Blackfellas, Whitefellas, and the Hidden Injuries of Race
1. Edition December 2003
288 Pages, Hardcover
Wiley & Sons Ltd
In December 1997, in a small town in rural Australia, a fight broke out among local Aborigines that turned into a full-blown riot when police intervened in force. In Blackfellas, Whitefellas, and the Hidden Injuries of Race, anthropologist Gillian Cowlishaw uses this vivid incident as a means of launching a larger discussion about race, identity, and racialized violence.
* Brings indigenous Australians into the contemporary global race discourse in a lively, highly readable ethnography.
* Explores the local and national meanings of a race riot in Australia and the entrenched racial binary evident in everyday relationships.
* Raises questions about history, memory, citizenship, respect, and abjection as means of considering the politics, social science, and psychology of race rivalry and indigenous marginality.
* Written by a prominent scholar with clarity, verve, and accessibility both for beginners and those well-versed in contemporary debates.
Maps.
Prologue: Riotous Tales.
1. Introductions: The Signs of Social Life.
2. Stigma and Complaint.
3. Injury and Agency.
4. Performance.
5. Boundaries.
6. Violence.
7. Citizenship.
8. Our History.
9. Trials and Transformations.
Bibliography.
Index.
South Wales Premier's Literary Award
"Would that we all perform our duties with the sophisticated
balance of sensitivity, objectivity, and thoroughness that
Cowlishaw shows in this work." Journal of Anthropological
Research
"[T]his finely observed qualitative study... poses questions
that resonate far beyond the research site, exploring issues that
will be of interest to specialists on settler societies as well as
to students of ethnic and racial relations in general....
Blackfellas, Whitefellas is a powerful book... an elegant
and compelling argument." Ethnic and Racial Studies
"Everybody should read this book." The Australian
Journal of Anthropology
"This is an unusually important book for anyone concerned with
understanding race relations in settler colonies--not only
Australia, but also Canada and the United States. What can
'multiculturalism' mean when it comes to indigenous
peoples and white majorities? A talented ethnographer and
relentlessly critical thinker, Gillian Cowlishaw examines these
matters with theoretical sophistication and compelling ethnographic
description. She brilliantly helps the reader to understand how and
why local people identify and act in racialized ways, and she
demonstrates both the psychic gains and the personal injuries that
inevitably inhere to race. Perhaps the greatest contribution of
Cowlishaw's book is the nuanced weaving together of a
performative analysis of racial agency;...this is as much about
the production of national white privilege as it is about
local-level race-making. The reader---whether a racial minority or
a member of a national racial majority---will inevitably see
herself implicated in this penetrating description of race. This is
the best kind of anthropology." Tom Biolsi, Portland State
University
"In this rich, highly readable ethnographic account, Gillian
Cowlishaw seeks to reveal the 'hidden injuries' of race
relations in a small rural town in north-western NSW. She
eloquently develops her analysis around a particular social drama -
a 'riot' that occurred in the main street in 1997,
after police intervened in a fight among local Aboriginal people.
... Blackfellas, Whitefellas, and the Hidden Injuries of
Race is a critically important study, and essential reading,
not just for all anthropologists interested in Australia, but for
anyone searching for a way to understand the everyday practices and
performances of race and racism as well as the irruptions of
full-blown racialized violence that become front-page news. Perhaps
Cowlishaw's most valuable contribution is the highly
accessible way in which she articulates her discussion with the
voices of Indigenous people." -Rosita Henry, James Cook
University
"Dense, well-argued, fascinating and insightful, the book offers
fresh perspectives that seriously challenge contemporary
understandings and accepted perceptions... Using the 'so-called'
Bourke riots as a focus for a discussion of race and associated
topics, Gillian Cowlishaw shows how powerfully a non-Indigenous
author can address such circumstances... remarkable." Rural
Society