Marking Differences: Indigenous cultural tastes and practices

Abstract

This paper examines the similarities and differences between the cultural tastes and practices of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders and non-Indigenous Australians as evidenced by the relationships between the main sample and an Indigenous sample recruited by a 2015 national survey. It does so in order to identify the respects in which Indigenous tastes are distinctive in relation to (i) cultural practices with an Indigenous reference, (ii) cultural practices with an Australian, but non-Indigenous reference and (iii) cultural practices with international associations. These questions are explored initially at an aggregate level and then more closely by probing those instances where significant differences in Indigenous/non-Indigenous cultural tastes and practices are registered across the six cultural fields encompassed by the survey: sport, television, heritage, music, literature and the visual arts. In the light of current debates regarding the politics of ‘Indigenous enumeration’ and the tendency to present Indigenous difference in the form of a deficit, we look instead at the positive significance of the specific Indigenous tastes that our findings identify. We also examine the effects of gender and level of education in differentiating Indigenous cultural tastes and practices and explore how these are related to emerging class differences among Indigenous Australians.

Acknowledgements

This paper is a product of the project ‘Australian Cultural Fields: National and Transnational Dynamics’ supported by the Australian Government through the Australian Research Council. The project was awarded to Tony Bennett (Project Director, Western Sydney University), to Chief Investigators Greg Noble, David Rowe, Tim Rowse, Deborah Stevenson and Emma Waterton (Western Sydney University), David Carter and Graeme Turner (University of Queensland), and to Partner Investigators Modesto Gayo (Universidad Diego Portales) and Fred Myers (New York University). Michelle Kelly (Western Sydney University) was appointed Senior Research Officer and Project Manager. The project has additionally benefited from inputs from Ien Ang, Ben Dibley, Liam Magee, Anna Pertierra and Megan Watkins (Western Sydney University).

Notes

1. See Bennett et al. (2013) for a recent review of these issues focused on the Australian context.

2. See the introduction to the themed section for fuller details of these aspects of the project’s methodology.

3. This is also the case for the samples of the four migrant populations. Each of these has been similarly augmented, with qualifying individuals from the main sample added to an original, separately recruited ‘boost’ sample.

4. The female/male composition of the sample is 57% to 43%. The age distribution is 14% for 18–24-year olds, 10% for 25 to 39-year olds, 44% for 40 to 59-year olds and 28% for those aged over 50 with 4% refusing to identify their age. The tertiary/non-tertiary composition of the sample is 55/45%.

5. Sixty per cent of the women had partial or completed tertiary qualifications compared to 26% of the men.

6. As noted, a significant proportion of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander sample was recruited in NSW, with only a small number of respondents from the states where AFL is particularly popular (Victoria, South Australia and Western Australia). (See http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-05-06/non-victorian-afl-clubs-are-not-just-making-up-the-numbers/7388444). This may explain the lower rates of AFL participation and watching recorded by Indigenous respondents to the ACF survey.

7. The role of statistical presentations of Indigenous Australians in this regard, we should add, needs also to be interpreted in the light of earlier racialized methods for the enumeration of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders through anthropometric and related techniques of measurement.