Caiter, T. M. "The other side of us: Australian National Identity and Constructions of the Aboriginal." Australian Humanties Review.
In her response to Batty's 'Saluting the dot-spangled banner' Caiter sees his 'new' construction of Aboriginal culture as being a lot less new than it might seem. She looks to nature as the great opposite 'other' to progressive European society, with aborigines being placed by Darwin as the lowest of the low. She looks at past notions of romanticising the primitive. She looks to an ecological world view of nature as a god-like position, however the true centre of this being not nature, but man, and the survival of the human species.
Primitive people find themselves ressurected in Western thought, Aboriginal culture now finds itself as a role model, being closest to nature. She sees Aboriginal culture as 'other' to white Australian 'corrupted' civilization, through preservation of their ancient, 'natural' wisdom. She looks to the folkloristic aspects of the new discover of Aboriginal Art, and concludes by seeing Aboriginal culture as confined to a new racism "a limbo of eternal pristine primitivity and permanent opposition to civilization" and sees "little space for Aboriginal reality in the 21st century."
I thought both this response and the original article were quite interesting considering that both the Sydney 2000 and Melbourne 2006 prominently featured Aboriginal dance and culture as being 'Australian', and given recent events and attempts at reconcilliation for racial relations.
Keywords: aboriginal art, aboriginal culture, dot-spangled banner, jen-bibliography, race relations
