Domains and the Intercultural: Understanding Aboriginal and Missionary Engagement at the Mornington Island Mission, Gulf
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Domains and the Intercultural: Understanding Aboriginal and Missionary Engagement at the Mornington Island Mission, Gulf of Carpentaria, Australia from 1914 to 1942 Cameo Dalley & Paul Memmott
Published online: 30 January 2010 # Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2010
Abstract The Mornington Island Mission in the Gulf of Carpentaria, Australia, was a site of historical engagement between Aboriginal people and missionaries. In this paper, we apply the theoretical concepts of “domains” and the “intercultural” to the investigation of this engagement between 1914 and 1942, when the mission was overseen by the Reverend Robert Wilson. Through the examination of the removal of Aboriginal children, the establishment of a mission compound and Aboriginal camp and the inclusion of Aboriginal adults into the mission compound through production and economy, we show how mutually constituted domains operated. At the same time, the interaction between Aboriginal adults and children with missionaries within these domains was increasingly intercultural in nature. Thus, both “domains” and the “intercultural” are shown to have relevance to the historical case study. Keywords Mornington Island Mission . Australian Aboriginal . Domain . Intercultural . Engagement
Introduction Missions and missionaries had a defining role in shaping the colonial encounter between Aboriginal people and non-Aboriginal people in many parts of Australia during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. In recent times, research in this area has rapidly grown as academics and the broader Australian community reflect C. Dalley (*) : P. Memmott Aboriginal Environments Research Centre, The University of Queensland, Brisbane, Queensland 4072, Australia e-mail: [email protected] P. Memmott e-mail: [email protected]
Int J Histor Archaeol (2010) 14:112–135
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critically on a period of history which had prolific impacts in many parts of Aboriginal Australia (e.g., edited volumes Barry et al. 2008; Cole et al. 2005; Costello 2008). Earlier anthropological explorations into this field, particularly those by Rowse (1992), Tonkinson (1982), Trigger (1986, 1992), and von Sturmer (1984), discussed the spatial ordering of Aboriginal settlements into “domains.” Thus constituted, domains were ideological and physical spaces within settlements which were the primary realm of a particular group (Aboriginal or non-Aboriginal) to the general physical exclusion of others. Spatial domains in this context were reproduced by mutually constituted processes of social closure which sometimes, although not always, involved unequal power relations between one group and the other. More recently, however, Australian anthropologists have turned to the “intercultural” to theorize the growing entanglement of Aboriginal people and cultures with the broader Australian society. Spearheading the intercultural approach, Merlan (1998, 2005, 2006) explored relations between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal people in the Northern Territory town of Katherine. The key theoretical contribution of Me
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