“What Now provides an important contribution to Australian anthropology, especially current debates around the discipline’s engagement with public policy. The author’s use of the themes ‘social intensity’ and ‘endurance’ also facilitates valuable discussions of everyday life in a remote Aboriginal community while critiquing previous ethnographic accounts of social change on Mornington Island. In its conclusion, the monograph uncovers new questions regarding the way Mornington Islanders understand their engagement with public policy and Indigenous/settler-colonial relations in Australia.” • Australian Historical Studies
Based on extensive ethnographic fieldwork undertaken since 2006, the book addresses some of the most topical aspects of remote Aboriginal life in Australia. This includes the role of kinship and family, relationships to land and sea, and cross-cultural relations with non-Aboriginal residents. There is also extensive treatment of contemporary issues relating to alcohol consumption, violence and the impact of systemic ill health. This richly detailed portrayal provides a nuanced account of everyday endurance and social intensity on Mornington Island.
Cameo Dalley is a Research Fellow at Deakin University's Alfred Deakin Institute for Citizenship and Globalisation in Melbourne, Australia.
LC: GN667.Q4 D34 2020
BISAC: SOC002010 SOCIAL SCIENCE/Anthropology/Cultural & Social; SOC026000 SOCIAL SCIENCE/Sociology/General
