The ethos of return : erasure and reinstatement of Aboriginal visibility in the Australian historical landscape

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Abstract

Aboriginal efforts to secure the repatriation and reburial of their ancestors' remains represent an undoing of the colonial project of collection. It is but one element of an ethos of "return" that challenges white-settler society's turning of a blind eye to the continued presence of Aboriginal people in the post-1788 landscape. Archaeologists in Australia, along with heritage professionals generally, have for the most part not deployed their skills and knowledge in the interests of revealing the historical coexistence and entanglement of settler and Aboriginal cultures. Rather, archaeologists have practiced a form of segregation that finds no room for Aboriginal people and their story in the historical landscape as archaeology constructs it. The case is put for archaeologists themselves to embrace an ethos of return that reverses this erasure.
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)73-86
Number of pages14
JournalHistorical Archaeology
Volume37
Issue number1
Publication statusPublished - 2003

Keywords

  • Aboriginal Australians
  • archaeology
  • heritage
  • indigenous peoples

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