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Paternalism And Complicity: Or How Not To Atone For The 'Sins Of The Father', Fiona Probyn-Rapsey

Faculty of Law, Humanities and the Arts - Papers (Archive)

The cultural politics of Australian colonialism revolve around discourses of paternalism and the ' protection' of Aboriginal people. Understanding how paternalism reproduces itself transgenerationally, and between whites and Aboriginal people, between subordinated groups, between women, is one way to approach its limits. Starting with this premise, I examine the ways in which paternalism reproduces itself, such that even today white paternalistic attitudes towards Aboriginal people and culture are pervasive. I focus here on Mary Ellen Jordan' s Australian memoir Balanda: My Year in Arnhem Land (2005), which is critical of, and complicit with, the biopolitical power of paternalism and its …