Native Title in Australia
An Ethnographic Perspective
Published on 27. October 2003
Book
Hardback
304 pages
978-0-521-81258-0 (ISBN)
Description
Native title has often been one of the most controversial political, legal and indeed moral issues in Australia. Ever since the High Court's Mabo decision of 1992, the attempt to understand and adapt native title to different contexts and claims has been an ongoing concern for that broad range of people involved with claims. In this book, originally published in 2003, Peter Sutton sets out fundamental anthropological issues to do with customary rights, kinship, identity, spirituality and so on that are relevant for lawyers and others working on title claims. Sutton offers a critical discussion of anthropological findings in the field of Aboriginal traditional interests in land and waters, focusing on the kinds of customary rights that are 'held' in Aboriginal 'countries', the types of groups whose members have been found to enjoy those rights, and how such groups have fared over the last 200 years of Australian history.
Reviews / Votes
Review of the hardback: '... it is good to have this comprehensive oeuvre. Anthropologists engaged in native title work will find it indispensable.' AnthroposMore details
Language
English
Place of publication
Cambridge
United Kingdom
Target group
Professional and scholarly
College/higher education
Illustrations
Worked examples or Exercises
Dimensions
Height: 235 mm
Width: 157 mm
Thickness: 22 mm
Weight
647 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-521-81258-0 (9780521812580)
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Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
E-Book
04/2006
1st Edition
Cambridge University Press
€41.49
Available for download
Person
Professor Peter Sutton is an Australian Research Council Fellow at the University of Adelaide and the South Australian Museum, and an Honorary Research Fellow at the Institute of Archaeology, University College London. He is an anthropologist and linguist. He has lived and worked with Aboriginal people in remote areas of Cape York Peninsula and the Northern Territory, but also in urban and rural centres, since 1969. Professor Sutton has assisted with over fifty indigenous land claim cases in many different parts of Australia since 1979. He is an author or editor of eleven books and has published over a hundred academic and other papers, mainly in the fields of Aboriginal land tenure, languages and art, and indigenous policy.
Content
List of figures; Acknowledgements; Introduction; Map; 1. Kinds of rights in country; 2. Local organisation before the land claims era; 3. Aboriginal country groups; 4. Atomism versus collectivism; 5. Underlying and proximate customary titles; 6. The system question; 7. Kinship, filiation and Aboriginal land tenure; 8. Families of polity; Notes; References; Index.