Category Archives: Podcasts and videos

Peter Sutton in discussion with David Martin

Summary:  Peter Sutton is a renowned anthropologist and linguist with extensive experience in Native Title claims as well as claims under Queensland’s Aboriginal Land Act and the Northern Territory Land Rights Act. His Native Title in Australia: an ethnographic perspective published in 2003 continues to be a must-go-to for anthropologists working in the Native Title arena.

In this podcast, which draws from his 2003 publication Native Title in Australia: an ethnographic perspective, Peter outlines in conversation with fellow anthropologist David Martin a number of concepts key to the insights and reasoning  of  anthropologists working in the Native Title arena. These include Peter’s concept of ‘core’ and ‘contingent’ rights and interests;  implications of the transition in Aboriginal landed groups from (typically) patrilineal to cognatic descent in post-classical societies; mistakes commonly made regarding the concept of the ‘apical ancestors’ of contemporary landed groups; the differences between a cognatic stock (all the descendants of a given apical ancestor) and the contemporary landed group based on cognatic descent; and the crucial role of choice of their landed identity exercised by individual descendants of a given forebear in establishing a cognatic ‘family’ landed group drawn from that wider stock.

Contact details
Email: Peter.Sutton@samuseum.sa.gov.au

Dr Paul Burke and Kim McCaul

Summary: Paul Burke and Kim McCaul are both anthropologists with experience in Native Title work in regions with long histories of impact from colonisation. In this videocast and podcast, They first turn to examining some of the impacts on Aboriginal societies across the south-east which pose challenges for meeting the requirements for establishing Native Title. These include in particular impacts on the nature of Aboriginal people’s connections to country, and on the laws and customs under which those connections arise.  Central to their presentation is a consideration of the significance of what anthropologist Peter Sutton termed the ‘families of polity’ to Aboriginal people’s connections to country, and which Paul and Kim propose are key institutions through which distinctive Aboriginal ‘laws and customs’ relevant to connections to country are established and transmitted.

Videocast and Podcast

Dr John Morton in conversation with Carmen Cummings

Summary: John Morton is an anthropologist who has worked with Aboriginal people across much of Australia, including in particular Arrernte people in Central Australia, and has lectured and researched at several Australian Universities. He is widely published on such matters as Aboriginal religion. He has considerable experience in land rights and native title matters. Carmen Cummings is an applied anthropologist with interests in psychological anthropology and the relationships between people and places. She has been conducting native title research in Western Australia since 2007.

In these two videocasts and podcasts, John Morton and Carmen Cummings  in conversation explore the fundamentally religious  basis of classical Aboriginal societies, including local organisation, the nature of descent groups, the nexus between Aboriginal people and their country, and the very meaning of life itself. These are of considerable significance to anthropologists’ roles in Native Title matters regarding the basis of the ‘laws and customs’ under which the Aboriginal people concerned have ‘connections’ to their country.

Videocast and Podcast Part I

Videocast and Podcast Part II

A PDF of the slides and the references drawn on can be downloaded from this site.

Prof Emeritus Nic Peterson in discussion with Pascale Taplin

Summary: Nic Peterson has a long and distinguished career as an anthropologist, with a particular focus on Aboriginal societies including in central Arnhem land and in central Australia. Pascale Taplin originally worked for a decade in Aboriginal land management, and  has a further decade of experience as an anthropologist in Land Councils and Representative Bodies in the Northern Territory and Queensland.

In this first podcast, Pascale Taplin  interviews Nic Peterson in an exploration of four key elements of classical Aboriginal local organisation  – the land owning clans and their estates, and the land utilising bands and the ranges of those bands.

The accompaning paper by Nic Peterson, which can be downloaded from this site, includes a bibliography of key references relevant to Aboriginal local organisation.

A summary Powerpoint presentation by David Martin at the CNTA 2020 Annual Conference, The High Court Kobelt decision and the intersection between law and anthropology: ‘culture’ and ‘agency’ may also be of interest in relation to the issue of ‘cultural expertise’ discussed by David Trigger.

The podcast of David Martin’s presentation is below. It sketches out some of the challenges for anthropological expert opinions being accepted by the Court, demonstrated in a decision on an Aboriginal consumer protection matter ultimately brought before the High Court. His experiences outside Native Title in this and another Aboriginal consumer protection case suggest that an interpretation of ‘culture’ beyond the ‘traditional’ will be useful, even necessary. However, standard anthropological methodologies, including reasoning from the more particular to the general, or from the general to the particular, may be challenged in the Court or by Judges themselves, and Courts may pick and choose from elements of an anthropological account. It is all the more necessary to provide systematic, interlinked evidence, although my attempt to do so in the Kobelt matter appeares to have been largely unsuccessful.