Alterity and the Asymmetric Gaze: Aboriginal Constructions of Self and Other in Northwest Arnhem Land

Abstract

ABSTRACT While there is much scholarship deconstructing ‘mainstream’ Australian perceptions of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, there has been little attention to how Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples perceive non-Indigenous Australians. Yet such perceptions are telling of cultural difference and the circulation of power in a neo-colonial state. In this paper, we focus on Bininj/Yol people in and around the remote town of Maningrida in the Northern Territory, where the term ‘Balanda’ denotes non-Indigenous Australians, particularly of European descent. Exploring themes of work, time, material accumulation, and Country, we ask how Bininj/Yol people construct Balanda; how their understandings of Balanda shape their understandings of Self and vice versa; and how their constructions of Self are refracted through Balanda discourses about Aboriginality. Bininj/Yol portraits of Balanda are seldom flattering and frequently serve as a counterpoint to local Aboriginal ideals of Self. Balanda seem bafflingly deficient in traits proper and natural: they flout appropriate relations with other people, land and cosmos, and appear obsessed with work, clock time, rules, and material accumulation. Drawing on the concept of the gaze as a force that both objectifies and subjects, we then consider the influence of asymmetric ‘looking relations’ on local Aboriginal senses of Self. This was especially apparent during the Northern Territory ‘Intervention’ when the people of the Maningrida region suddenly saw themselves through Balanda eyes, and beheld a shockingly different image than the one they held of themselves.