N Peterson
Biographic Data
| ID | 7628 |
|---|---|
| NAME | N Peterson |
| GIVEN NAMES | N |
| FAMILY NAME | Peterson |
| SIGNATURE | PETERSON N |
| AFFILIATIONS | Australian National University |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-3100-0647 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 40 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 692 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 39 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 1 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1966 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 11 |
Challenging Postclassical Beliefs
Beyond Narratives of Aboriginal Self-deliverance
The central role that anthropologists play in Aboriginal land and native title claims is becoming less visible. In some ways, this is not surprising since minorities that need the help of others, if they are seeking recognition of their rights, are often uncomfortable being the beneficiaries of assistance, and the narratives they come to cherish are those of self-deliverance. However, the public discourses in which anthropology is involved also c…
Obituary for Jeremy Long
Jeremy Phillip Merrick Long died on the 9th September 2021 aged eighty-nine after a professional life spent with the Commonwealth public service working in Aboriginal affairs.1 Nobody, Aboriginal or non-Aboriginal, who has risen to senior levels in the administration of Aboriginal affairs, has had a wider, richer or more appropriate experience of the complexities faced in this area of public administration or a more comprehensive awareness of the…
Pre-colonial inequality in Aboriginal Australia
In her paper, “Monopolisation of knowledge, social inequality and egalitarianism: an evolutionary perspective” (2016), Olga Artemova argues that precolonial Australian Aboriginal societies offer us an unusual non-economically based model on which social inequality can be established. This is through a complex religious system controlled by elderly men that prolonged the reaching of full adulthood for males. I am sympathetic to her general argumen…
Carl Strehlow's 1909 Comparative Heritage Dictionary
Carl Strehlow's comparative dictionary manuscript is a unique item of Australian cultural heritage; it is a large collection of circa 7,600 Aranda, 6,800 Loritja (Luritja) and 1,200 Dieri to German entries compiled at the beginning of the twentieth century at the Hermannsburg Mission in central Australia. It is an integral part of Strehlow's ethnographic work on Aboriginal
The German-language tradition of ethnography in Australia
German Ethnography in Australia
The contribution of German ethnography to Australian anthropological scholarship on Aboriginal societies and cultures has been limited, primarily because few people working in the field read German. But it has also been neglected because its humanistic concerns with language, religion and mythology contrasted with the mainstream British social anthropological tradition that
Experiments in self-determination
Outstations, which dramatically increased in numbers in the 1970s, are small, decentralised and relatively permanent communities of kin established by Aboriginal people on land that has social, cultural or economic significance to them. In 2015 they yet again came under attack, this time as an expensive lifestyle choice that can no longer be supported by state governments. Yet outstations are the original, and most striking, manifestation of remo…
The present and the ethnographic present
Well first, I’d just like to thank the organizing committee and the museum invitation. It’s a wonderful chance to be here, I haven’t been here before. And also Phillippe Peltier and Anne-Christine Taylor and Jessica De Largy Healy for taking us around the museum yesterday, it was such a privilege and it was a wonderful experience, completely devoid of anybody else and with full access to the collections. My paper “The present and the ethnographic…
Circulating Cultures
Circulating Cultures is an edited book about the transformation of cultural materials through the Australian landscape. The book explores cultural circulation, exchange and transit, through events such as the geographical movement of song series across the Kimberley and Arnhem Land; the transformation of Australian Aboriginal dance in the hands of an American choreographer
On the persistence of sharing
This article addresses the persistence of sharing in Indigenous Australian domestic moral economies well after hunting and gathering has stopped being the basis of livelihood, by examining the relationship of demand sharing with the more formalised asymmetrical reciprocity found in both pre and post contact life. Understanding the significance of the more formalized asymmetry in the pre‐contact situation helps shed light on what happens in the po…
Community Development, Civil Society and Local Government in the Future of Remote Northern Territory Growth Towns
In 2008, community government was abolished in the remote Aboriginal communities of the Northern Territory and centralised in large shires. It seems safe to assume that, for the foreseeable future, the population of most of these communities will remain predominantly Aboriginal. While such communities will continue to be centres of change, the co-residence of large populations of Aboriginal people also facilitates the reproduction of values and p…
Anthropology, Public Policy and Social Process in Indigenous Australia
Additional informationNotes on contributorsFrancesca Merlan Francesca Merlan is Professor in the School of Archaeology and Anthropology, Australian National University Nicolas Peterson Nicolas Peterson is Professor in the School of Archaeology and Anthropology, Australian National University
Australasian Contrasts
Is the Aboriginal Landscape Sentient? Animism, the New Animism and the Warlpiri
It is now commonplace for some anthropologists, and others, to say that for Aboriginal Australians in the remote regions, the landscape is ‘sentient’, however, what that means is not always clear. Are the anthropologists using this term metaphorically or do they understand Aboriginal people to be animists? The ‘new animists' have no doubt that the anthropologists are describing what they call the ‘new animism’. Much of this literature refers to t…
The Pestle and Mortar
Secular and Ritual Links
I can't follow you on this horde-clan business at all
An exchange of letters between Donald Thomson and A. R. Radcliffe-Brown from 1948–54 not only sheds what is probably the final ray of light on Radcliffe-Brown's views about the horde, but also shows how interpersonal relations may influence the way people deal with conflicts between their field experience and the reigning paradigm
Illustration or Evidence
This article examines a set of postcard images relating to the Australian Aboriginal family circulating at the beginning of the 20th century, to ask whether the images were an illustration of Aboriginal social and economic circumstances or taken as evidence for it. It is argued that the imagery fits with two prevalent moral discourses of the period that helped explain Aboriginal people's impoverished circumstances, and provided evidence for the n…
Native Title in Australia
Photography's Other Histories
Notes historiques sur l'anthropologie en Australie
77 RÉSUMÉ/ABSTRACT Notes historiques sur l'anthropologie en Australie Influencés jusqu'à tout récemment par les penseurs de la London School of Economics, de Cambridge et des grandes écoles européennes, les anthropologues australiens n'ont pris en considération la condition socio-économique des Aborigènes que sous l'impulsion de l'anthropologie culturelle américaine. L'élaboration d'une anthropologie proprement australienne proviendra des anthrop…
The modernising of the indigenous domestic moral economy
Une comprehension adequate des raisons de la resilience, chez les Aborigenes d'Australie, de l'economie morale du partage et de la parente necessite d'aller au-dela d'une conception economiciste de ce phenomene comme strategie de subsistance ou de gestion des risques et d'expliquer pourquoi il est etroitement imbrique dans la pratique quotidienne. Les AA. proposent un modele qui rend compte de la centralite, et donc de la resilience du partage da…
'Studying man and man's nature'
On the 5 March of this year the new Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies Act came into force restructuring the governing body and membership of the old Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies, established in 1964. The chief purpose of this restructuring is to ensure greater Aboriginal control over the Institute's activities now that the production and distribution of objectified knowledge about Aboriginal cultu…
Camp Site Location Amongst Australian Hunter‐gatherers
Demand Sharing
Despite the prevalence of an ethic of generosity among foragers, much sharing is by demand rather than by unsolicited giving. Although a behavioristic model of demand sharing can be seen as matching sociobiological expectations, the emphasis here is on the social and symbolic significance of the practice. It is argued that demand sharing involves testing, assertive, and/or substantiating behavior and is important in the constitution of social rel…
Why Hunter-Gatherers Work
Hunter-Gatherer Territoriality
The question of whether Australian hunter-gatherer territoriality is natural or conventional is considered. The definition and function of territorial behavior is discussed and its consequences for population control emphasized. A functional analogy is drawn between Aboriginal greeting ceremonies and non-human boundary maintenance, and it is concluded that even without an innate component in territorial aggression, spacing is basic to Aboriginal …
Totemism Yesterday
An Expanding Aboriginal Domain
Some pre-circumcision candidates in the Western Desert culture area are taken on a journey to gather people for the final ceremony. Since Aboriginal people started to own cars in the 1960s, these journeys have expanded to such an extent that the outward journey discussed here covered 2250 km. The question of why it is the initiation ceremony, rather than some other ceremonial form, that is becoming the basis for the integration of this expanding …
Customary Marine Tenure in Australia
Some Major Problems in the Social Anthropology of Hunter-Gatherers [and Comments and Reply]
Ethnographic Interpretations of the Prehistory of Western Arnhem Land
The prehistoric sequence in North West Arnhem Land is described. This is derived from archaeological excavations in stratified deposits of the rock shelters in two adjacent ecological zones: a coastal plain and a plateau. A marked cultural dichotomy emerges between the material in these two zones, and this difference apparently persisted for some 7,000 years until the ethnographic present, about 100 years ago. An attempt is made in this paper to …
Camp Site Location Amongst Australian Hunter‐gatherers
The modernising of the indigenous domestic moral economy
Une comprehension adequate des raisons de la resilience, chez les Aborigenes d'Australie, de l'economie morale du partage et de la parente necessite d'aller au-dela d'une conception economiciste de ce phenomene comme strategie de subsistance ou de gestion des risques et d'expliquer pourquoi il est etroitement imbrique dans la pratique quotidienne. Les AA. proposent un modele qui rend compte de la centralite, et donc de la resilience du partage da…
The Pestle and Mortar
Illustration or Evidence
This article examines a set of postcard images relating to the Australian Aboriginal family circulating at the beginning of the 20th century, to ask whether the images were an illustration of Aboriginal social and economic circumstances or taken as evidence for it. It is argued that the imagery fits with two prevalent moral discourses of the period that helped explain Aboriginal people's impoverished circumstances, and provided evidence for the n…
Secular and Ritual Links
Beyond Narratives of Aboriginal Self-deliverance
The central role that anthropologists play in Aboriginal land and native title claims is becoming less visible. In some ways, this is not surprising since minorities that need the help of others, if they are seeking recognition of their rights, are often uncomfortable being the beneficiaries of assistance, and the narratives they come to cherish are those of self-deliverance. However, the public discourses in which anthropology is involved also c…
Carl Strehlow's 1909 Comparative Heritage Dictionary
Carl Strehlow's comparative dictionary manuscript is a unique item of Australian cultural heritage; it is a large collection of circa 7,600 Aranda, 6,800 Loritja (Luritja) and 1,200 Dieri to German entries compiled at the beginning of the twentieth century at the Hermannsburg Mission in central Australia. It is an integral part of Strehlow's ethnographic work on Aboriginal
German Ethnography in Australia
The contribution of German ethnography to Australian anthropological scholarship on Aboriginal societies and cultures has been limited, primarily because few people working in the field read German. But it has also been neglected because its humanistic concerns with language, religion and mythology contrasted with the mainstream British social anthropological tradition that
I can't follow you on this horde-clan business at all
An exchange of letters between Donald Thomson and A. R. Radcliffe-Brown from 1948–54 not only sheds what is probably the final ray of light on Radcliffe-Brown's views about the horde, but also shows how interpersonal relations may influence the way people deal with conflicts between their field experience and the reigning paradigm
Circulating Cultures
Circulating Cultures is an edited book about the transformation of cultural materials through the Australian landscape. The book explores cultural circulation, exchange and transit, through events such as the geographical movement of song series across the Kimberley and Arnhem Land; the transformation of Australian Aboriginal dance in the hands of an American choreographer
Community Development, Civil Society and Local Government in the Future of Remote Northern Territory Growth Towns
In 2008, community government was abolished in the remote Aboriginal communities of the Northern Territory and centralised in large shires. It seems safe to assume that, for the foreseeable future, the population of most of these communities will remain predominantly Aboriginal. While such communities will continue to be centres of change, the co-residence of large populations of Aboriginal people also facilitates the reproduction of values and p…
Whitefella Business
The Church Council of South Mala
Malanggan and Memai in New Ireland
Ethnographic Interpretations of the Prehistory of Western Arnhem Land
The prehistoric sequence in North West Arnhem Land is described. This is derived from archaeological excavations in stratified deposits of the rock shelters in two adjacent ecological zones: a coastal plain and a plateau. A marked cultural dichotomy emerges between the material in these two zones, and this difference apparently persisted for some 7,000 years until the ethnographic present, about 100 years ago. An attempt is made in this paper to …
Totemism Yesterday
Hunter-Gatherer Territoriality
The question of whether Australian hunter-gatherer territoriality is natural or conventional is considered. The definition and function of territorial behavior is discussed and its consequences for population control emphasized. A functional analogy is drawn between Aboriginal greeting ceremonies and non-human boundary maintenance, and it is concluded that even without an innate component in territorial aggression, spacing is basic to Aboriginal …
Whitefella Business
Life Before Genesis
Pintupi Country, Pintupi Self
The Pintupi, a hunting-and-gathering people of Australia's Western Desert, were among the last Aborigines to come into contact with white society. Despite their extended relocation in central Australian settlements, they have managed to preserve much of their traditional culture and social organization. This book presents a comprehensive ethnographic interpretation of the ways in which Pintupi politics, cosmology, kinship systems, nomadic pattern…
The Yolngu and their Land
Some Major Problems in the Social Anthropology of Hunter-Gatherers [and Comments and Reply]
Why Hunter-Gatherers Work
Demand Sharing
Despite the prevalence of an ethic of generosity among foragers, much sharing is by demand rather than by unsolicited giving. Although a behavioristic model of demand sharing can be seen as matching sociobiological expectations, the emphasis here is on the social and symbolic significance of the practice. It is argued that demand sharing involves testing, assertive, and/or substantiating behavior and is important in the constitution of social rel…
Customary Marine Tenure in Australia
An Expanding Aboriginal Domain
Some pre-circumcision candidates in the Western Desert culture area are taken on a journey to gather people for the final ceremony. Since Aboriginal people started to own cars in the 1960s, these journeys have expanded to such an extent that the outward journey discussed here covered 2250 km. The question of why it is the initiation ceremony, rather than some other ceremonial form, that is becoming the basis for the integration of this expanding …
Legislating for Land Rights in Australia
A commitment in applied anthropological policy work to maximising cultural appropriateness or even to supporting what indigenous people say they want is not always possible. This proved to be the case in connection with formulating recommendations for land rights legislation in Australia's Northern Territory. Until 1992 the only rights in land that Aboriginal people had as the original occupiers of the continent were statutory (that is, through a…
Photography's Other Histories
Notes historiques sur l'anthropologie en Australie
77 RÉSUMÉ/ABSTRACT Notes historiques sur l'anthropologie en Australie Influencés jusqu'à tout récemment par les penseurs de la London School of Economics, de Cambridge et des grandes écoles européennes, les anthropologues australiens n'ont pris en considération la condition socio-économique des Aborigènes que sous l'impulsion de l'anthropologie culturelle américaine. L'élaboration d'une anthropologie proprement australienne proviendra des anthrop…
The modernising of the indigenous domestic moral economy
Une comprehension adequate des raisons de la resilience, chez les Aborigenes d'Australie, de l'economie morale du partage et de la parente necessite d'aller au-dela d'une conception economiciste de ce phenomene comme strategie de subsistance ou de gestion des risques et d'expliquer pourquoi il est etroitement imbrique dans la pratique quotidienne. Les AA. proposent un modele qui rend compte de la centralite, et donc de la resilience du partage da…
Native Title in Australia
Illustration or Evidence
This article examines a set of postcard images relating to the Australian Aboriginal family circulating at the beginning of the 20th century, to ask whether the images were an illustration of Aboriginal social and economic circumstances or taken as evidence for it. It is argued that the imagery fits with two prevalent moral discourses of the period that helped explain Aboriginal people's impoverished circumstances, and provided evidence for the n…
I can't follow you on this horde-clan business at all
An exchange of letters between Donald Thomson and A. R. Radcliffe-Brown from 1948–54 not only sheds what is probably the final ray of light on Radcliffe-Brown's views about the horde, but also shows how interpersonal relations may influence the way people deal with conflicts between their field experience and the reigning paradigm
The Pestle and Mortar
Secular and Ritual Links
Is the Aboriginal Landscape Sentient? Animism, the New Animism and the Warlpiri
It is now commonplace for some anthropologists, and others, to say that for Aboriginal Australians in the remote regions, the landscape is ‘sentient’, however, what that means is not always clear. Are the anthropologists using this term metaphorically or do they understand Aboriginal people to be animists? The ‘new animists' have no doubt that the anthropologists are describing what they call the ‘new animism’. Much of this literature refers to t…
Australasian Contrasts
Sociology (26 works) · History (24 works) · Anthropology (15 works) · Political science (14 works) · Geography (12 works) · Archaeology (11 works) · Law (11 works) · Computer Science (10 works) · History (10 works) · Indigenous Health, Education, and Rights (10 works)