Unravelling the Yamaji Imaginings of Alexander Morton and Daisy Bates

In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Alexander Morton and Daisy Bates deployed the photograph as a privileged evidentiary anthropological document. Their photographic representations of Yamaji from Western Australia circulated within a transnational network of discourses and practic...

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Main Author: Barrington, Robin
Format: Journal Article
Published: ANU Press 2015
Online Access:http://search.informit.com.au/documentSummary;dn=774968037549866;res=IELAPA
http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/50496
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author Barrington, Robin
author_facet Barrington, Robin
author_sort Barrington, Robin
building Curtin Institutional Repository
collection Online Access
description In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Alexander Morton and Daisy Bates deployed the photograph as a privileged evidentiary anthropological document. Their photographic representations of Yamaji from Western Australia circulated within a transnational network of discourses and practices involving anthropologists, police, pastoralists and journalists, and served to cement views of Yamaji as racially homogeneous, primitive and uncivilised. This article explores the histories behind these photographs and their polysemy to challenge some of the scientific and popular 'truths' disseminated about their Yamaji subjects. It discusses how Yamaji as figures of Aboriginalist discourse were represented in the work of two influential public figures, Alexander Morton and Daisy Bates, and through their interactions within scientific and colonial networks of power.
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spelling curtin-20.500.11937-504962017-05-19T06:45:15Z Unravelling the Yamaji Imaginings of Alexander Morton and Daisy Bates Barrington, Robin In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Alexander Morton and Daisy Bates deployed the photograph as a privileged evidentiary anthropological document. Their photographic representations of Yamaji from Western Australia circulated within a transnational network of discourses and practices involving anthropologists, police, pastoralists and journalists, and served to cement views of Yamaji as racially homogeneous, primitive and uncivilised. This article explores the histories behind these photographs and their polysemy to challenge some of the scientific and popular 'truths' disseminated about their Yamaji subjects. It discusses how Yamaji as figures of Aboriginalist discourse were represented in the work of two influential public figures, Alexander Morton and Daisy Bates, and through their interactions within scientific and colonial networks of power. 2015 Journal Article http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/50496 http://search.informit.com.au/documentSummary;dn=774968037549866;res=IELAPA ANU Press restricted
spellingShingle Barrington, Robin
Unravelling the Yamaji Imaginings of Alexander Morton and Daisy Bates
title Unravelling the Yamaji Imaginings of Alexander Morton and Daisy Bates
title_full Unravelling the Yamaji Imaginings of Alexander Morton and Daisy Bates
title_fullStr Unravelling the Yamaji Imaginings of Alexander Morton and Daisy Bates
title_full_unstemmed Unravelling the Yamaji Imaginings of Alexander Morton and Daisy Bates
title_short Unravelling the Yamaji Imaginings of Alexander Morton and Daisy Bates
title_sort unravelling the yamaji imaginings of alexander morton and daisy bates
url http://search.informit.com.au/documentSummary;dn=774968037549866;res=IELAPA
http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/50496