Marcia Langton

Every year, ABC Radio invites a public intellectual to give a series of lectures. Inaugurated in 1959 as ABC Lectures, they were renamed as the Boyer Lectures in 1961 as a memorial to Sir Richard Boyer, who as chairman of the ABC had led their introduction. (You can see past programs and still listen to some of them, here.)

In 2012, Professor Marcia Langton, a descendant of the Yiman and Bidjara people of Queensland, introduced the 53rd series of lectures with a statement that is probably still true today:

The emergence of an Aboriginal middle class in Australia in the last two to three decades has gone largely unnoticed. (p.31)

While she acknowledges that the numbers are small, they portend an economic future for Aboriginal people unimaginable fifty years ago. Langton herself, she tells us later in the lectures, was born at a time when Indigenous people weren't even counted in the census and were excluded through institutional forms of racial discrimination, from every opportunity for advancement. Indeed, she notes that when in 1968 W.E.H. Stanner gave the Boyer Lectures, After the Dreaming, Black and White Australians, an anthropologist's view —

— he gave credence, perhaps inadvertently, to the widely held assumption that Aboriginal life was incompatible with modern economic life. Today, the expectation is quite the reverse. (p. 31)

Indeed it is, and Langton is at her most convincing in the case she makes for a remarkable change in northern Australia, where the Mabo case, and the Native Title Act have enabled opportunities in the mining industry on Indigenous land. This has led to a surge in employment, home ownership, education and training plus the emergence of spin-off enterprises owned by Indigenous people. She is quite right when she that these are not the images we see in the media where the focus is nearly always on poverty, disadvantage and violence. Most Australians, she says, have no idea about the transformation of northern Australia...

But Langton has a combative stance, and she accompanies this good news story with a harsh critique of Left politics, claiming that they hang on to the idea of the 'new noble savage', with a preference for describing Aboriginal poverty and disadvantage through a romantic lens. She is a fierce critic of their implicit support for welfare dependency and their campaigns against economic development on Aboriginal land. Likewise, she has not a good word to say for government activity, which she dismisses as a roundabout of bureaucrats, agencies, websites, application forms and absurd meetings.

To read the rest of my review please visit https://anzlitlovers.com/2019/12/02/the-quiet-revolution-boyer-lectures-2012-by-...… (mere)

I read this book for #IndigLitWeek 2019 at ANZ Litlovers.
Much as I like the wealth of detail in Burnum Burnum's book and the walking trails to follow in Melbourne Dreaming, I think that Welcome to Country has a broader appeal. It is written as a tourist guide, to enable travellers to plan an itinerary that includes Indigenous culture, and to encourage business and tourism operators to get a bit smarter about the opportunities that are out there. If research has found that domestic visitors have little interest in Indigenous tourism, then Welcome to Country shows its readers that there are lots of interesting things to do, and they don't all involve outback travel because many attractions (such as gourmet food and culinary tourism!) appeal to urban Australians like me.
Marcia Langton's chapter about Victoria begins with a festival to attend: Tanderrum, a gathering of the five clans of the Kulin nation with a ceremony which marks the beginning of the Melbourne Festival in October...
[embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=121&v=AzOvrcgG8dk[/embed]
... and continues with sporting activities to attend such Dreamtime at the G (the Melbourne Cricket Ground) or a visit to the Harrow Discovery Centre and Johnny Mullagh Interpretive Centre in the Wimmera to learn about the Indigenous athletes in the first Australian international test cricket team. She covers Indigenous heritage in our national parks, including the Grampians National Park, the Brambuk National Park and Cultural centre, and she suggests cultural tours, such as the Aboriginal Heritage Walk through the Royal Botanical Gardens opposite Birrarung Marr; the self-guided driving tour along the Bataluk Cultural Trail; and the Tower Hill Visitor Centre near Warrnambool.
To read the rest of my review please visit https://anzlitlovers.com/2019/07/07/welcome-to-country-a-travel-guide-to-indigen...… (mere)