Research Section > Western Desert Project > Project Description

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Kinship remains crucially important in Australian Aboriginal Studies, since it underlies every aspect of social behaviour and structure, and is a major constitutive element of identity. Following Tonkinson’s visualisation of kinship as "a mass of networks of relatedness" and Héritier's assumption that "[...] the definition of consanguinity is in the first place a question of choice and of social recognition", kinship can be construed as everything that uses the emic biological idiom to classify human beings according to a motivated structure. Of particular interest to anthropological research, then, is the formulation of heuristic models that will advance understanding of the motives underlying structure.

Kinship structures are also powerfully linked to land tenure, an issue of great contemporary importance in this post-Mabo era of native title. Indeed, while kinship relationship and structure summarily answer the question, "To whom do I belong?", land tenure systems answer the other constituting part of Aboriginal personhood: "Where do I belong and in which area or areas do I have what type of customary rights?".

In a recent important comparative study of Aboriginal Australian kinship systems, a French specialist, Testart, reproduced a map that graphically summarised the distribution of kinship systems he elaborated in his typology. Surprisingly, a big question mark covers the major part of the Western Australian side of the Western Desert cultural bloc &endash; and the accompanying text reads, "for the western part, we do only have bits of information".

While Testart’s study omits the many interesting studies undertaken in this region (Daisy Bates, and more recently Lee Sackett, Will Christensen and others), there is certainly a lack of systematic and systemic cognition of the principles of kinship structuring and dynamics in the area. Since Elkin’s classification and definition of the Aluridja system, there appears to have been no major attempt to reinvestigate this area in its entirety. The characteristics attributed by Elkin to this type of kinship system, such as the absence of distinction between cross cousins and siblings, the presence of a classificatory brother-sister marriage, the principle of "simple" exogamy or prohibition of incest, and the existence of a very basic kinship terminology are all widely accepted elements among kinship theorists.

I have been investigating these issues among the Ngaatjatjarra, one of the many Western Desert dialectal groups situated in the Eastern part of the desert (see below Preliminary studies and findings). The aim of the current project is to investigate further the relationship between kinship structure, motivation, and practice, i.e. the nature of the web of relationship established, and the emic conception of land and land-ownership or custodianship. Because my findings show that territorial entities are dynamic, overlapping, and accord with expansive alliance strategies and kin-relations, a comprehensive picture of the area will be obtained only if the research attempts to include neighbouring groups.

Thus, this project aims to investigate the relationship between kinship and land tenure in the region between the NT/WA-border and Wiluna and Kalgoorlie. The ultimate and long-term objective is to draw a temporally dynamic portrait of the totality of what is usually called the "Western Desert cultural bloc". In order to understand this relationship from a global and comparative perspective, three types of questions have to be answered:

1. Formal aspects of group identification and differentiation: investigation of kinship terminologies and land tenure systems and discrepancies among the various groups; analysis of the semantic shifts of specific terms in space according to the diffusion of social categories in the Western Desert;
2. Pragmatic aspects of group identification and differentiation: analysis of alliance strategies and kin-network in relation to places of birth and "regional group" membership;
3. Dynamic aspects of group identification and differentiation: examination of the impact of migration and settlement on terminologies, alliance strategies, and land tenure systems.

 

Outcomes of the project

The study of the land tenure system in the Western Desert is a necessity in the Native Title era, yet the relationship between kinship structure and land tenure systems has much been neglected lately in anthropological research. The aim of this project is therefore to answer the three following questions:

1. What is the local significance of the relationship between kinship systems, alliances network and land tenure systems: a) qualitative assessments; b) quantitative assessments?
2. What is an adequate global definition of the relationship between kinship systems, alliances network and land tenure systems: a) qualitative assessments; b) quantitative assessments?
3. What are the structural (historical, ecological, economic and political) motivations underlying the local and global relationship between kinship systems and land tenure systems?

Immediate outcomes:

1. Collaboration with staff members and consultants engaged by the UWA Department's Centre for Anthropological Research in data-gathering and analysis of kinship and land tenure in the study area.
2. Collaborative accumulation of data with linguists working on historical and linguistic transformations of kinship systems in the Western Desert.
3. Eventually, an improvement of on-line services and information available on the Western Desert, using the material already available on my homepage.

Outcomes relevant for subsequent research:

1. Constitution of archival and ethnological files relevant for further research on the Western Desert. Searchable and customisable databases of kinship terminologies, genealogies, group identities, archival material, and annotated relevant bibliographical references (with reference to the archival and ethnological files).
2. While kinship theorists deny any universal relationship between economic and ecological conditions and kinship systems, the study of the dynamic aspects of the motivations of kinship structure as mentioned above might possibly relaunch discussions on this topic.

Preliminary study and findings

In the course of 27 months of fieldwork conducted between 1994 and 1997 among Ngaatjatjarra-speaking people in a Western Desert community and in Alice Springs, I examined some important questions, the findings of which are summarised below:

1. The Ngaatjatjarra kinship system does not closely resemble the Aluridja system as defined by Elkin. Its terminology is of the Dravidian type with specific affinal terms and is rather complex (i.e. a total of at least 14 terms only to distinguish the class of cross-cousins from the class of siblings). Marriage between classificatory brothers and sisters does not exist.
2. The presence of specific affinal terms in a Dravidian system mirrors the fact that the choice of marriage partners is not only structural but also reflects pragmatic strategies associated with the "motivated structure" mentioned above.
3. The "motivating" principle of kin classification is the distinction between affines and consanguines, conceptually analogous to the distinction between social and geographical distance and proximity. Alliance strategies, but also other specific social mechanisms, tend to transform distance into proximity in order to diversify relations, and thus traditionally assured people of potential access to various geographical areas possessing disparate ecological conditions.
4. The consequence is that concrete land tenure systems are extremely complex to define, because of ever-changing dominant kin-relations, and because of the multiple affiliative criteria for identifying with/claiming country. While the concepts of "local group" and "tribal/dialectal territory" are not applicable, those of "regional group " and "area of influence" seem more apt because they allow for overlap, and accord in a more appropriate way with the dynamics inherent in kinship structure and practice.
5. Contact and settlement reinforced group identification and especially group opposition because of the concentration of families into communities in an environment where expansion of the kinship network and inclusion of "foreigners" were elements of a dominant inclusivist ethos. Territorial affiliation has thus tended to become a more predominantly cognitive process, one in which Aboriginal actors are downplaying the profoundly dynamic nature of kin relations in the Western Desert.

 

Resources required to complete the project

In order to expand geographically the research already undertaken among the Ngaatjatjarra and to elaborate a pan-Western Desert system of kinship classification according to land tenure systems and clear differentiation between pre- and post-settlement situations, two kinds of studies are necessary. The first type of research is historical in character, the second ethnographic. Nevertheless, both kinds of data should be available simultaneously in most source materials (it is important to emphasise that the methodologies below have to be pursued simultaneously and in concert, rather than separately):

Means to reach project goals	Medium
Systematic analysis of published and unpublished documents available on the Western Desert concerning kinship and social categories.	Libraries and "on-line" documents (eventually also AIATSIS and NLA)
Analysis of archives of governmental agencies, such as materials related to patrols in the Western Desert, to assess the impact of centralisation and settlement on group-identity and group-differentiation, and to obtain additional information on land tenure and genealogical links.	Public Records of Western Australia Australian Archives
Computational analysis of genealogies collected in the Western Desert since the first days of contact, as a preliminary step in the elaboration of a pan-Western Desert genealogical chart.	Genealogies collected for Land Claims, field work by other anthropologists, etc. Genealogies collected by Tindale.
Supplementary data not available via the preceding means; genealogical and other ethnographic gaps.	Fieldtrips in Western Australia depending on access and need.

 

 

Justification of the choice of institution and its intellectual environment

The Anthropology Department at the University of Western Australia is particularly well suited for this project. It has a long and impressive history of studies in Aboriginal Australia, including the Western Desert cultural bloc through the work of the Berndts, Stanton and Tonkinson. Given the large number of Aboriginal specialists present, the Department offers a highly favourable intellectual environment that will be most beneficial for the successful completion of my project. Many important theses on the Western Desert have been produced, testifying to the Department's commitment to excellence in research in Australian Aboriginal anthropology. The presence of Professor Robert Tonkinson, renowned specialist of the Western Desert, and Dr. David Trigger, a noted expert on land tenure and Native Title issues, is particularly important for this project. I hope also to benefit from collegial contacts with other members of the Department, particularly Associate Professor Victoria Burbank, Dr. John Stanton and Dr. Sandy Toussaint.

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Steps and planning

In the era of electronic data processing and transmission, every effort is made to compile data in such a way that it may be of use for other researchers and further studies.

 

Elements of the Project

	Title	Description	Outcome
*	Kinship terminology	Compilation of recorded kinship terminologies in the Western Desert into a database. Data to be used for the study of terminological and structural variations and diffusions. Origin of data: published and unpublished material; fieldwork.	Database eventually WWW
*	Social Organisation	Compilation of recorded social organisation of the various groups of the Western Desert into a database. Data to be used for the study of terminological and structural variations and diffusions. Origin of data: published and unpublished material; fieldwork.	Database eventually WWW
*	Archives	Collection of Archival material related to the Western Desert since contact. Compilation of archival material into a database with scanningand OCR processing of original documents. Origin of data: National Archives and Public Records of WA.	Database Files CD-ROM eventually WWW
*	Genealogies	Analysis of collected genealogies. Fieldwork depending on availability and need. Study of pragmatic aspects related to marriage strategies in relation to land tenure systems.	Genealogies Databases
*	Bibliography	Compilation of relevant bibliographic references. Publication of an annotated bibliography on the net.	WWW

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