Cirrus@Austlit

'This voluminous collection is edited by two pre-eminent academics: Darren Jorgensen, a lecturer at the University of Western Australia, and Professor Ian McLean, the Hugh Ramsay Chair in Australian Art History at the University of Melbourne. They have gathered 18 essays that present the myriad ways in which Indigenous culture, history and records are being re-examined and their nature and significance revaluated. In his introductory essay, Ian McLean draws a parallel between the hermeneutic task of the Indigenous shaman and the Western archivist, both being in control of their respective archives, and plots out the convergence of the two approaches in the contemporary Aboriginal art movement. The dynamics of power, control and understanding within Western Indigenous archives which he identifies permeate the essays that follow.' (Introduction)