The Strehlow-Hermannsburg/Ntaria perplex : translation in a Lutheran-Aboriginal Community

The research case I intend to address is the cultural hybridity represented by the Lutheran-Aboriginal religious practices undertaken by members of the Hermannsburg/Ntaria community. My academic foundation is in media anthropology and communications and I have also worked extensively with the media (film and photography) component of the Strehlow Collection housed in Alice Springs. It will be my intent to mobilise research materials from these fields in which both media forms and communicative interaction are germane to understanding the research case at hand. My analysis places language at the heart of the issue - particularly the deployment of the work of 'translation', with attendant and conspicuous aspects of discourse and discursive formations as decisive aspects in the modulation of how this research case can be presented. The task of representing the circumstance of two religious orientations - Lutheranism and Aboriginal cultural beliefs - coming together as one was inspired by a composite image that formed part of the image track for a film I wrote and directed, titled Mr Strehlow's Films. Through a cross-dissolve, an image of Jesus taken from a portrait in the church at Hermannsburg/Ntaria, Central Australia, was overlaid onto a graphic representing the totemic sacred site of the Twins of Ntaria.