Cirrus@Austlit

This unit will consider relations between indigenous and non-Aboriginal people in Australia since 1770. The main topics will include the legal basis of British sovereignty; the nature of frontier contact; violence and the dispossession of Aborigines; Aboriginal depopulation; Aborigines' responses to colonialism; government policy and practice, from segregation to assimilation; and Aboriginal political movements. The unit will simultaneously examine the political and theoretical dimensions associated with representing the Australian Aboriginal past and, in particular, the relationship between power and knowledge in historical discourses.

Objectives

Upon successful completion of this subject students will be able to:

Demonstrate an understanding relations between indigenes and Europeans in Australia.

Demonstrate an understanding of the epistemological issues and problems evident in the study of Australian Aboriginal History.

Think critically and communicate effectively. Specifically to:

develop a topic for investigation;

show an awareness of both the diversity of interpretations of the past, and the nature of such forms of knowledge;

familiarise oneself with a range of sources;

display precision in argument and documentation; and

recognise and be able to present a logically ordered argument.