'This book explores the experiences of Indigenous Australians who participated in Australian exploration enterprises in the early nineteenth century. These Indigenous travellers, often referred to as ‘guide’s’, ‘native aides’, or ‘intermediaries’ have already been cast in a variety of ways by historians: earlier historiographies represented them as passive side-players in European heroic efforts of Discovery, while scholarship in the 1980s, led by Henry Reynolds, re-cast these individuals as ‘black pioneers’. Historians now acknowledge that Aborigines ‘provided information about the customs and languages of contiguous tribes, and acted as diplomats and couriers arranging in advance for the safe passage of European parties’.
'More recently, Indigenous scholars Keith Vincent Smith and Lynnette Russell describe such Aboriginal travellers as being entrepreneurial ‘agents of their own destiny’.
'While historiography has made up some ground in this area Aboriginal motivations in exploring parties, while difficult to discern, are often obscured or ignored under the title ‘guide’ or ‘intermediary’. Despite the different ways in which they have been cast, the mobility of these travellers, their motivations for travel and experience of it have not been thoroughly analysed.
'Some recent studies have begun to open up this narrative, revealing instead the ways in which colonisation enabled and encouraged entrepreneurial mobility, bringing about ‘new patterns of mobility for colonised peoples’.'
Source: Publisher's blurb.
Books of the Year
Peter Rose
(presenter),
2020
23440064
2020
single work
podcast
'In today's episode, Peter Rose talks to writers Beejay Silcox and Billy Griffiths about what they’ve been reading during this tumultuous year. They also speculate about some highlights of 2021. For those looking for a more extensive listing of this year's finest works, our Books of the Year features more than 30 different ABR critics nominating their favourite releases.' (Production summary)
(Introduction)
'Shellam writes that Meeting the Waylo is a ‘little book’, yet its immersion in multiple strands of scholarship, its impressive archival research, and its clear methodology make it a compelling and significant one. This is slow, well-crafted history; slow in the sense that three historical episodes lie at the heart of this book, and slow in the sense that the research, relationships, and insights undergirding it have accrued over time. Yet in this lies its power and its significance for historians, archivists, and curators of cross-cultural, Australian and Indigenous worlds.' (Introduction)
'Shellam writes that Meeting the Waylo is a ‘little book’, yet its immersion in multiple strands of scholarship, its impressive archival research, and its clear methodology make it a compelling and significant one. This is slow, well-crafted history; slow in the sense that three historical episodes lie at the heart of this book, and slow in the sense that the research, relationships, and insights undergirding it have accrued over time. Yet in this lies its power and its significance for historians, archivists, and curators of cross-cultural, Australian and Indigenous worlds.' (Introduction)
(Introduction)
Books of the Year
Peter Rose
(presenter),
2020
23440064
2020
single work
podcast
'In today's episode, Peter Rose talks to writers Beejay Silcox and Billy Griffiths about what they’ve been reading during this tumultuous year. They also speculate about some highlights of 2021. For those looking for a more extensive listing of this year's finest works, our Books of the Year features more than 30 different ABR critics nominating their favourite releases.' (Production summary)
