'Welcome to the first volume of Australian Aboriginal Studies for 2012. The new editorial team is Dr Jakelin Troy, Editor, and Sally McNicol, Assistant Editor, with Dr Lawrence Bamblett continuing as Book Review Editor. We are very pleased to bring you a broad range of papers in this non-thematic edition, including discussions on aspects of education, language, history, anthropology, employment and poverty. This diverse range reflects the breadth of research that is relevant to Indigenous Australians today. Our next edition is planned as a themed special volume focusing on Indigenous scholarship in the Australian tertiary sector.' (Editorial introduction)
'Until the publication of Robert Hall's landmark book The Black Diggers in 1989, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people were essentially 'written out' of Australia's Second World War history. Still, more than 20 years since the publication of Hall's book, Australian Indigenous participation in the war effort as servicemen and women, labourers and scouts, in wartime industries and in various other capacities, continues to be on the periphery of Australia's war history. The Second World War remains part of what WEH Stanner referred to in 1969 as 'the Great Australian Silence' of Indigenous history. Notwithstanding the lack of significant academic histories of Indigenous military history, there have been a few creative depictions of Aboriginal participation in the Second World War. Both Indigenous and non-Indigenous people have used creative mediums, such as poetry, short fiction, film, musical theatre and music, to portray Aboriginal Second World War service. This paper examines these creative cultural representations and how they position Australian Indigenous war service within a wider narrative of the Second World War and Indigenous history. Though the portrayals of Aboriginal service vary, the majority of creative works present the Second World War as central to Australian Indigenous history. Moreover, the creative representations depict Indigenous servicemen's hopes for a better life after the war, only to be crushed when they returned to ongoing discrimination. Even so, the creative depictions use the Second World War as an early marker of reconciliation in Australia, portraying the conflict as a time when ideals of liberty and equality overruled prejudice to unite Australia. Such a message continues to resonate, as creative representations of the Second World War contribute to contemporary understandings of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander citizenship and reconciliation.' (Publication abstract)
'Indigenous Australian communities are blessed to have storytelling historians who share their humour, knowledge and insight about our people’s involvement with mainstream sports. In contrast, there are few established Indigenous historians writing in the small academic field of sports history. One of the few, Worimi historian John Maynard, has turned his attention to the subject of Indigenous participation in soccer. In The Aboriginal Soccer Tribe: A history of Aboriginal involvement with the world game, he shares stories about the contribution prominent Indigenous soccer players make to the game. By blurring the line between Indigenous storytelling and academic history, Maynard tells the reader more than the standard story about Aborigines in sport.' (Introduction)
'Despite…unifying factors, the tribes remained distinct and had their own languages. However, there is one feature they [the peoples of Sunraysia] all shared and which they shared with other languages further up the Murray such as the WembaWemba and the Wati-Wati: the reduplicated names of the tribes/languages mean ‘no-no’ (p.170).
'The above translation from the no-no or NerriNerri language of the romanticised ‘never-never land’ is at the heart of Wilhelm von Blandowski’s encyclopaedia of 1860. Blandowski’s native German and the interpretations of the NerriNerri, such as linguist Luise Hercus’ translation of the names of the tribes/languages, are translated into English and published for the first time. It is in the context of a handful of re-evaluations of Blandowski’s archives as records of this colonial explorer’s Indigenous informants that this book from Aboriginal Studies Press (ASP) makes a major contribution. From a publisher that focuses on Indigenous voices, this illustrated encyclopaedia of Australia can be seen as source material to understand many aspects of Aboriginal life, such as land management and ceremony. The Director of ASP, Rhonda Black, says she did not want the new edition to look like a quaint picture book but, instead, wanted to surround it with Indigenous voices.' (Introduction)
'Bill Gammage has done Indigenous Australians a great service and other Australians should ponder his thesis. This book is a great read and an intellectual and moral achievement. Well written, insightful, scholarly and continental in scope, it is a landmark in our historical appreciation of Australia’s landscape in (Gammage’s omnibus chronological term) ‘1788’.' (Introduction)
