Ethnographer and contrarian
Subtitle: biographical and anthropological essays in honour of Peter Sutton
By: edited by Julie D. Finlayson and Frances Morphy
Publisher: Wakefield Press
Published: 2020
Place of publication: Mile End, South Australia
Language: eng
Number of pages: 282
ISBN-13: 9781743057568
Copyright date: 2020
Subjects: Aboriginal Australians; Social conditions; Treatment of Aboriginal Australians; Government relations; Government policy; Native title (Australia); Ethnology; Anthropology
Description: Peter Sutton has been at various times, and sometimes simultaneously, a museum-based anthropologist with a foundational role in raising the profile of Australian Indigenous art, an anthropologist and linguist who has made significant ethnographic, analytical and theoretical contributions to both fields, and to the intersection between them, an expert on native title, and a public intellectual.  In Ethnographer and Contrarian Sutton's colleagues reflect on aspects of his life and work. The book begins with a set of biographical essays that provide an overview of Peter's life and career, including a fascinating account of his early years. The second section focuses on his debate-changing and controversial book The Politics of Suffering. The essays reflect on the reactions to its original publication, or on its resonances with contributors' own experiences in the field. The third set of essays address Sutton's ground-breaking analysis of social change and of the transition between 'classical' and 'post-classical' social formations in Aboriginal Australia, and the emergence of 'families of polity'. The volume concludes with a complete bibliography of Sutton's published works.--From publisher's website.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references and index.
Table of contents: title: Part 1. Reflections on a life. 1. Introduction : a contrarian life / Nicolas Rothwell ;  2. Outside the square : from Christian Scientist to social scientist / Julie Finlayson ;  3. Living Larrimah : a reminiscence / Francesca Merlan ;  4. What is a social anthropologist doing in a museum? / J. Chris Anderson; title: Part 2. On the politics of suffering. 5. Suttonalia : a revealing moment in public anthropology / John Morton ;  6. Suffering and silence : Sutton's challenge / Gaynor Macdonald and Suzanne Ingram ;  7. Speaking to others : anthropology's languages, audiences and engagements / David F. Martin ;  8. Personal challenges and professional research in Aboriginal Australia : reading 'The Politics of Suffering' / David Trigger ;  9. Culture, development and the future of remote Aboriginal communities / Nicolas Peterson ;  10. The politics of suffering : some contrarian reflections / Jeffrey Stead, Mary Laughren and Robert Graham; title: Part 3. On classical and post-classical societies. 11. Marriage networks in Arnham Land and beyond / Ian Keen ;  12. The resilience of Lakes societies : from classical systems to 'families of polity' and the endurance of 'underlying title' / Deane Fergie and Rod Lucas ;  13. Sutton's model of underlying and proximate customary title and the Lander Warlpiri region / Petronella Vaarzon-Morel ;  14. Ge´za Ro´heim's Australian dreams / Philip Jones; title: Appendix : Peter Sutton : a complete bibliography.