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Narrative, myth and cultural resource management in Wadeye, Northern Territory, Australia : a preliminary study

University of British Columbia

Cultural resource management is an effort to revitalize culture in the present, and the aim of such endeavours is to provide stability for future generations in navigating culture. This theme runs throughout my preliminary fieldwork in Wadeye, as I sought to collect traditional narratives of the mythic “Dreaming” song cycles. One of the goals of my volunteering and fieldwork in this region was to help make history relevant to future generations of Aboriginal Australians by providing them with resources from the local Kanamkek-Yile Ngala museum. In this thesis, I explore how culture as presented in traditional myths and narratives becomes intertwined in the daily lives of Aboriginal Australians. The thesis delves heavily into the process of fieldwork as a way of engendering empathy for the social analysis of myths. The experience of the field, entering into another way of life, is central in forming an understanding for how myth and narrative play vital roles in Aboriginal Australian culture. The fieldwork here is largely from the vein of applied anthropology in seeking answers relating to the loss of narratives in the region. The drive here is to find a framework for the successful revitalization of lost stories by visiting cultural sites and reconnecting to experiences of the land. I also explore notions of ethno-poetry as a possible way of tapping into the creative potential of the Aboriginal Australian “Dreamtime.” The aim is thus to engender larger discussion in cultural resource management by centering the community in deciding its own responses and adaptation strategies in dealing with story revitalization efforts.

Text

2014-11-10

Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.5 Canada

http://hdl.handle.net/2429/51009

Interdisciplinary Studies

University of British Columbia

UBCO

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.5/ca/