ANTH1001 Lecture Notes - Lecture 2: Anangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara Land Rights Act 1981, The Ghan, Metonymy
8 May 2018
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Week 2: COUNTRY, TECHNOLOGY AND MAKING A CULTURE (1): Unpacking the Symbolic:
• What happens when you use a definition?
o Allows a more detailed description of a cultural process
o Opens up questions about the relationship between aspects of a cultural process
o Allows the potential improvement or modification of the definition itself
o All of these are tasks of anthropology
• Meaning and the Symbolic:
o First the problem of meaning: the distinction between a wink and a blink or twitch
o Kottak: p.22: "A symbol is something verbal or non- verbal, within a particular language
or culture that comes to stand for something else. "
• Unpacking the Symbolic:
o Different variation on this 'standing for' relationship:
• Signal
• Sign
• Symbol - can be multi-vocal
• Metaphor
• Metonym
• Pitjantjatjara:
o Two Key relationships to manage:
• Relationship to place - Country
▪ Country is cosmology
• Creation beings and their power live in country
▪ Country is kinship - particular kinds of people are related to particular places
▪ Country has to be managed
▪ People live by reading the signs of country
• Relationship to people - Kinship
• Changing Relationship to Country:
o Expansion of doggers and pastoralists into their country (1920s and 1930s)
o Periodic droughts
o Establishment of a Presbyterian mission at Ernabella in 1937
o Construction of the Ghan railway began in 1926 and reached Alice Springs in 1929
o Atomic Testing at Emu field and Maralinga between 1952 and 1956
o Anangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara Land Rights Act 1981
• How will the Pitjantjatjara use of cars link with our working definition?
o Cars are shared: relationships are formed through the use of cars
o Cars are symbols: they stand for other aspects of Pitjantjatjara life
o Cars are learned: people acquire and transmit knowledge about cars
o Cars are material: cars enable people to move through space
o Cars demonstrate the integrated nature of Pitjantjatjara culture
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