
- 296 pages
- English
- ePUB (mobile friendly)
- Available on iOS & Android
About this book
The Gift of Song: Performing Exchange in Western Arnhem Land tells the story of the return of physical and digital cultural materials through song and dance. Drawing on extensive, first-person ethnographic fieldwork in western Arnhem Land, Australia, Brown examines how Bininj/Arrarrkpi (Aboriginal people of this region) enact change and innovate their performance practices through ceremonial exchange. As Indigenous communities worldwide confront new social and environmental challenges, this book addresses the questions: How do Indigenous communities come to terms with legacies of taking and collecting? How are cultural materials in digital formats received and ritualised? How do traditional forms of exchange continue to mediate relationships? Combining ethnomusicological analysis and linguistically and historically informed ethnography, this book reveals how multilingualism and musical diversity are maintained through kun-borrk/manyardi, a major genre of Indigenous Australian song and dance. It retheorises the core anthropological concept of 'exchange' and enriches understanding of repatriation as a process of re-embedding tangible objects through intangible practices of ceremony and language.
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Information
Table of contents
- Cover
- Endorsement page
- Half Title
- Series Page
- Title Page
- Copyright Page
- Dedication
- Table of Contents
- List of figures
- List of tables
- Audio and video examples
- A note on cultural sensitivity
- Acknowledgements
- A note on use, spelling, and pronunciation of Aboriginal words
- Glossary of terms, abbreviations, and symbols
- A note on recordings, transcriptions, and support material
- Prologue: Receiving the gift
- 1 Following footsteps
- 2 âThey Still Help Usâ: Legacies of exchange
- 3 âYou Belong to Gunbalanyaâ: A reburial ceremony
- 4 âItâs a Secret, For Youâ: A Mamurrng ceremony
- 5 âThat Spirit Changed My Voiceâ: A funeral ceremony for Nakodjok
- 6 âIâll Tell You This Corroboree Songâ: An intercultural exchange in 1948
- 7 âJoin in and Danceâ: Festivals and new forms of exchange
- 8 âWeâre All Family Nowâ: Understanding the exchange
- Epilogue: Returning the gift
- References
- Index