Textual Spaces: Aboriginality and Cultural Studies.

Toussaint, Sandy

A strength of Textual Spaces is that it raises some important questions about the processes whereby Australian indigenous peoples have been textually represented; a weakness is the lack of substantive evidence for many of the claims that are made; and an anomaly is the author's failure to recognise the often contradictory and superficial nature of his discussion. My concerns are elaborated below.

Muecke takes a semiotic approach to examine how the conditions for post-colonialism can be created for Aboriginal Australians. He argues that investigation of 'Aboriginal' and 'European' writings concerning competing interests and ideologies about land (or 'landscape') is crucial to ensuring that 'decolonisation' and 'Aboriginal cultural reconstruction' occur (p.11). Muecke uses 'discourse analysis' to focus on language in its spoken, written, and 'inscribed' form. He (p.194) claims that all 'so-called oral cultures...are written cultures because they have means of inscription of one sort or another'. His approach provides an effective, but not innovative or unique, context to illustrate one of the ways in which Aboriginal dispossession has been enacted. Muecke discerns that the colonisers had only one language and an ideology of 'imperialism' (p.4) when they invaded a population who were 'without capital' and members of '250 different language families' (p.5). Indigenous languages which could not be understood by the colonisers were 'replaced by a [non-Aboriginal] representational mode, for instance, alphabetic writing' (p.10).

Muecke attempts to situate his discussion into 'colonial' and 'post-colonial' oppositions. He suggests that oppositional categories should be treated as 'temporary and dynamic'. Attention to 'oppositions' remains central throughout his text because, for Muecke, a shift from one opposition (e.g. imperial authority) to another (e.g. oppositional critique) represents a move toward 'decolonisation' and 'post-colonisation'.

Muecke poses the question of 'how' Aboriginal people want to be represented (p.12). He avoids a clear response (can there be one?), and turns, instead, to a brief discussion on 'essentialism'. Muecke observes that many Aboriginal people have been 'forced' to rely on essentialism; the 'Western version of [indigenous] culture' has become the 'prison of twentieth century Aborigines' (pp.17-18).

One of Muecke's most critical points is that 'European ways of talking about Aborigines limit their ways of knowing what Aborigines might be' (pp.19-20). Anthropologists are identified as occupying a 'privileged' position here. The discipline is accused of touching 'at certain points with Romantic and Racist discourses, and shar[ing] some of their features' (p.27). Evidence to support this assertion is a reference to a 1964 version of World of the First Australians by RM and CH Berndt. The Berndts are credited with referring to 'we Australians' (1964:ix) which, according to Muecke, is based on 'an [European] ideological construction predicated on...national consensus' (p.28). (Interestingly, elsewhere, Muecke writes that 'Aboriginal texts' are 'frame[d] for us' [p.136]: who is 'us'?)

Muecke also accuses anthropologists of practising 'secondary ethnocentrism' by claiming 'their tribes' (p.28). No supporting evidence is presented for this assertion, but there is some discussion on Daisy Bates who is described as having 'a passion for the exotic' (p.29). Her book, The Passing of the Aborigines, is denounced as a combination of 'Racist, Romantic and Anthropological discourses' (pp.29-30; see also p.33). Muecke mischievously infers that Bates was trained as an anthropologist.

The recounting of some 'performance narrative' (i.e. Muecke's recording and transcription of Aboriginal narratives) with Paddy Roe from Broome in Western Australia, forms the basis of Chapter 2. Muecke contrasts his own material with a narrative collected by the Berndts in Western Arnhem Land in 1951 (pp.43-46). The Berndts' work is described as an 'ethnographic text' and they are identified as 'constructing' their version of Aboriginality through the re-telling of the myth. Muecke, on the other hand, could not be similarly accused because in his 'cultural reproduction' work he was able to 'value' Aboriginal styles of 'performance' (p.59).

In Chapter 4 (p.78), Muecke criticises structuralism's universalism, and pursues post-structuralism to examine 'the text as an active part of ideological reformulations'. He uses a story told to him by Paddy Roe to show how different 'modalities', e.g. desire and constraint, are recounted as parallel oppositions in the telling. This reflexive and transformative process is 'very important...in Aboriginal narratives' (p.83). The rest of this chapter is devoted to Muecke's analysis of a 'text' provided to him by Roe. He makes the point that indigenous story telling is not just about 'conveying information...[but also]...about asserting one's right to maintain a position in discourse... [and]... providing guidelines for other people's insertions [i.e. when others can speak as the narrative is being presented]' (p.101).

Autobiographies by Aboriginal writers are referred to throughout, especially in Chapter 5. Sally Morgan's My Place, and Glenyse Ward's Wandering Girl receive particular attention. Both texts are regarded as 'confessional' forms of literature (p.128). Muecke suggests that different expressions of 'Aboriginality' can be found in the two autobiographies. Morgan's is based on 'genetic inheritance', whereas Ward 'subsumes' her Aboriginal identity (p.129). Elsewhere, Muecke mentions the problem of how texts by Aboriginal writers are often (un)critically assessed. He suggests that the issue is not to define 'good or bad Aboriginal works, but to understand the relations of production and consumption which frame them for us' (p.136). While this is a constructive point, one might ask whether Muecke includes his own involvement in the 'relations of [Aboriginal textual] production' here?

Chapter 7 advances the thesis that 'creative work by Aboriginal artists constitutes a strong movement towards post-colonisation', identified as the 'decolonisation of Australian mythologies' (p.164). Much of this chapter focuses on artist, Jimmy Pike, a Walmatjarri man from the Fitzroy Valley region of the Kimberley in Western Australia. Muecke makes some extraordinary claims about Pike, none of which are backed by substantive evidence. While the problems of this chapter are far too diverse to recount here, two cannot escape attention. Firstly, Pike is described as a 'totally traditional member of the Walmatjarri'? What does this mean? What is a 'totally traditional member', and on what basis does Muecke form such a judgment? Secondly, Muecke speaks for Pike (something he is critical of others, e.g. anthropologists, doing) and for Fitzroy Valley Aboriginal people when he makes the following claim (in speculations about Pike's life as an artist):

Prior to the time spent in gaol, his [Pike's] life around Fitzroy Crossing was not spent in ways that earned him any great respect in the Aboriginal community. To be fully part of it, to participate in meetings and ceremonies, he would have had to be sober like the Christian Aborigines, who use the church and their own cultural organisations to consolidate a delicately surviving group of cultures (p.174).

How does Muecke know this, and what evidence has he to support the view that 'Christian Aborigines' are the most culturally powerful in the Fitzroy Valley?

Chapter 8 reflects an 'either/or' (uncritical dualistic) position which permeates much of Muecke's argument. Entitled 'Margin or Mainstream', it commences by criticising the 'traditional thesis' (but see above), and suggests that two things need to occur for 'decolonisation' to become a reality. One is to uncover 'other cultures', the second is to bring 'the marginal in' (pp.185-186). Muecke is keen to collapse the 'centre-margin' opposition which necessitates re-writing his own 'position description' (p.186). This involves inserting himself in the text and making several comments about his German ancestry (although it is unclear where Muecke 'fits' in the few details he provides). These minor reflections are somehow identified as challenging imposed (academic?) constraints of 'unspeakable stories of subjectivity...and impropriety' (p. 187).

In a critical discussion on the work of sociologist Stuart Hall on 'marginal people' (later qualified by Muecke as the 'real people'), Muecke censures Hall for writing that, 'In the last ten or fifteen years marginality has become a very productive space' (p.188). Muecke disagrees with Hall's analysis and maintains that academic institutions have been slow to modify their 'curriculums to accommodate other knowledges' (p.189). (Elsewhere, Muecke suggests that there is a case to be mounted for universities to include 'non-traditional theses like audio-visual work and ficto-critical writing' [p.185]). However, Muecke also recognises the problem of 'romancing the margins'. He makes the useful point that the 'romantic tendency is still to place truth with the oppressed' (p.191), and argues that the challenge is not so much in the 'writing itself', but in the place between the 'writing we [note uncritical use of 'we'] are familiar with and other writing' (p.196; original emphasis). Muecke's concern appears to be that 'the Other', here used in reference to Aboriginal writers, will fall into 'the trap which was set by the colonial master' that has regulated cultural authenticity (p.196).

Muecke's text concludes with a chapter entitled 'Dialogue with a post-graduate student wanting to study Aboriginal culture'. The first point to make about this chapter is that it is not a dialogue at all, it is a monologue. Muecke dominates the conversation. It is unclear whether this discussion actually occurred, was a combination of several encounters, or is a figment of Muecke's imagination. Again, no evidence is provided. It would be useful to hear the 'other' side of what took place (i.e. the student's interpretation). Among other things, Muecke claims that once Aboriginal people abandon 'essentialism...they would become fragmented unknowing subjects like the rest of us' (p.203). (Again one might ask, who is 'us' and can 'we' all be described as 'fragmented unknowing subjects'?) The monologue ends with Muecke's assertion that while the 'Other continues to be unable to speak, unable to enter into theory...[the story of]... Eurocentric discourse..predicated on otherness' will continue to be easily told (p.204).

I have further concerns about many of the claims made in this text (e.g. the 'case study' on Customary Law which adds nothing new about this topic and sits awkwardly as Chapter 6), but attention to three must suffice here. Firstly, Muecke asserts that anthropologists 'cornered' Aboriginal people in their camps and demanded a 'discourse that would become very familiar to Aboriginal people: the confession' (p.128; see also p.91 where anthropologists are accused of 'interrogating' Aboriginal Australians). But how does Muecke separate his own 'cornering' of people such as Paddy Roe from this accusation? Further on, 'museums and anthropology' are identified as having an economic and political stake in maintaining the 'Aboriginal industry' (p.180). Why is Cultural Studies left out of this analysis (especially given Muecke's concluding remark, considered below)?

My second concern is related to the first. While anthropologists en masse and anthropology as a discipline are criticised by Muecke, the findings and ideas of individual anthropologists are sometimes productively exploited. Apart from a positive reference to anthropologist Basil Sansom (e.g.p.34), such usage occurs without the individual in question being identified as an anthropologist (e.g. Peter Sutton, Kim Akerman, John von Sturmer)

My third concern is that, despite Muecke's disclaimer, he treats indigenous Australians as lacking diversity, being without any form of agency or agenda, and as undifferentiated (culturally, politically, sexually, economically) 'other(s)'. Simply put, he raises, but does not deal adequately with, the hard issues which revolve around how indigenous women and men from a variety of backgrounds and ages (especially writers and artists, some of whom are now public figures) have been variously and historically affected by colonisation. He also relies on use of the generic 'Aborigines' (a colonial construct) to recount his argument rather than 'situating' his discussion by the naming of distinct indigenous language groups, a procedure many Aboriginal groups now pursue to contest the cultural authority of 'the colonial master'. (Muecke's use of 'Eskimo' [p.202] and 'European' [passim] are problematic for the same reason.)

Muecke's basic premise is that there either will, or will not, be a process of decolonisation. An increase in Aboriginal writers constructing their own textual representations of Aboriginality is one way in which decolonisation could occur, but there is a problem. According to Muecke this is that indigenous Australians might be so 'trapped' by how [white] colonisers have written about and for them that they will lose their way and become 'fragmented like the rest of us'. To my mind, claims that it may be 'too late' for Aboriginal people to control representation of their 'Aboriginality' because it has been (negatively) influenced by White constructions, reveals limited understandings of cultural change and the diverse processes of cultural appropriation. Recognition that a multiplicity of colonial and indigenous voices have variously emerged and merged over time is sorely missing in Muecke's analysis.

Muecke's text has been produced within a series entitled 'Communication and Cultural Studies' and, predictably, he concludes by describing the 'conjunction of Aboriginality and Cultural Studies' as the most challenging in 'academic Australia' (p.206). Given this prediction, it is remarkable that Muecke's contribution is so lacking in substance. It seems to me that some (not all) Cultural Studies proponents believe that merely by making an assertion, they can claim a knowingness about what they consider to be the(ir) 'truth'. It appears also to be the case, especially if one takes Muecke's text as an example, that there is an unfamiliarity with contemporary anthropology. Feminist, critical, applied and reflexive anthropology have dealt for several decades with many of the issues raised by Muecke. Why is anthropology so carelessly misrepresented in this text?

Muecke's text, like a post-modern dialectic, raises and then avoids many questions. Perhaps this accounts for its convoluted, rather than discursive, style. Muecke relies heavily on academic jargon (an oddly exclusive device for a writer who implies he is championing the cause of 'the Other'), and I, for one, find his use of 'post-colonisation' extremely problematic and naive. Can the effects of colonisation be so readily overcome merely by being reinterpreted as 'post-'? The complexities of colonial relations (e.g. indigenous responses to colonisation) are surely far more complex than Muecke's analysis suggests.

Finally, Muecke appears to have confused, or misunderstood, post-modernist and post-structuralist resistance to orthodox styles of scholarship with 'sloppy' scholarship. His text is poorly organised, integrated and edited.

I approached Textual Spaces with a great deal of enthusiasm, in part because I was interested in the epistemological differences and similarities between Anthropology and Cultural Studies, although, clearly, there are qualitative differences within each school of thought and practice. I was disappointed to find that, despite the potential and pretensions of this particular text, it rapidly deteriorated into 'the world according to Muecke'.

SANDY TOUSSAINT University of Western Australia