UTas ePrintsA Reply to David Tacey's What Are We Afraid of?: Intellectualism, Aboriginality, and the SacredMRollsauthorIn respondin~ to my essay' critically examining his book Edge of theSacred , David Tacey rejects my criticism that he is imposing "alien" archetypal structures upon Aboriginal culture on the grounds that "the claim of archetypal theory is that it posits a universalising discourse in which no culture or time is alien to its theoretical structures"." Well, precisely. This just seems to restate my argument that Aborigines are yet again being subjected to a belief system (Faith? Ideology? Theory? Call it what you will) that is not of their making. Furthermore, it posits a theoretical structure that often provides interpretations of cultural practices and beliefs that differ markedly from Aboriginal explanations of the same matters. As I claim in my essay, this leads to the situation where nonAboriginal 'experts' are needed to explain to Aborigines the 'real' nature of their own beliefs and psyches. Archetypal theory is just another attempt to ensnare Aborigines within a universalising discourse, as Tacey makes explicit in his opening rejection of my argument. Tacey steps beyond my analysis of his text in an endeavour to sweep me into what he sees as the leftist denial of spirituality and/or sacredness. It should not be necessary to explain that to query where and how Tacey quests for the sacred is not the same thing as rejecting spirituality, but Tacey does equate these two separate issues. Readers should note that nowhere in my379902 Aboriginal Studies420305 Aboriginal Cultural Studies420306 Postcolonial and Global Cultural Studies2000Article

Permissions, Copyright and Authorship Statement
I grant the University of Tasmania permission to copy, store and communicate this work I declare that I either own the copyright in the work or I am submitting this work with permission of the copyright owner or under licence from the copyright owner. I declare that the metadata regarding authorship are true and correct and that it complies with the authorship requirements set down in the Joint NHMRC/AVCC Guidelines on Research and Practice.

Clicking on the deposit button indicates your agreement to these terms.