1. Kincentric Ecology, Species Maintenance and the Relational Power of Place in Northern Australia
- Author
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Kearney, Amanda, Bradley, John, and Brady, Liam M.
- Subjects
Aboriginal Australians -- Rites, ceremonies and celebrations -- Environmental aspects ,Beef cattle ,Bonds (Securities) ,Anthropology/archeology/folklore - Abstract
This paper considers themes of species maintenance and place engagement in Yanyuwa country, northern Australia. It traces the complexity of interpretations and relational contexts involved in places that are commonly--and we argue--misleadingly, referred to as increase and magic sites. Examining one specific place, at which people carry out maintenance rituals, we explore the complex bonds that unite Yanyuwa with the geography that is the Ancestral Hill Kangaroo. Not content with the classificatory habit of declaring actions either increase oriented or hunting magic, this research more fully explicates the relational substance of places that play a key role in ecological health. This is achieved by asking how might the profundity of a place of relational importance, such as a maintenance site, be better understood and written of in ways that convey an Indigenous ontology and epistemology? Keywords: maintenance sites, increase sites, place, aboriginal, kincentric ecology, Australia., INTRODUCTION Old people, old people like my father, my grandfather, they would go there, maybe at the end of the wet season when everything was fresh, they would go to [...]
- Published
- 2019
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