Full Description
First published in 1985, this book gives an intimate account of the cultural-political conflict between Australian Aboriginal people and Anglo-Australians, presenting the Australian social world from the perspective of the Aboriginal person.
Adopting a rigorous ethnomethodological analysis and the techniques of ethnolinguistics, Liberman looks at the interactional detail of the everyday life of traditionally oriented Australian Aboriginals. He uses tape transcripts of actual interaction to identify chief characteristics of Aboriginal social life. Liberman goes on to show how differences in systems of interaction have influenced relations between Australian Aboriginals and Anglo-Australians.
With its account of the politics of cultural conflict in a multi-cultural environment, this book is an apt extension of ethnomethodological issues to political concerns. It also exposes Aboriginal perceptions of Anglo-Australian/Aboriginal interaction to a degree not previously achieved in any sociological or anthropological study. As such, this book will be a valuable case study to students of social anthropology, race relations, intercultural communication and sociolinguistics.
Contents
Acknowledgements; Part I The collaborative production of congeniality and consensus in an Aboriginal society; 1. Congenial fellowship and consensus in central Australia 2. A competent system of organizational items 3. Consensus and society; Part II Through a glass, darkly: a historical review of European/Aboriginal interaction; 4. Aboriginal appraisals of Europeans 5. Anglo-Australian appraisals of Aboriginal people; Part III Intercultural communication in the Western Desert; 6. The hermeneutics of intercultural communication 7. Concrete relations between Aboriginal- and Anglo-Australians 8. Cultural politics; Appendices; Bibliography; Index
