David Howe Turner is a professor of
Anthropology
Anthropology is the scientific study of humanity, concerned with human behavior, human biology, cultures, societies, and linguistics, in both the present and past, including past human species. Social anthropology studies patterns of be ...
at the
University of Toronto
The University of Toronto (UToronto or U of T) is a public university, public research university in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, located on the grounds that surround Queen's Park (Toronto), Queen's Park. It was founded by royal charter in 1827 ...
, and a Fellow at
Trinity College Trinity College may refer to:
Australia
* Trinity Anglican College, an Anglican coeducational primary and secondary school in , New South Wales
* Trinity Catholic College, Auburn, a coeducational school in the inner-western suburbs of Sydney, New ...
and the
Netherlands Institute for Advanced Study
The Netherlands Institute for Advanced Study in the Humanities and Social Sciences (NIAS) in Amsterdam, Netherlands, is an independent research institute in the field of the humanities and social and behavioural sciences founded in 1970. The instit ...
. He has worked with
Indigenous Australians
Indigenous Australians or Australian First Nations are people with familial heritage from, and membership in, the ethnic groups that lived in Australia before British colonisation. They consist of two distinct groups: the Aboriginal peoples ...
since 1969 and has worked with indigenous peoples in
Bali, North
India
India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...
,
Japan, and
Canada
Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...
. At Toronto, his main area of focus is
comparative religion
Comparative religion is the branch of the study of religions with the systematic comparison of the doctrines and practices, themes and impacts (including migration) of the world's religions. In general the comparative study of religion yie ...
and the role of music in the indigenous societies of
Australia,
North America,
Africa
Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent, after Asia in both cases. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of Earth's total surface area ...
, and
India
India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...
.
While conducting his
Ph.D
A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, Ph.D., or DPhil; Latin: or ') is the most common degree at the highest academic level awarded following a course of study. PhDs are awarded for programs across the whole breadth of academic fields. Because it is ...
at the
University of Western Australia
The University of Western Australia (UWA) is a public research university in the Australian state of Western Australia. The university's main campus is in Perth, the state capital, with a secondary campus in Albany and various other facilitie ...
, Turner began his fieldwork with the people of
Groote Eylandt
Groote Eylandt ( Anindilyakwa: ''Ayangkidarrba'' meaning "island" ) is the largest island in the Gulf of Carpentaria and the fourth largest island in Australia. It was named by the explorer Abel Tasman in 1644 and is Dutch for "Large Island" i ...
, in order to better understand Aboriginal social organization and symbolism. Since then, he has challenged common notions of
hunter-gatherer social and spiritual life and sought to bring a deeper understanding of the Australian Aboriginal way of life to the modern world. Indeed, in 1986, after undergoing the second stage of
initiation by the Aboriginal people of Groote Eylandt, he was told by his hosts to go back out into the modern world and show its people another way of life, so that they might live more harmoniously with others. Turner was encouraged to become a missionary of sorts, a representative of the Aboriginal world.
[Turner, David H. 1991. Dreamtime: Life, Afterlife and the Soul in Australian Aboriginal Religion, from ''India International Centre Quarterly,'' Vol. Winter 1991, pp 4-18. N.H. Ramachandran.]
Turner's view of indigenous Australian society
The indigenous Australians, far from being a
primitive people, have a highly sophisticated society and worldview which, in Turner's view, is in many ways more advanced than those of modern
Western civilization
Leonardo da Vinci's ''Vitruvian Man''. Based on the correlations of ideal Body proportions">human proportions with geometry described by the ancient Roman architect Vitruvius in Book III of his treatise ''De architectura''.
image:Plato Pio-Cle ...
. According to Turner, the Aborigines have developed several social mechanisms for ensuring social and environmental harmony that run contrary to conventional Western thinking. In particular, rather than formulate their society around notions of personal or national autonomy and property, they favour a philosophy of mutual dependence. It is this mutual dependence, or interdependence, which ensures peaceful coexistence.
This is explicit in the Aboriginal practice of ''renunciation'', which resembles
reciprocal altruism
In evolutionary biology, reciprocal altruism is a behaviour whereby an organism acts in a manner that temporarily reduces its fitness while increasing another organism's fitness, with the expectation that the other organism will act in a similar m ...
but runs much deeper. Rather than reciprocal trading of resources, or sharing them by giving a portion of what one has to another, the Aborigines give everything of what they have to whoever needs it, as codified by the statement: "You have nothing, everything I have is yours; I have nothing, everything you have is mine."
Likewise, Turner notes that the Aborigines practice renunciation in their allocation of property. On
Bickerton Island
Bickerton Island is 13 km west of Groote Eylandt and 8 km east of the mouth of Blue Mud Bay in eastern Arnhem Land, in the Northern Territory of Australia. It is about 21 by 21 kilometres in size, with deep bays and indentations, and ...
, each group of people within Aboriginal society lives within a defined region of land, and each region contains one major resource (such as fresh water or a particular type of food). Rather than having exclusive access to their region's resource (as in conventional concepts of ownership), the group is instead forbidden to consume it. In the Aboriginal world, such resources exist only to be given freely to members of neighbouring groups. Again, this is a method which makes self-sufficiency impossible, ensuring that neighbours must rely on each other and work to make their relations cooperative and peaceful.
[Turner, David H. 1999, ''Genesis Regained: Aboriginal Forms of Renunciation in Judeo-Christian Scriptures and Other Major Traditions,'' p. 32, New York: Peter Lang.]
Turner's view is that renunciation is not simply a concept or an economic theory, but a literal reenactment of
creation
Creation may refer to:
Religion
*''Creatio ex nihilo'', the concept that matter was created by God out of nothing
* Creation myth, a religious story of the origin of the world and how people first came to inhabit it
* Creationism, the belief tha ...
as it is perceived by the Aborigines. For the Aborigines, physical and spiritual reality coexist, flowing in and out of each other in an endless process. Spiritual forms are always giving of themselves to make the world and the people in it. In such a world, it makes no sense to hold on to anything, because nothing is ever "yours" to begin with. So, an act of renunciation—even something as simple as giving food to a stranger who does not have any is an action which reflects the fundamental nature of reality itself.
In Turner's view, rather than simply failing to develop modern technologies, economics, and ways of living, at some point in their history (upwards of 130,000 years), the Aborigines made a conscious decision to turn toward more socially and spiritually meaningful pursuits. They turned away from technology, and toward each other. In doing so they eliminated poverty, theft, social class, and warfare, and lived in peace for possibly tens of thousands of years.
Books
* Turner, David H. 1974. ''Tradition and transformation: a study of the Groote Eylandt area aborigines of northern Australia.'' Australian aboriginal studies, no. 53. Canberra: Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies.
* Turner, David H. 1977. ''The concept of kinship: some qualifications based on a re-examination of the Australian data.'' Leiden, Netherlands: Koninklijk Instituut voor Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde.
* Turner, David H. 1977. ''Ideologues of band society: Nambir̄ir̄ma and Wee-sa-kay-jac.'' Toronto: Victoria University.
* Turner, David H., and Paul Wertman. 1977 ''Shamattawa: The Structure of Social Relations in a Northern Algonkian Band.'' Ottawa: National Museums of Canada.
* Turner, David H. 1978. ''Dialectics in tradition: myth and social structure in two hunter-gatherer societies.'' London: Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland.
* Turner, David H., and Gavin A. Smith. 1979. ''Challenging anthropology: a critical introduction to social and cultural anthropology.'' Toronto: McGraw-Hill Ryerson. (with G. Smith).
* Turner, David H. 1980. ''Leiden anthropology and the reinterpretation of Australian Aboriginal social organization.'' Leiden, Netherlands: Koninklijk Institut voor Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde.
* Turner, David H. 1981. ''Australian aboriginal social organization.'' Atlantic Highlands, N.J.: Humanities Press.
* Turner, David H. 1985. ''Life before Genesis, a conclusion: an understanding of the significance of Australian Aboriginal culture.'' Toronto studies in religion, vol. 1. New York:
Peter Lang.
* Turner, David H. 1996. ''Return to Eden: a journey through the aboriginal promised landscape of Amagalyuagba.'' Toronto studies in religion, vol. 21. New York:
Peter Lang.
* Turner, David H. 1997. ''Afterlife before Genesis: an introduction : accessing the eternal through Australian Aboriginal music.'' Toronto studies in religion, vol. 22. New York:
Peter Lang.
* Turner, David H. 1999. ''Genesis regained: Aboriginal forms of renunciation in Judeo-Christian scriptures and other major traditions.'' Toronto studies in religion, vol. 25. New York:
Peter Lang.
* Turner, David H. 2002. ''The spirit lives: a personal journey from loss to understanding through religious experience.'' New York:
Peter Lang.
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Turner, David H.
Canadian anthropologists
Academic staff of the University of Toronto
Living people
Year of birth missing (living people)