PublishedOup, November 2003 |
ISBN9780195507669 |
FormatSoftcover, 350 pages |
Dimensions24.5cm × 17cm × 2.4cm |
Aboriginal Economy and Society compares and contrasts aspects of Aboriginal economy and society across seven different regions, from the southwest of Western Australia to the tip of Cape York. The book reconstructs and explores the relationships between environment, technologies, economy and society in these regions as they were at 'the threshold of European colonisation'.
Discussion is developed in a number of traditional areas of focus and debate within the discipline of social and cultural anthropology. These include the relationship between environment and culture, the construction of group and individual identity, kinship and marriage, cosmology, governance, and the control and organisation of production, distribution and exchange.
Aboriginal Economy and Society is the first systematic, broad-based comparative study of Aboriginal society with a continental scope and is an invaluable contribution to the study of anthropology.
economy, bringing together environment and material life, social organisation, beliefs, as well as examples of differences across the continent
technologies; the organisation of social life including identity, marriage, religion, and government; and the economic organisation of the seven regions
Synthesises and interprets early descriptions of economic and social life in parts of the southeast and southwest of Australia, and draws on more recent studies in central and northern Australia
The first comparative study of Aboriginal society with a continental scope
Each chapter is independent of the other making it attractive for teaching purposes
Each chapter can be set for reading, depending on the course structure
