Dan Tout - Academia.edu (original) (raw)
Papers by Dan Tout
Australian Historical Studies, May 27, 2022
This book reflects on Arena's contribution to Australian cultural and political life, spannin... more This book reflects on Arena's contribution to Australian cultural and political life, spanning five decades. To mark Arena's fiftieth birthday this volume presents exploratory essays by the Arena editors and invited scholars. From the lessons of the Cold War to the student revolt and social movements of the '60s and '70s; from debates about the fate of the university and the rise of neoliberalism in the 1980s; to the meanings of globalization and new threats to peace as the twenty-first century surged into new techno-capitalist forms, Arena has engaged with the new phenomena in a spirit of open debate. The book includes chapters on globalization and technology, Indigenous affairs and relations with our neighbouring region, new social and media formations, science and technology, capitalism and the intellectuals, environment and the social movements
Aboriginal History Journal
Through a close reading of particular episodes and a focus on the minutiae of action and context,... more Through a close reading of particular episodes and a focus on the minutiae of action and context, this article adds to the literature on the customary use of fire by Aboriginal people in southeastern Australia by highlighting the historically significant role Aboriginal people played in toiling alongside colonists and fighting fires during the colonial period. By scrutinising the written colonial records it is possible to reveal some of the measures that Aboriginal people used to help the colonists avoid cataclysmic fire. Lacking many direct Indigenous sources due to the devastation caused by rapid colonisation, we do this for the most part through a detailed examination of sheep and cattle graziers' journals, newspapers and government records. The article commences with an overview of colonists' observations of and attitudes regarding Aboriginal practices in relation to fire with specific reference to the region now referred to as Victoria and New South Wales. It concludes with an examination of the few recorded instances in which Aboriginal people tutored colonists in fighting fires, educating them how to use fire as a management tool, and the significant value they placed in Aboriginal knowledge relating to fire.
Arena Magazine (Fitzroy, Vic), Jun 1, 2012
The Northern Territory Intervention and its continuation in the form of the perversely misnamed S... more The Northern Territory Intervention and its continuation in the form of the perversely misnamed Stronger Futures in the Northern Territory legislation, set to pass the Senate at the time of writing in a rare instance of bipartisan cooperation (or, in this instance, collusion by an unholy alliance for Aboriginal assimilation), has already been subjected to critical analysis from a wide range of perspectives. Yet five years after the Intervention’s announcement and on the eve of its ten-year extension, this radical policy and the agenda it represents continues to defy explanation or understanding. Existing analyses and their differing—albeit interpenetrating—approaches reflect not only the variety of problems with the prevailing agenda of punitive, interventionist assimilationism in Indigenous affairs, but also the complex and often contradictory intentions underlying the legislative measures themselves. Considering the lack of explanation or justification by either the instituting or extending governments regarding the supposed links between the Intervention’s objectives and the measures involved, not to mention the veil of secrecy surrounding—and lack of evidence supporting—its continuation, ongoing attempts at explication are both essential and inevitable. This article represents one such attempt, offering a historical interpretation of the Intervention as only the most recent in a continuous series of settler colonial strategies aiming towards the elimination or expulsion of the Indigenous presence from the body of the settler nation.
Aboriginal History, 2022
Through a close reading of particular episodes and a focus on the minutiae of action and context,... more Through a close reading of particular episodes and a focus on the minutiae of action and context, this article adds to the literature on the customary use of fire by Aboriginal people in southeastern Australia by highlighting the historically significant role Aboriginal people played in toiling alongside colonists and fighting fires during the colonial period. By scrutinising the written colonial records it is possible to reveal some of the measures that Aboriginal people used to help the colonists avoid cataclysmic fire. Lacking many direct Indigenous sources due to the devastation caused by rapid colonisation, we do this for the most part through a detailed examination of sheep and cattle graziers’ journals, newspapers and government records. The article commences with an overview of colonists’ observations of and attitudes regarding Aboriginal practices in relation to fire with specific reference to the region now referred to as Victoria and New South Wales. It concludes with an examination of the few recorded instances in which Aboriginal people tutored colonists in fighting fires, educating them how to use fire as a management tool, and the significant value they placed in Aboriginal knowledge relating to fire.
Arena journal, 2012
Prior to the currently emerging popular awareness of anthropogenic climate change, there existed ... more Prior to the currently emerging popular awareness of anthropogenic climate change, there existed little impetus for Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians to engage regarding the sustainability of land - no way, that is, that inherently affected, concerned or was crucial to the survival of both peoples equally. There was no issue in which both had similar amounts at stake. This is in spite of the fact that land has always been and continues to be of fundamental concern within the Australian settler-colonial context, as well as the settler-colonial project more broadly. For Indigenous peoples, ways of knowing and being are intrinsically connected with Australian lands. Following European invasion, land (or lack of access to land) was critical to both Indigenous peoples dispossessed from their ancestral country and those settlers who claimed it for themselves. However, while land to at least some extent has always represented a 'common ground' for all Australian cultures, t...
Western Australian premier Colin Barnett has announced plans for the forced 'closure' of ... more Western Australian premier Colin Barnett has announced plans for the forced 'closure' of 'at least 100 or more' of the 274 remote Aboriginal communities across the state. It seems that South Australia may soon follow suit, with sixty locations in that state also earmarked for 'closure'. As with the Howard government's Northern Territory Emergency Response (the Intervention) and its extension under the Gillard government's perversely named Stronger Futures legislation, we are seeing what Patrick Wolfe has characterised as a persistent settler colonial 'logic of elimination'.
Higher Education Research & Development, 2013
ABSTRACT
Questions over what, whether and when the Australian nation is or might be have been of consisten... more Questions over what, whether and when the Australian nation is or might be have been of consistent concern throughout most of Australia's settler-colonial history and remain so today. In attempting to construct a national culture and identity, settler Australians, like settlers elsewhere, have invested in the establishment of a national literary tradition. This project of national cultural construction has emphasised a dual process of acclimation and maturation to claim the settler collective's attainment of maturity and legitimacy within the metropolitan domain of world literature and belonging to the land that provides the underlying imperative for settler colonisation itself. In the standard story of inevitably unfurling national cultural development towards these two ends, Britain has played the part of 'the mother country' (or parent oak), while Australia is the child (or seedling) that eventually and inevitably reaches maturity in the new soil. In Manning Clark's famous application of Henry Lawson's phrase, Britain was 'the Old Dead Tree', Australia 'the Young Tree Green'. Yet these narratives of national maturation operate to conceal the nature and the complexity of the environment the national literary culture was supposed to be acclimatising to, and becoming expressive of. In constructing narratives of Australian national cultural development in terms of bilateral oppositions between colony and metropole, such narratives neglect the complexities of the settler-colonial, as distinct from the colonial, 'situation'. On the contrary, this thesis is premised on the central proposition that the settler-colonial situation is fundamentally conditioned by a triangular system of relationships involving settler, metropolitan and Indigenous agencies. In this schema, the settler is compelled towards both indigenisation and neo-European replication, while both trajectories are similarly founded on the prior displacement-both literal and symbolic-of pre-existing Indigenous populations.
HE JINDYWOROBAK POETRY MOVEMENT, FOUNDED BY REX INGAMELLS IN 1938, emerged in the context of a li... more HE JINDYWOROBAK POETRY MOVEMENT, FOUNDED BY REX INGAMELLS IN 1938, emerged in the context of a literary-cultural milieu split between those concerned with developing a uniquely ‘indigenous’ Australian tradition on the one hand, and those primarily concerned with defending and maintaining continuity with Australia’s European inheritance on the other. While the Jindyworobaks have typically been associated with the former tradition, this essay argues that they in fact sought to chart a new path that rejected both the straightforward traditions of anti-colonial nationalism and the ‘alien’ influence of imported European culture; that they rejected both extremes and sought instead to achieve a synthesis of the two. With this aim in mind, they turned towards Aboriginal Australians, as bearers of the spirit of the place, in an attempt to appropriate an imagined environmental essence and to thereby construct the conditions for an unmediated encounter between the settler and the land.
The standard story of Australian national cultural development revolves around a fundamental conf... more The standard story of Australian national cultural development revolves around a fundamental conflict between the forces of empire loyalism or universalism on the one hand and Australian nationalism on the other. Yet this narrative structure neglects the complexities of the settler-colonial, as distinct from the colonial, situation. This article is premised on the proposition that the settler-colonial situation is conditioned by a triangular system of relationships involving settler, metropolitan and Indigenous agencies. In this schema, the settler is compelled towards both indigenisation and neo-European replication, while both trajectories are similarly founded on the prior displacement of pre-existing Indigenous populations. While at certain historical moments exclusive emphasis on the settler–metropole relation may be maintained, at others the disavowal of the settler–indigene relation common to both sides of the “two Australias” divide is rendered untenable by changing circumst...
'Invasion is a structure, not an event.' Through his oft-quoted refrain, Patrick Wolfe ai... more 'Invasion is a structure, not an event.' Through his oft-quoted refrain, Patrick Wolfe aimed to emphasise the persistence of the structures and effects of settler colonialism from the past into the present. He sought to reorient our (settlers') understandings of settler colonialism away from a retrospective view of invasion as an event that had occurred in the past and, one way or another, been resolved (even if its legacies might still warrant some form of redress) towards an understanding of the 'continuities and discontinuities' between the initial, violent stages of settler-colonial invasion and the often less literally, but equally symbolically, violent stages that follow. In Wolfe's view, the persistent structures of settler-colonial invasion are governed by a 'logic of elimination', which seeks to displace and replace Indigenous peoples from and on their land.
Australian Historical Studies, May 27, 2022
This book reflects on Arena's contribution to Australian cultural and political life, spannin... more This book reflects on Arena's contribution to Australian cultural and political life, spanning five decades. To mark Arena's fiftieth birthday this volume presents exploratory essays by the Arena editors and invited scholars. From the lessons of the Cold War to the student revolt and social movements of the '60s and '70s; from debates about the fate of the university and the rise of neoliberalism in the 1980s; to the meanings of globalization and new threats to peace as the twenty-first century surged into new techno-capitalist forms, Arena has engaged with the new phenomena in a spirit of open debate. The book includes chapters on globalization and technology, Indigenous affairs and relations with our neighbouring region, new social and media formations, science and technology, capitalism and the intellectuals, environment and the social movements
Aboriginal History Journal
Through a close reading of particular episodes and a focus on the minutiae of action and context,... more Through a close reading of particular episodes and a focus on the minutiae of action and context, this article adds to the literature on the customary use of fire by Aboriginal people in southeastern Australia by highlighting the historically significant role Aboriginal people played in toiling alongside colonists and fighting fires during the colonial period. By scrutinising the written colonial records it is possible to reveal some of the measures that Aboriginal people used to help the colonists avoid cataclysmic fire. Lacking many direct Indigenous sources due to the devastation caused by rapid colonisation, we do this for the most part through a detailed examination of sheep and cattle graziers' journals, newspapers and government records. The article commences with an overview of colonists' observations of and attitudes regarding Aboriginal practices in relation to fire with specific reference to the region now referred to as Victoria and New South Wales. It concludes with an examination of the few recorded instances in which Aboriginal people tutored colonists in fighting fires, educating them how to use fire as a management tool, and the significant value they placed in Aboriginal knowledge relating to fire.
Arena Magazine (Fitzroy, Vic), Jun 1, 2012
The Northern Territory Intervention and its continuation in the form of the perversely misnamed S... more The Northern Territory Intervention and its continuation in the form of the perversely misnamed Stronger Futures in the Northern Territory legislation, set to pass the Senate at the time of writing in a rare instance of bipartisan cooperation (or, in this instance, collusion by an unholy alliance for Aboriginal assimilation), has already been subjected to critical analysis from a wide range of perspectives. Yet five years after the Intervention’s announcement and on the eve of its ten-year extension, this radical policy and the agenda it represents continues to defy explanation or understanding. Existing analyses and their differing—albeit interpenetrating—approaches reflect not only the variety of problems with the prevailing agenda of punitive, interventionist assimilationism in Indigenous affairs, but also the complex and often contradictory intentions underlying the legislative measures themselves. Considering the lack of explanation or justification by either the instituting or extending governments regarding the supposed links between the Intervention’s objectives and the measures involved, not to mention the veil of secrecy surrounding—and lack of evidence supporting—its continuation, ongoing attempts at explication are both essential and inevitable. This article represents one such attempt, offering a historical interpretation of the Intervention as only the most recent in a continuous series of settler colonial strategies aiming towards the elimination or expulsion of the Indigenous presence from the body of the settler nation.
Aboriginal History, 2022
Through a close reading of particular episodes and a focus on the minutiae of action and context,... more Through a close reading of particular episodes and a focus on the minutiae of action and context, this article adds to the literature on the customary use of fire by Aboriginal people in southeastern Australia by highlighting the historically significant role Aboriginal people played in toiling alongside colonists and fighting fires during the colonial period. By scrutinising the written colonial records it is possible to reveal some of the measures that Aboriginal people used to help the colonists avoid cataclysmic fire. Lacking many direct Indigenous sources due to the devastation caused by rapid colonisation, we do this for the most part through a detailed examination of sheep and cattle graziers’ journals, newspapers and government records. The article commences with an overview of colonists’ observations of and attitudes regarding Aboriginal practices in relation to fire with specific reference to the region now referred to as Victoria and New South Wales. It concludes with an examination of the few recorded instances in which Aboriginal people tutored colonists in fighting fires, educating them how to use fire as a management tool, and the significant value they placed in Aboriginal knowledge relating to fire.
Arena journal, 2012
Prior to the currently emerging popular awareness of anthropogenic climate change, there existed ... more Prior to the currently emerging popular awareness of anthropogenic climate change, there existed little impetus for Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians to engage regarding the sustainability of land - no way, that is, that inherently affected, concerned or was crucial to the survival of both peoples equally. There was no issue in which both had similar amounts at stake. This is in spite of the fact that land has always been and continues to be of fundamental concern within the Australian settler-colonial context, as well as the settler-colonial project more broadly. For Indigenous peoples, ways of knowing and being are intrinsically connected with Australian lands. Following European invasion, land (or lack of access to land) was critical to both Indigenous peoples dispossessed from their ancestral country and those settlers who claimed it for themselves. However, while land to at least some extent has always represented a 'common ground' for all Australian cultures, t...
Western Australian premier Colin Barnett has announced plans for the forced 'closure' of ... more Western Australian premier Colin Barnett has announced plans for the forced 'closure' of 'at least 100 or more' of the 274 remote Aboriginal communities across the state. It seems that South Australia may soon follow suit, with sixty locations in that state also earmarked for 'closure'. As with the Howard government's Northern Territory Emergency Response (the Intervention) and its extension under the Gillard government's perversely named Stronger Futures legislation, we are seeing what Patrick Wolfe has characterised as a persistent settler colonial 'logic of elimination'.
Higher Education Research & Development, 2013
ABSTRACT
Questions over what, whether and when the Australian nation is or might be have been of consisten... more Questions over what, whether and when the Australian nation is or might be have been of consistent concern throughout most of Australia's settler-colonial history and remain so today. In attempting to construct a national culture and identity, settler Australians, like settlers elsewhere, have invested in the establishment of a national literary tradition. This project of national cultural construction has emphasised a dual process of acclimation and maturation to claim the settler collective's attainment of maturity and legitimacy within the metropolitan domain of world literature and belonging to the land that provides the underlying imperative for settler colonisation itself. In the standard story of inevitably unfurling national cultural development towards these two ends, Britain has played the part of 'the mother country' (or parent oak), while Australia is the child (or seedling) that eventually and inevitably reaches maturity in the new soil. In Manning Clark's famous application of Henry Lawson's phrase, Britain was 'the Old Dead Tree', Australia 'the Young Tree Green'. Yet these narratives of national maturation operate to conceal the nature and the complexity of the environment the national literary culture was supposed to be acclimatising to, and becoming expressive of. In constructing narratives of Australian national cultural development in terms of bilateral oppositions between colony and metropole, such narratives neglect the complexities of the settler-colonial, as distinct from the colonial, 'situation'. On the contrary, this thesis is premised on the central proposition that the settler-colonial situation is fundamentally conditioned by a triangular system of relationships involving settler, metropolitan and Indigenous agencies. In this schema, the settler is compelled towards both indigenisation and neo-European replication, while both trajectories are similarly founded on the prior displacement-both literal and symbolic-of pre-existing Indigenous populations.
HE JINDYWOROBAK POETRY MOVEMENT, FOUNDED BY REX INGAMELLS IN 1938, emerged in the context of a li... more HE JINDYWOROBAK POETRY MOVEMENT, FOUNDED BY REX INGAMELLS IN 1938, emerged in the context of a literary-cultural milieu split between those concerned with developing a uniquely ‘indigenous’ Australian tradition on the one hand, and those primarily concerned with defending and maintaining continuity with Australia’s European inheritance on the other. While the Jindyworobaks have typically been associated with the former tradition, this essay argues that they in fact sought to chart a new path that rejected both the straightforward traditions of anti-colonial nationalism and the ‘alien’ influence of imported European culture; that they rejected both extremes and sought instead to achieve a synthesis of the two. With this aim in mind, they turned towards Aboriginal Australians, as bearers of the spirit of the place, in an attempt to appropriate an imagined environmental essence and to thereby construct the conditions for an unmediated encounter between the settler and the land.
The standard story of Australian national cultural development revolves around a fundamental conf... more The standard story of Australian national cultural development revolves around a fundamental conflict between the forces of empire loyalism or universalism on the one hand and Australian nationalism on the other. Yet this narrative structure neglects the complexities of the settler-colonial, as distinct from the colonial, situation. This article is premised on the proposition that the settler-colonial situation is conditioned by a triangular system of relationships involving settler, metropolitan and Indigenous agencies. In this schema, the settler is compelled towards both indigenisation and neo-European replication, while both trajectories are similarly founded on the prior displacement of pre-existing Indigenous populations. While at certain historical moments exclusive emphasis on the settler–metropole relation may be maintained, at others the disavowal of the settler–indigene relation common to both sides of the “two Australias” divide is rendered untenable by changing circumst...
'Invasion is a structure, not an event.' Through his oft-quoted refrain, Patrick Wolfe ai... more 'Invasion is a structure, not an event.' Through his oft-quoted refrain, Patrick Wolfe aimed to emphasise the persistence of the structures and effects of settler colonialism from the past into the present. He sought to reorient our (settlers') understandings of settler colonialism away from a retrospective view of invasion as an event that had occurred in the past and, one way or another, been resolved (even if its legacies might still warrant some form of redress) towards an understanding of the 'continuities and discontinuities' between the initial, violent stages of settler-colonial invasion and the often less literally, but equally symbolically, violent stages that follow. In Wolfe's view, the persistent structures of settler-colonial invasion are governed by a 'logic of elimination', which seeks to displace and replace Indigenous peoples from and on their land.