Brokers and Boundaries

Colonial exploration continues, all too often, to be rendered as heroic narratives of solitary, intrepid explorers and adventurers. This edited collection contributes to scholarship that is challenging that persistent mythology. With a focus on Indigenous brokers, such as guides, assistants and mediators, it highlights the ways in which nineteenth-century exploration in Australia and New Guinea was a collective and socially complex enterprise. Many of the authors provide biographically rich studies that carefully examine and speculate about Indigenous brokers’ motivations, commitments and desires. All of the chapters in the collection are attentive to the specific local circumstances as well as broader colonial contexts in which exploration and encounters occurred. This collection breaks new ground in its emphasis on Indigenous agency and Indigenous–explorer interactions. It will be of value to historians and others for a very long time. Professor Ann Curthoys, University of Sydney. In bringing together this group of authors, the editors have brought to histories of colonialism the individuality of these intermediaries, whose lives intersected colonial exploration in Australia and New Guinea. Dr Jude Philp, Macleay Museum

Ancient history · Archaeology · Colonialism · Ethnology · Genealogy · Geography · Indigenous · Diverse Historical and Scientific Studies · Ecology · Historical Studies and Socio-cultural Analysis · History · History of Science and Medicine

• Smoke and mirrors in Arnhem Land

  Martin Thomas•History and Anthropology•2022

  Add to list

• The ‘Mystery’ of Lop Nor

  Lachlan Fleetwood•Environment and History•2026

  Add to list

• Indigenous and other Australians since 1901

  Open Access•Miranda Johnson, T Rowse•Aboriginal History Journal•2018

  Add to list