The “socio-historical” argument and constructions of “aboriginal violence”: A critical review of hunter (1991)

Abstract

This article is a critical review of Hunter's (1991) socio-historical explanation of Aboriginal violence. The article is faulted on a number of counts, including the explanatory schema provided, the logic of the larger argument, the simplistic casting of psychological and social science understandings of violent behaviour and intercultural conflict, confounded levels of analysis, critical literature omissions, and with respect to the account provided of another culture's experience.

The conclusion of the review is that Hunter's analysis does not provide an acceptable or useful social science account of intercultural or intracultural “violence” in Aboriginal society. An alternative constructionist framework is suggested which acknowledges the cultural relativity and inherent attributional biases of such “socio-historical” accounts of other culture experiences such as contact history and violence.