image of person or book cover 23063520756073553.jpg
This image has been sourced from Booktopia
Issue Details: First known date: 2021... 2021 Ceremony Men : Making Ethnography and the Return of the Strehlow Collection
The material on this page is available to AustLit subscribers. If you are a subscriber or are from a subscribing organisation, please log in to gain full access. To explore options for subscribing to this unique teaching, research, and publishing resource for Australian culture and storytelling, please contact us or find out more.

AbstractHistoryArchive Description

'By analyzing one of the world's greatest collections of Indigenous song, myth, and ceremony--the collections of linguist/anthropologist T. G. H. Strehlow--Ceremony Men demonstrates how inextricably intertwined ethnographic collections can become in complex historical and social relations. In revealing his process to return an anthropological collection to Aboriginal communities in remote central Australia, Jason M. Gibson highlights the importance of personal rapport and collaborations in ethnographic exchange, both past and present, and demonstrates the ongoing importance of sociality, relationship, and orality when Indigenous peoples encounter museum collections today. Combining forensic historical analysis with contemporary ethnographic research, this book challenges the notion that anthropological archives will necessarily become authoritative or dominant statements on a people's cultural identity. Instead, Indigenous peoples will often interrogate and recontextualize this material with great dexterity as they work to reintegrate the documented into their present-day social lives.

'By theorizing the nature of the documenter-documented relationships this book makes an important contribution to the simplistic postcolonial generalizations that dominate analyses of colonial interaction. A story of local agency is uncovered that enriches our understanding of the human engagements that took, and continue to take, place within varying colonial relations of Australia.' (Publication summary)

Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of

Works about this Work

[Review] Ceremony Men: Making Ethnography and the Return of the Strehlow Collection Maria Nugent , 2023 single work
— Appears in: Australian Historical Studies , vol. 54 no. 3 2023; (p. 589-590)

— Review of Ceremony Men : Making Ethnography and the Return of the Strehlow Collection Jason M. Gibson , 2021 multi chapter work criticism

'Ceremony Men makes a fine addition to a growing scholarship on engaging with and making sense of historical collections of Aboriginal material today, particularly contentious collections that carry a fraught legacy. The collection in question in Gibson’s study is that assembled by linguist and ethnographer T.G.H. (‘Ted’) Strehlow, now housed at the purpose-built Strehlow Research Centre in Alice Springs. Gibson describes this archive as ‘a wondrous collection of diaries, papers, maps, genealogies, audio recordings, films and artefacts’ (40). And due to Strehlow’s detailed record-keeping, ‘each item can be linked to other parts of the collection’ (40).' (Introduction)

Jason M. Gibson on Strehlow’s Shadow Tim Rowse , 2022 single work review
— Appears in: History Australia , vol. 19 no. 4 2022; (p. 813-815)

— Review of Ceremony Men : Making Ethnography and the Return of the Strehlow Collection Jason M. Gibson , 2021 multi chapter work criticism

'Nowadays, ‘ethnography’ often arouses moral disgust. A post-colonial imaginary makes analogies of the removal of minerals, the removal of human remains, the removal of children and the removal of Indigenous knowledge.' (Introduction)

[Review] Ceremony Men : Making Ethnography and the Return of the Strehlow Collection John Carty , 2022 single work review
— Appears in: Aboriginal History Journal , April no. 45 2022;

— Review of Ceremony Men : Making Ethnography and the Return of the Strehlow Collection Jason M. Gibson , 2021 multi chapter work criticism
'Ceremony Men is a significant contribution not only to the history of Australian anthropology, but also to the study of Aboriginal collections that scholars and custodians alike wrestle with as a tangible legacy of the discipline’s flaws and merits.'
[Review] Ceremony Men : Making Ethnography and the Return of the Strehlow Collection John Carty , 2022 single work review
— Appears in: Aboriginal History Journal , April no. 45 2022;

— Review of Ceremony Men : Making Ethnography and the Return of the Strehlow Collection Jason M. Gibson , 2021 multi chapter work criticism
'Ceremony Men is a significant contribution not only to the history of Australian anthropology, but also to the study of Aboriginal collections that scholars and custodians alike wrestle with as a tangible legacy of the discipline’s flaws and merits.'
Jason M. Gibson on Strehlow’s Shadow Tim Rowse , 2022 single work review
— Appears in: History Australia , vol. 19 no. 4 2022; (p. 813-815)

— Review of Ceremony Men : Making Ethnography and the Return of the Strehlow Collection Jason M. Gibson , 2021 multi chapter work criticism

'Nowadays, ‘ethnography’ often arouses moral disgust. A post-colonial imaginary makes analogies of the removal of minerals, the removal of human remains, the removal of children and the removal of Indigenous knowledge.' (Introduction)

[Review] Ceremony Men: Making Ethnography and the Return of the Strehlow Collection Maria Nugent , 2023 single work
— Appears in: Australian Historical Studies , vol. 54 no. 3 2023; (p. 589-590)

— Review of Ceremony Men : Making Ethnography and the Return of the Strehlow Collection Jason M. Gibson , 2021 multi chapter work criticism

'Ceremony Men makes a fine addition to a growing scholarship on engaging with and making sense of historical collections of Aboriginal material today, particularly contentious collections that carry a fraught legacy. The collection in question in Gibson’s study is that assembled by linguist and ethnographer T.G.H. (‘Ted’) Strehlow, now housed at the purpose-built Strehlow Research Centre in Alice Springs. Gibson describes this archive as ‘a wondrous collection of diaries, papers, maps, genealogies, audio recordings, films and artefacts’ (40). And due to Strehlow’s detailed record-keeping, ‘each item can be linked to other parts of the collection’ (40).' (Introduction)

Last amended 16 Mar 2022 10:02:45
Newspapers:
    Powered by Trove
    X