The Triangle: A Narrative Portrait of Place-Gathered Monstrousness

In this chapter, I consider notions of the sentient landscape from a philosophicallyinspired anthropological perspective, specifically, Edward Casey’s postulation that places ‘gather’. I provide a narrative portrait of the subject of my analysis: a triangular valley in central Australia bordered by ranges on two sides and a storm water drain at its base, crisscrossed by paths and tracks, vegetated by prickles, grasses, and small bushes, and inhabited by insects, small reptiles including poisonous snakes, birds, rock wallabies, and the occasional kangaroo and dingo. To the south, The Triangle is directly bordered by the affluent Alice Springs suburb of Eastside. To its north lies ‘the bush’, stretching for well over a thousand kilometres to the sea. I focus on how The Triangle ‘gathers’ in regards to the relationship between the monstrous and the geographic, and relate this through three case studies: (1) Nature and culture: The Triangle is all that stands between Eastside and ‘the bush’, and its body (‘scarred’ by paths and weed poising, exuding seeds, snakes, and sand) literally constitutes the threshold between the built environment and a perceived untamed nature. (2) Wildness and domestication: During recent drought-like conditions, dingoes flocked to the triangle and began killing the pets of Eastsiders. Critically, the latter often are part-dingo ‘camp dogs’ from Aboriginal communities, adopted by Eastsiders employed in the ‘Aboriginal Industry’. (3) Interwoven history: The Triangle’s neocolonial Indigenous/non-Indigenous entanglements are layered on top of its heritage WW2 site history, and its past as an Arrernte camping and hunting ground adjacent to a major sacred site. The central aim of my chapter is to develop a Triangle-centric narrative from which to consider questions pertinent to the relationship between monstrousness and geography: Can the Triangle express or experience monstrousness, or is monstrousness inscribed on and through it?AR

Evening Play: Acquainting Toddlers with Dangers and Fear at Yuendumu, Northern Territory

Based on research with Warlpiri people at the Aboriginal town of Yuendumu in Central Australia, this chapter provides ethnographic material on and analysis of an Aboriginal extended family group’s nightly play sessions, focusing on three toddlers (between 2 and 2.5 years old). These sessions happen after dinner and before the toddlers fall asleep, when family members spend the evening in the camp, socialising. All action focused on the toddlers during this time has to do with inducing and relieving fear. I relate these sessions to others described in the anthropology of Aboriginal Australia and read them as part of larger processes of social learning through which Warlpiri children acquire understanding of their world and how they fit into it.FT130100415 is http://purl.org/au-research/grants/arc/FT13010041

Yulyurdu: Smoke in the Desert

I begin this paper with a nod to ‘the beginning’ by linking smoke to fire, and fire to humankind. Bound up in this deep history of smoke and humanity is a dichotomy cleaving humans from animals and the west from the rest. Taking smoke at Yuendumu, a Warlpiri community in central Australia as my subject, I aim to destabilise some of the certainties entrenched in this dichotomy. Smoke, of course, is nigh impossible to pin down, literally as well as conceptually. So rather than trying to immobilise it, I follow in smoke’s own fashion and waft across different kinds of fires and different kinds of analytical approaches. Ethnographically, I draw a narrative picture of the different ways in which smoke at Yuendumu permeates everyday life by considering the smoke of breakfast fires, signalling fires, cooking fires during storms, caring-for-country fires, and the scent of cold smoke on blankets, clothes, and bodies. Analytically, I move from smoke and how it relates to embodied Warlpiri ways of being in the world, to smoke and childhood socialisation, including baby smoking rituals. From there I shift to the smoke of caring-for-country fires, and on to smoke, memory, odourphilia, and odourphobia. I conclude by pondering the potential of a smoke-like approach.AR

Monstrous Transformations: A Case Study from Central Australia

My chapter is ethnographically situated in the Tanami Desert, the home of Warlpiri people and the monsters that haunt, terrorize, and sometimes kill them. Located to the northwest of the center of Australia, first contact came relatively late in this region, and over the past century the Tanami and its human and monstrous inhabitants have experienced dramatic and tumultuous changes. I explore how one particular monster, called Kurdaitcha or Jarnpa, transformed with these changes, and the meanings that flow from this realityFT130100415 is http://purl.org/au-research/grants/arc/FT13010041

Introduction: Monsters, Anthropology, and Monster Studies

Every field-site has monsters—spooky, menacing, terrifying beings—who lurk in the shadows and the dark, under beds, in caves and lakes, beyond the line of sight, and in the imagination. Some cause mischief, others protect, a great number of them instill fear, many terrorize, and a few may even kill; all provide substance for conversation and, importantly, for action. Monsters are bloodcurdlingly potent of meaning and anthropology has engaged with them since its inception.1 Yet, and curiously, anthropology has not substantially joined in with the burgeoning interdisciplinary field of monster studies. This is a relatively young field; Cohen’s (1996) Monster Culture (Seven Theses), while by no means the first endeavor, constitutes something of a foundation to the concerted interdisciplinary effort of studying monsters. Over the last decade or so, monster studies has mushroomed as a cornucopia of recent articles, edited volumes, journals, and books about monsters attests (including two new compendia, see Mittman and Dendle 2012; Picart and Browning 2012b; and an encyclopedia, see Weinstock 2014).2FT130100415 is http://purl.org/au-research/grants/arc/FT13010041

Predicaments of Proximity: Revising Relatedness in a Warlpiri Town

Relatedness has been a fundamental notion in recent studies of Aboriginal personhood. My research asks how people who ‘form a mob' decide with whom to do this and for how long. The concept of relatedness—while useful—distracts the ethnographic gaze away from those relations not captured by relatedness—away from considering non-realisations, and different ways of relating to others (e.g., Aboriginal ways of relating to non-Indigenous people). Three case studies illustrate that we need clearer understanding of relatedness and its non-realization. The first two are concerned with non-relating between kin and the ensuing emotional burden carried by all involved. The last case study, about relations between Aboriginal camps and non-Indigenous neighbours, offers a glimpse into non-relating without toxicity, and shows why this template does not work in the intra-Aboriginal domain

'Country', 'community' and 'growth town': Three spatio-temporal snapshots of Warlpiri experiences of home

The last 100 years have seen Warlpiri people experience drastic changes in ways of being in the world, from a hunting and gathering past, followed by violent frontier days and ensuing institutionalized sedentization in government settlements, to community life in the era of self-determination, and on to contemporary times of intensive policy intervention. In this paper, I explore some of these changes by focussing on one aspect of them, Warlpiri experiences of home. These in turn I examine by contrasting three different examples across time: (1) Warlpiri notions of home as country during the hunting and gathering past, (2) Warlpiri experiences of home in houses of Yuendumu community during the time of self-determination, and (3) in the here and now of intense policy intervention. On the one hand, these examples illustrate an easily assumed progression of life ‘outside’ in the desert, via the yards of colonial houses, to the ‘inside’ of contemporary suburban style housing. On the other hand, I show how the inside/outside dichotomy veils other values crucial to understanding Warlpiri notions of home.FT130100415 is http://purl.org/au-research/grants/arc/FT13010041

A Short Essay on Monsters, Birds, and Sounds of the Uncanny

The crux of this essay is that birdsong—something generally thought of a pleasing and enjoyable—can function, in certain contexts, as an indexical sign of the presence of evil in the world. I narratively contrast notions of the unknown as eerie with the uncanny at home, while simultaneously extending the notion of home to the world though ethnographic examples from fieldwork with Warlpiri people in central Australia. I explore the links between sounds and the uncanny, putting forward that what constitutes the uncanny is culturally specific, and highlight this point through contextualising and contrasting the central Australian case with examples from elsewhere: the Middle Ages, colonial Australia, Horror movies, and so on.FT130100415 is http://purl.org/au-research/grants/arc/FT13010041

Ethnography and the Production of Anthropological Knowledge

Professor Nicolas Peterson is a central figure in the anthropology of Aboriginal Australia. This volume honours his anthropological body of work, his commitment to ethnographic fieldwork as a source of knowledge, his exemplary mentorship of generations of younger scholars and his generosity in facilitating the progress of others. The diverse collection produced by former students, current colleagues and long-term peers provides reflections on his legacy as well as fresh anthropological insights from Australia and the wider Asia-Pacific region. Inspired by Nicolas Peterson’s work in Aboriginal Australia and his broad ranging contributions to anthropology over several decades, the contributors to this volume celebrate the variety of his ethnographic interests. Individual chapters address, revisit, expand on, and ethnographically re-examine his work about ritual, material culture, the moral domestic economy, land and ecology. The volume also pays homage to Nicolas Peterson’s ability to provide focused research with long-term impact, exemplified by a series of papers engaging with his work on demand sharing and the applied policy domai