Description:
We investigated the success of the Koala Conservation and Education Program conducted in Ballarat, Victoria, Australia from 2000-2009 by interviewing 28 individuals, from various stakeholder groups involved in the project. Transcripts were analysed using grounded theory to identify common themes, keywords and phrases. We conclude that the chosen ‘flagship’ species, the koala, was crucial for the success of the project which culminated in the adoption of the Koala Plan of Management and habitat overlays into the City of Ballarat’s planning scheme. Local people were concerned about the koala based on its conservation status nationally and globally rather than because of its local or Victorian status. We conclude that the concept of 'flagship' species in the case of the koala, is more a global than a local construct.
Description:
We investigated the success of the Koala Conservation and Education Program conducted in Ballarat, Victoria, Australia from 2000-2009 by interviewing 28 individuals, from various stakeholder groups involved in the project. Transcripts were analysed using grounded theory to identify common themes, keywords and phrases. We conclude that the chosen ‘flagship’ species, the koala, was crucial for the success of the project which culminated in the adoption of the Koala Plan of Management and habitat overlays into the City of Ballarat’s planning scheme. Local people were concerned about the koala based on its conservation status nationally and globally rather than because of its local or Victorian status. We conclude that the concept of 'flagship' species in the case of the koala, is more a global than a local construct.
Description:
This paper is concerned with the emergence of hospitality in Colonial Victoria, and is part of ongoing research into understanding Victoria’s ‘tourism era of discovery’, which focuses on the embryonic or emergent phase in which the tourism and hospitality industry is coming into being. Travellers’ accounts and other contemporary sources are used to provide insights into Victoria’s nascent hospitality - through them we should be able to see the various places that were emerging as settlements in the colonial space. It offers a social history of Aboriginal interactions and associations with bush inns including camping sites; cultural performances; alcohol consumption; restrictions on serving alcohol to Aboriginal people; and sites of violence. In the pre-gold period, accommodation responded to the needs of pastoral travellers and reflected physical discontinuities such as river crossings, which were logical places to stop and rest. These discontinuities also became opportunities for interactions with Aboriginal peoples
Description:
This unique book examines the vital and contested connections between colonialism and tourism, which are as lively and charged today as ever before. Demonstrating how much of the marketing of these destinations represents the constant renewal of colonialism in the tourism business, this book illustrates how actors in the worldwide tourism industry continue to benefit from the colonial roots of globalisation.
Description:
The vital and contested connections between colonialism and tourism are as lively and charged today as they ever were. From staged weddings in Mauritius, curated walks through the Medina of Tunis, surfing off the high-rise hotel development at Waikiki or riding on an Elephant Safari Tour in Himachal Pradesh, much of the marketing of these kinds of destinations represent the constant renewal of coloniality in the tourism business. Actors in the worldwide tourism industry continue to benefit from the colonial roots of globalisation. The ownership of tourist infrastructures, for example, airlines, hotel booking systems and resorts, are restructured by a neo-colonial order. Colonialism is echoed in the imaginations of tourists, in the marketing of destinations and in the production of touristified landscapes. Whether found on bespoke tours, or at resorts or tourist attractions, strategies to package the colonial past have arguably become more sophisticated through the situated and exciting offers encountered variously through specialist accommodation, architecture, food, stories and design. The growth in tourism and its intensi- fication and expansion into new markets has amplified the encounters with history and memory. Hélène Cixous’s (2004: 55) aphorism ‘everything passes, except the past’ presents a potent guide in commencing our thinking on these issues. As much as time is receding, the colonial past is growing in influence. Many societies find themselves cast into situations where they variously elide, exploit and re-negotiate their relationships to their colonial experience (Strachan, 2002) "From introduction"
Description:
Kurrburra (aka Mr Ruffy) (1797-1849), Aboriginal wirrirrap (doctor, healer, bard), sage counsellor of his people, consultant with koalas, and heroic slayer of a feared orangutan-like cryptid that lived in the ranges north of Western Port, is believed to have been born in 1797, and was a member of the Yawen djirra clan, the eastern-most group of the Boonwurrung People whose Country stretched from Wirribi-yaluk (Werribee River) to Wammun (Wilsons Promontory) in Victoria. His moiety was Bunjil and in the early 1840s he had 2 wives: Kurundum (1819-?) and Bowyeup (1823-?), and 2 children, whose names are not known. Kurrburra's traditional Aboriginal name is the Boonwurrung word for the iconic marsupial Phascolarctos cinereus, more commonly known as the koala.
Description:
Kurrburra (aka Mr Ruffy) (1797-1849), Aboriginal wirrirrap (doctor, healer, bard), sage counsellor of his people, consultant with koalas, and heroic slayer of a feared orangutan-like cryptid that lived in the ranges north of Western Port, is believed to have been born in 1797, and was a member of the Yawen djirra clan, the eastern-most group of the Boonwurrung People whose Country stretched from Wirribi-yaluk (Werribee River) to Wammun (Wilsons Promontory) in Victoria. His moiety was Bunjil and in the early 1840s he had 2 wives: Kurundum (1819-?) and Bowyeup (1823-?), and 2 children, whose names are not known. Kurrburra's traditional Aboriginal name is the Boonwurrung word for the iconic marsupial Phascolarctos cinereus, more commonly known as the koala.
Description:
The nature of Aboriginal people's use, indeed occupation, of the Victorian Mallee 'back country' warrants detailed investigation. Probably arising out of the paucity of observations of Aboriginal people on the land before it was pastorally occupied, an historical analysis from the 1870s suggesting Aboriginal people were not occupiers but mere 'seasonal visitors' to the 'back country' was unquestionably accepted for the next century. Growing understanding of the fundamentally sophisticated ways in which Aboriginal people managed their land has led to some recent historical works with a revised understanding of land use in the 'back country', but there is no agreement to move away from the orthodox historical paradigm. Parish plans from the Mallee, part of PROV's 'Parish and township plans' collection, were investigated to determine whether they contain evidence of former Aboriginal land use that could inform this question. It was found that these plans can potentially reveal the presence of pre-colonial Aboriginal water management, pathways, quarries, land management, cemeteries and placenames. Thus, parish plans were shown to be a potentially valuable resource that might have the capacity to support a reinvestigation of Aboriginal land use in the 'back country'. Approaches for a more detailed investigation of the value of these plans are suggested.
Description:
The nature of Aboriginal people's use, indeed occupation, of the Victorian Mallee 'back country' warrants detailed investigation. Probably arising out of the paucity of observations of Aboriginal people on the land before it was pastorally occupied, an historical analysis from the 1870s suggesting Aboriginal people were not occupiers but mere 'seasonal visitors' to the 'back country' was unquestionably accepted for the next century. Growing understanding of the fundamentally sophisticated ways in which Aboriginal people managed their land has led to some recent historical works with a revised understanding of land use in the 'back country', but there is no agreement to move away from the orthodox historical paradigm. Parish plans from the Mallee, part of PROV's 'Parish and township plans' collection, were investigated to determine whether they contain evidence of former Aboriginal land use that could inform this question. It was found that these plans can potentially reveal the presence of pre-colonial Aboriginal water management, pathways, quarries, land management, cemeteries and placenames. Thus, parish plans were shown to be a potentially valuable resource that might have the capacity to support a reinvestigation of Aboriginal land use in the 'back country'. Approaches for a more detailed investigation of the value of these plans are suggested.
Description:
Abstract The principal aim of this study is to provide a detailed examination of nineteenth- and early twentieth-century archival records that relate to New South Wales Aboriginal peoples' associations with koalas and gain a greater understanding of the utilitarian and symbolic significance of koalas for Aboriginal communities as recorded by colonists during the early period of colonization. Anthropological discussions about the role and significance of koalas in Australian Aboriginal society have been limited, some sources are unreliable and interpretation is at times divisive. Many scholars have previously highlighted how using only historical sources as its reference point it is difficult to discern with great specificity that Aboriginal peoples in other regions of New South Wales commonly ate the koala and used its skin. Through a critique of historical sources, we demonstrate that the ethno-historical evidence is inconclusive as to whether they were an integral food source for much of the time period covered by this paper in the area now called the state of New South Wales. Furthermore, this study demonstrates that the extent of their use varied across regions and between tribal groups and was likely to have been traditionally associated with lore specific to certain cultural groups, and may have involved dreaming stories, and gendered roles in hunting and resource use, and other aspects of spiritual belief systems.
Description:
This article collects and presents nineteenth-century ethnographic evidence from the Newer Volcanics Province of Australia and explores how volcanism was recorded and understood in Aboriginal oral traditions. It investigates whether Aboriginal Australian oral traditions can be understood as persistent eyewitness accounts of volcanic eruptions in the Newer Volcanics Province, how andwhat kind of geological and volcanological knowledge was embedded within Aboriginal Australian oral traditions, and considers what value the ethnographic evidence has for understanding both the socio-cultural and geological histories of the Newer Volcanics Province.
Description:
The intimate cross-cultural narratives that ocure when British and other European mariners maded early contacts with Australian Aboriginal people have been investigated in a number of influential historical works, including Reynolds's "The other side of the frontier", Shellam's SHaking hand on the fringe', and Clendinnen's Dancing with strangers, This chapter will draw onfrom the concepts established in these workks and explore three facets of early interculturla exchange on the maritime frontier of south-eastern Australia (1790s-1840s) through written narratives focusing on food, tools and story-telling. "From chapter".
Description:
This chapter examines Indigenous narratives of first contact in south eastern Australia with a particular focus on Victoria and draws on ethnohistory, ethnography and thick description to offer a nuanced understanding of these encounters. Early interactions were framed within an attempt to incorporate Europeans within existing cosmological and social orders. Fragments of Aboriginal accounts of their first interactions with Europeans survive in the written recordds of early settleers and public administratorsm and although they are not extensive they nevertheless provide us with glimpses of Aboriginal understanding of these initial encounters. Victorian Aboriginal perceptions of their first contact with European settlers have been studied by Clark, and Clark and Cahir.
Description:
Indigenous Australians have long understood sustainable hunting and harvesting, seasonal changes in flora and fauna, predator-prey relationships and imbalances, and seasonal fire management. Yet the extent of their knowledge and expertise has been largely unknown and under-appreciated by non-Aboriginal colonists, especially in the south-east of Australia where Aboriginal culture was severely fractured. Aboriginal Biocultural Knowledge in South-eastern Australia is the first book to examine historical records from early colonists who interacted with south-eastern Australian Aboriginal communities and documented their understanding of the environment, natural resources such as water and plant and animal foods, medicine and other aspects of their material world. This book provides a compelling case for the importance of understanding Indigenous knowledge, to inform discussions around climate change, biodiversity, resource management, health and education. It will be a valuable reference for natural resource management agencies, academics in Indigenous studies and anyone interested in Aboriginal culture and knowledge.
Description:
William Le Souëf 1 was the fifth and final person to be appointed an assistant protector in the Port Phillip Aboriginal Protectorate when he replaced James Dredge in the Goulburn River District in July 1840. Despite some procrastination by Chief Protector, George Augustus Robinson, but with the urging of Superintendent Charles Joseph La Trobe, Le Souëf filled the vacancy created by Dredge’s resignation. Yet by the end of the year, those in authority were in agreement that he was unfit for service. This paper is the first detailed exploration of William Le Souëf and his relationships with both Robinson and La Trobe.
Description:
Plants feature prominently in Aboriginal remedies chiefly used to relieve symptoms such as fever, congestion, headache, skin sores, tired or swollen aching limbs and digestive problems. Treatment can involve drinks, washes, massages and aromatherapies. The drinks are made by heating water with plant additives, and in Aboriginal English are commonly referred to as ‘tea’. Since European colonisation, washes are prepared by boiling plants, with the cooled liquid applied externally to the body. Some plants are heated, then rubbed or massaged into swollen parts of the patient’s body. The aroma of plants is generally transferred to the patient through contact with steam and smoke (Clarke 2008b, pp. 12– 13).