootnote in the triumphalist history ofcapitalist development and/or culturalimperialism', Bad Aboriginal Artdemonstrates 'the general pertinence ofAboriginal appropriation and adaptationstrategies for anyone interested indeveloping alternative models of TVproduction, distribution, and reception'. Notsurprisingly, this heroisation tropes [hepostmodern in its endorsement of selfreflexivity; specifically, 'the final coup degrace' that Hebdige claims is delivered toMyers' work for failing to meet this test ofcultural studies narcissism (Hebdige 1994,xiii-xiv, xviii, xxiii-xxiv). This is, again, anastonishing claim, given the pains that Myersgoes to in Pintupi Country to theorise hisown position. But it is the same kind of errorthat armchair citarional practices routinelyproduce, and it matches the slide of thesignifier that erased Aboriginality from thesources of modern social theory, precisely bynegating the specificity of 'case studies'.Postmodern cultural theory brings itself intobeing via the very strategies that it claims todeplore.
Mention of Michaels inevitably leads us tohis much-vaunted production work with theWarlpiri people, and Francis )upurrurla inparticular, on indigenous media. What better
14
instance of First World adventurism playedout on Aboriginal theory can there be thanan American anthropologist decreeing 'TheAboriginal Invention of Television'? Thelatest (fifth) edition of Horace Newcomb'snow-standard US textbook of readings ontelevision is in some sense bound togetherby Michaels' account of Central Australia,even though the volume is remorselesslyfocused on the United States throughexciting analyses of Rosanne, NorthernExposure, Married with Children, and so on.Newcomb's introduction claims that theYuendumu community'S encounter withtelevision 'encompasses and capsulises [asplendid Americanism) every issue touchedon in this collection'. Now Newcomb'sproject is essentially a North American brandof left Leavisisrn, dedicated to 'the making ofcritics'. Michaels' essay is suited to thisproject because it models the intrication of'the aesthetic and ideological, the culturaland social, the context of home and thecontext of nation, the application ofpractical politics' (Newcomb 1994, 12-3). Inshort, Michaels is replaying Durkheirn'sfindings on the essence of religion and sociallife, this time transcending spirallingsmokestacks and anomie loss of communiryto reveal the nature of television (notsociety) to those living in the First World.And more than that, Michaels' deeplymoralistic stances model perfectlyNewcomb's claim that it is [he responsibilityof critics [0 perform ethical exercises as partof their vocation to aesthetlcise from selfdecreed vantage points on the cusp betweenthe modern and its post (1994, 502).
Bur, of course, Michaels represents a smallpart of the very rich terrain of productionwork in the area, panicularly by comparisonwith Neil Turner, Anmanari Nyaningu, and
- Pitjantjatjara EVTV at Ernabella, or theachievements in the firsr days of CAAMA(Turner N 1990; Batty 1993a, 1993b;O'Regan 1993). Perhaps the most irnportantacademic contribution to the export of theseideas and practices comes from FayeGinsburg's synthesis of AustralianAboriginal media experiences and theorieswith those of other First Peoples (] 989, 1991,1993a, 1993b, 1994a, 1994b). As she says,'Aboriginal media has triggered interestworldwide for indigenous groups that haveformed alliances around the production oftheir own media'. At the same time,
Meclia Information Australia
Westerners are 'fascinated by the seemingdisjunction of Aboriginal people stereotypically identified by their relativelysimple material culrure and distincrly nonWestern cosmology - working comfortablywirh the latest in satellite and videotechnologies' (1993b, 92). Her work hashelped ro bring ro international prominencethe ABC's Aboriginal Programs Unit. Butbeyond that, it is significam that Philip Barryand Freda Glynn were joim recipients in1993 of Canada's prestigious McLuhanmedal and C$50,OOO prize for contributionsto intemanonal media, in recognition oftheir work with Imparja Television. This isfar more than an academic phenomenon:Aboriginal TV has generaled fearure articlesin Rolling Stone and the former New Society(Ginsburg 1993a, 562).
Al a theorencal level, Ginsburg's analysishas also helped to situate Aboriginaldilemmas over the media in a way thatconnecrs with other fourth World issues andthe very nature of the means and mode ofcommunication in this fin de steele moment.She suggests that indigenous media havebeen (mtsnmderstood in two ways: as acompromise of traditional custom in the faceof electronic communication that pollutesformer ways of life, and as the promise oftranscendence/renewal through utopiancontact over the ether wirh like-mindedothers (Ginsburg 1993a, 560-61). Somethingsimilar seems to be happening with rheidealisarion by world environmentmovements of Aboriginal life and itsArcadian harmonies (Turner B 1986, 90-91).
There is little room to develop thesepoints further here. Clearly, a fine line has tobe walked in engaging 'Australia' fromelsewhere, between a sloppy appropriationthat wilfully loosens the sign from itsreferent in the form of a continuing processof logocentric white projection, and thedesire to give some extraordinary political,theoretical, and aesthetic developments inFirst People's media their due significance.In closing, we might exemplify thisawkward oscillation by turning to thatstrangely esteemed text, John Tomlinson'sCuituralImpertaitsm (1991). Its fronuspiece,an image of Aboriginal people sittingoutside a house watching TV, provides theur·moment for Tomlinson. The photograph'immediately strikes an exotic note', because'Itlhese people are obvtously nor
No76- May 1995
Toby Miller
Westerners', He uses it as a conceit to posethe questions that inform the remainder ofhis book: the dangers of foreign relevision,the impossibility of knowing whataudiences make of texts, and the threatsposed by cultural imports to indigenousculture; in short, dealing with the risks andpromises of globallsed modernity.
We are reminded here of the provocationthat EE Evans-Pritchard made aboutsociologists who perused Ausrra lianethnographies for an understanding ofmodern life's other: 'rhe theoretical capiralon which anthropologists today live ismainly the writings of people whoseresearch was almost entirely literary'(quoted in Needham 1970, xl), This is notthe best way ro be. Returning to Hanley'sargument about rhe destrucrion ofAboriginal people as a means ofdifferentiating colonial 'Australians' fromtheir British betters, we can now see acontrapuntal deployment of this troublednational sign. lf the modern in Australia wasannounced by genocidal conduct - even asit was being defined elsewhere in relation tothe victims of that behaviour - then theposrmodern finds a new national marurirydeclared by Paul Kearing through asupposed reconciliation with First People(Tyler 1994, 5-6). Costs as well as boons willflow if we forget what rhis repetltloninvolves.
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--, 1994b, 'Embedded Aesthetics: Creating aDiscursive Space for Indigenous Media',Cultural Anthropology, 9, 3, 365-82.
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Toby Miller Is an Assistant Professor ofCinemaStudies at New York University. Hispublicationsinclude The Well-Tempered Self: Citizenship,Cuhore, and the Postmodern Subject (TbefohnHopkins UP, 1993) and (with StuartCunningham) Contemporary AustralianTelevision (UNSW Press, 1994).
