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Book Cover
E-book
Author Lydon, Jane, 1965-

Title Fantastic dreaming : the archaeology of an Aboriginal mission / Jane Lydon
Published Lanham : AltaMira Press, c2009

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Description 1 online resource (xvii, 321 p.)
Series Worlds of archaeology series
Worlds of archaeology series.
Contents "They covet not magnificent houses, houshold-stuff" -- Orienting the Wergaia -- Ebenezer, for example -- Space, power, and the mission-house -- "All these little things" : material culture and domesticity -- After the mission closed : Antwerp, 1904-1930 -- The outskirts of civilization -- "A handle of a cup" : changing views of the missions
Summary "Fantastic Dreaming explores how whites have measured Australian Aboriginal people through their material culture and domestic practices, aspects of culture intimately linked to Enlightenment notions of progress and social institutions such as marriage and property. Archaeological investigation reveals that the Moravian missionaries' attempts to "civilize" the Wergaia-speaking people of northwestern Victoria centered on spatial practices, housing, and the consumption of material goods. After the mission closed in 1904, white observers saw the camp settlements that formed nearby as evidence of Aboriginal incapacity and immorality, rather than as symptoms of exclusion and poverty." "Conceptions of transformation as acculturation survived in assimilation policies that envisioned Aboriginal people becoming the same as whites through living in European housing. These ideas persist in archaeological analysis that insists on Aboriginality as otherness and difference, and equates objects with identity. However Wergaia tradition was place-based, and, often invisibly, Indigenous people maintained traditional relationships to kin and country, resisting white authority through strategies of evasion and mobility. This study examines the complex role of material culture and spatial politics in shaping colonial identities and offers a critique of essentialism in archaeological interpretation."--Jacket
Bibliography Includes bibliographical references and index
Notes Description based on print version record and CIP data provided by publisher; resource not viewed
Subject Aboriginal Australians -- Australia -- Victoria -- Social life and customs
Aboriginal Australians -- Missions -- Australia -- Victoria -- History
Material culture -- Australia -- Victoria -- History
Aboriginal Australians -- Cultural assimilation -- Australia -- Victoria
Spatial behavior -- Australia -- Victoria -- History
Aboriginal Australians -- Housing -- Australia -- Victoria -- History
Moravians -- Missions -- Australia -- Victoria -- History
Essentialism (Philosophy)
SOCIAL SCIENCE -- Anthropology -- Cultural.
SOCIAL SCIENCE -- Discrimination & Race Relations.
SOCIAL SCIENCE -- Minority Studies.
Aboriginal Australians -- Cultural assimilation
Aboriginal Australians -- Housing
Aboriginal Australians -- Missions
Aboriginal Australians -- Social life and customs
Antiquities
Essentialism (Philosophy)
Material culture
Moravians -- Missions
Race relations
Spatial behavior
Assimilation Soziologie
Alltag
Mission
Kulturkontakt
SUBJECT Victoria -- Race relations
Victoria -- Antiquities
Subject Victoria
Victoria Staat
Aborigines.
Genre/Form History
Form Electronic book
LC no. 2021678958
ISBN 9780759118041
0759118043