Country (Indigenous Australians)
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Country (Indigenous Australians)
The Indigenous peoples of Australia, that is Aboriginal Australians and Torres Strait Islander people, have strong and complex relationships with the concept of "Country" (often capitalised). In this sense it does not refer to the nation of Australia, but rather different aspects of how the traditional lands of a particular First Nations group affects their culture, way of seeing the world, and interactions with other people. Identity Country is traditionally related to self-identity, and with relation to an individual, describes family origins and associations with particular parts of Australia. For example, a Gamilaraay man, whose traditional lands ("country") lies in south-west Queensland might refer to his country as "Gamilaraay country". Australian Aboriginal identity often links to their language groups and traditional country of their ancestors. Connection to Country Land is of great significance to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, often expressed as " ...
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Country (identity)
The concept of country, as an identity or descriptive quality, varies widely across the world, although some elements may be common among several groups of people. Rurality One interpretation is the state or character of being rural, regardless of environment. It can be at direct odds with quantitative measures of rurality such as those used by governments for statistical analysis (which are often vague and poorly defined). "Country" in this sense is subjective and often intuitive. It encompasses a broad base of ideas and perceptions that may differ at local, regional or national levels. Social development Identity is often localized within relatively isolated populations which, having distinct traditions of their own, can often be viewed as an outgroup and marginalized by the dominant culture. Contrast between rural and urban realities not only produces measurable differences politically and economically, but also affects populations in terms of social identification. C ...
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Ambelin Kwaymullina
Ambelin Kwaymullina (born 1975 in Perth, Western Australia) is a Palyku novelist, illustrator, and assistant professor of law at the University of Western Australia. She was born as the eldest of three children to Sally Morgan, an author and artist, and Paul Morgan, a teacher. She graduated from the University of Western Australia in 1998 with a Bachelor of Laws with honours. Kwaymullina's academic research focuses on both public law, and on Indigenous peoples and the law. Her works of fiction include both young adult science fiction novels and children's picture books. Bibliography Academic *"Indigenous Holistic Logic: Aspects, Consequences and Applications", (with Blaze Kwaymullina), ''Journal of Australian Indigenous Issues'', Volume 17, Number 2, June 2014. Living Texts: A Perspective on Published Sources, (with Blaze Kwaymullina, B and Lauren Butterly) ''Indigenous Research Methodologies and Indigenous Worldviews, International Journal of Critical Indigenous Studies'', Vol ...
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Ceremony
A ceremony (, ) is a unified ritualistic event with a purpose, usually consisting of a number of artistic components, performed on a special occasion. The word may be of Etruscan origin, via the Latin '' caerimonia''. Church and civil (secular) ceremonies According to Dally Messenger and Alain de Botton, in most Western countries the values and ideals articulated in both church and civil ceremonies are generally similar. The difference is in what Messenger calls the "supernatural infrastructure" or de Botton the "implausible supernatural element".Messenger, Dally; ''Murphy's Law and the Pursuit of Happiness: a History of the Civil Celebrant Movement'', Spectrum Publications, Melbourne (Australia), 2012 Most churches and religions claim some extra advantage conferred by the deity e.g. Roman Catholics believe that through the words of consecration in the mass ceremony, God himself becomes actually present on the altar. Both church and civil ceremonies share the powerful psych ...
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Ritual
A ritual is a sequence of activities involving gestures, words, actions, or objects, performed according to a set sequence. Rituals may be prescribed by the traditions of a community, including a religious community. Rituals are characterized, but not defined, by formalism, traditionalism, invariance, rule-governance, sacral symbolism, and performance. Rituals are a feature of all known human societies. They include not only the worship rites and sacraments of organized religions and cults, but also rites of passage, atonement and ritual purification, purification rites, oaths of allegiance, dedication ceremonies, coronations and presidential inaugurations, marriages, funerals and more. Even common actions like handshake, hand-shaking and saying "hello" may be termed as ''rituals''. The field of ritual studies has seen a number of conflicting definitions of the term. One given by Kyriakidis is that a ritual is an outsider's or "Emic and etic, etic" category for a set activity (o ...
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Welcome To Country
A Welcome to Country is a ritual or formal ceremony performed as a land acknowledgement at many events held in Australia. It is intended to highlight the cultural significance of the surrounding area to the descendants of a particular Aboriginal clan or language group who were recognised as the original human inhabitants of the area. For the Welcome to be recognised as official, it must be performed by a recognised elder of the group. Welcomes to Country are sometimes accompanied by traditional smoking ceremonies, music or dance. Where an elder is not available to perform the Welcome, or there is not a recognised traditional owner, an Acknowledgement of Country may be offered instead. The term "Country" has a particular meaning and significance to many Aboriginal peoples, encompassing an inter-dependent relationship between an individual or a people and their ancestral or traditional lands and seas. The connection to land involves culture, spirituality, language, law/lore, k ...
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Caring For Country
Landcare Australia is the name for a community not-for-profit organisation which involves local groups of volunteers repairing the natural environment. Originally projects focused on agricultural farmland. The idea was that farmers, conservationists and scientists could work together to improve both farm quality and natural ecosystems. The Landcare Australia organisation has grown and diversified since its small-scale origins in the 1980s. The Landcare concept has grown to include groups working on town and city green areas, waterways, beaches and larger park areas. For example, Landcare Australia now has Coastcare and "Junior Landcare" groups. These are unrelated to Caring for Country projects in which Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people are involved. History The concept of "landcare" brings people together who share a common problem and usually live in the same drainage basin or "catchment", an area that collects and directs water to a common point. By working to ...
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Indigenous Health In Australia
Indigenous health in Australia examines health and wellbeing indicators of Indigenous Australians compared with the rest of the population. Statistics indicate that Aboriginal Australians and Torres Strait Islanders are much less healthy than other Australians. Various government strategies have been put into place to try to remediate the problem; there has been some improvement in several areas, but statistics between Indigenous Australians and the rest of the Australian population still show unacceptable levels of difference. Colonisation and ongoing disadvantage Prior to European colonisation, it is likely that the health Indigenous Australians was better than poorer sections of Europe. Colonisation impacted the health of Indigenous Australians via land dispossession, social marginalisation, political oppression, incarceration, acculturation and population decline. The process of colonisation began with the arrival of the First Fleet in 1788. In the following decades, for ...
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Aboriginal Australian Religion
Australian Aboriginal religion and mythology is the sacred spirituality represented in the stories performed by Aboriginal Australians within each of the language groups across Australia in their ceremonies. Aboriginal spirituality includes the Dreamtime (''the Dreaming''), songlines, and Aboriginal oral literature. Aboriginal spirituality often conveys descriptions of each group's local cultural landscape, adding meaning to the whole country's topography from oral history told by ancestors from some of the earliest recorded history. Most of these spiritualities belong to specific groups, but some span the whole continent in one form or another. Antiquity An Australian linguist, R. M. W. Dixon, recording Aboriginal myths in their original languages, encountered coincidences between some of the landscape details being told about within various myths, and scientific discoveries being made about the same landscapes. In the case of the Atherton Tableland, myths tell of the orig ...
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Ecological
Ecology () is the study of the relationships between living organisms, including humans, and their physical environment. Ecology considers organisms at the individual, population, community, ecosystem, and biosphere level. Ecology overlaps with the closely related sciences of biogeography, evolutionary biology, genetics, ethology, and natural history. Ecology is a branch of biology, and it is not synonymous with environmentalism. Among other things, ecology is the study of: * The abundance, biomass, and distribution of organisms in the context of the environment * Life processes, antifragility, interactions, and adaptations * The movement of materials and energy through living communities * The successional development of ecosystems * Cooperation, competition, and predation within and between species * Patterns of biodiversity and its effect on ecosystem processes Ecology has practical applications in conservation biology, wetland management, natural resource management ( ...
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Songline
A songline, also called dreaming track, is one of the paths across the land (or sometimes the sky) within the animist belief systems of the Aboriginal cultures of Australia which mark the route followed by localised "creator-beings" in the Dreaming. The paths of the songlines are recorded in traditional song cycles, stories, dance, and art, and are often the basis of ceremonies. They are a vital part of Aboriginal culture, connecting people to their land. Description The Dreaming, or the Dreamtime, has been described as "a sacred narrative of Creation that is seen as a continuous process that links traditional Aboriginal people to their origins". Ancestors are believed to play a large role in the establishment of sacred sites as they traversed the continent long ago. Animals were created in the Dreaming, and also played a part in creation of the lands and heavenly bodies. Songlines connect places and Creation events, and the ceremonies associated with those places. Oral histor ...
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Dreamtime
The Dreaming, also referred to as Dreamtime, is a term devised by early anthropologists to refer to a religio-cultural worldview attributed to Australian Aboriginal mythology, Australian Aboriginal beliefs. It was originally used by Francis James Gillen, Francis Gillen, quickly adopted by his colleague Walter Baldwin Spencer, Baldwin Spencer and thereafter popularised by A. P. Elkin, who, however, later revised his views. The Dreaming is used to represent Aboriginal concepts of ''Everywhen'', during which the land was inhabited by ancestral figures, often of heroic proportions or with supernatural abilities. These figures were often distinct from gods, as they did not control the material world and were not worshipped but only reverence (emotion), revered. The concept of the Dreamtime has subsequently become widely adopted beyond its original Australian context and is now part of global popular culture. The term is based on a rendition of the Arandic languages, Arandic word '' ...
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Terra Nullius
''Terra nullius'' (, plural ''terrae nullius'') is a Latin expression meaning " nobody's land". It was a principle sometimes used in international law to justify claims that territory may be acquired by a state's occupation of it. : : : : : : There are currently three territories claimed to be ''terra nullius'', two of which caused by border disputes between sovereign states, and one caused by no sovereign state claiming the land. Doctrine In international law, ''terra nullius'' is territory which belongs to no state. Sovereignty over territory which is ''terra nullius'' can be acquired by any state by occupation. According to Oppenheimer, “‘The only territory which can be the object of occupation is that which does not already belong to another state, whether it is uninhabited, or inhabited by persons whose community is not considered to be a state; for individuals may live on as territory without forming themselves into a state proper exercising sovereignt ...
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