The Torres Strait Islanders are Australia's 'other' indigenous
minority. Their experience of colonialism and reaction to their
position in Australian society provides a striking counterpoint to
that of the Aborigines. The author applies many years of study and
work among the Torres Strait Islanders to provide a new account of
their changing world in the islands and their changing role in
Australia.
A Melanesian people, the Torres Strait Islanders' cultural
affinities originally lay with the Papuans to the north rather than
the Aborigines to the south. But by the logic of European
colonialism, they were made a part of the State of Queensland. The
pearling industry has exploited their labour, but left them in
occupation of their islands. The Queensland government has allowed
them a degree of autonomy in local affairs which many would
contrast with its approach to Aborigines.
The Torres Strait Islanders have thus had the space in which to
develop a rich and vital way of life that they still call 'island
custom', which has, however, changed from that described in the
classic anthropological research begun by A. C. Haddon just a
hundred years ago. This provided the starting point for Dr Beckett,
who has studied and worked with Torres Strait Islanders since the
1950s, and this book links the personal experience of the author,
the professional insights of the anthropologist, and the
perceptions of past and present held by the Islanders
themselves.
The author has examined the move to the mainland of many
Islanders searching for new opportunities, but re-creating island
custom in the new setting. He demonstrates in this book the
attempts of the Islanders to win a more favourable place
inAustralian society, challenging European authority. The book
examines colonialism in its various manifestations, and the ways,
political and cultural, in which the colonized mediate its effects.
Through the concept of 'welfare colonialism' Islander affairs are
located in the broader context of state intervention and
redistribution. The experience of the Torres Strait Islanders thus
provides a new way of looking at the contemporary situation of
Australian Aborigines and other minority groups enmeshed in the
changes of the advanced Western world.
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