New Age: New Orthodoxy - The Institutional Authorising of Balderdash

Abstract

Over the last decade a growing number of publications propounding the utility for settler-Australians (and others) of Aboriginal spirituality, other cultural property and identity have emerged. This stream of material continues to widen and shows no sign of abating. The well publicised and documented concerns raised by some Aborigines have not constricted the flow. Nor have the various critiques of academics, literary critics, artists, journalists and a range of other concerned individuals. A reason for their concern is that much of the work advocating the usefulness to settler-Australians and others of Aboriginal non-material cultural property is engaged in the practice of exploitative appropriation, not mutually enriching cultural exchange. Various qualities are assigned to Aborigines according to whatever needs they are being asked to address. Their cultural property, wrenched from the context in which its meaning is gained, is disfigured into desirous attributes which are declared to be an essence of indigenous cultural authenticity.