Peter Sutton
FASSA
The Fassa Valley ( Ladin: ''Fascia'', it, Val di Fassa, german: Fassatal) is a valley in the Dolomites in Trentino, northern Italy. As an administrative valley community (Italian: ''Comunità di valle'', German: ''Talgemeinschaft'') of Trentino, i ...
(born 1946) is an Australian
social anthropologist
Social anthropology is the study of patterns of behaviour in human societies and cultures. It is the dominant constituent of anthropology throughout the United Kingdom and much of Europe, where it is distinguished from cultural anthropology. In t ...
and
linguist
Linguistics is the scientific study of human language. It is called a scientific study because it entails a comprehensive, systematic, objective, and precise analysis of all aspects of language, particularly its nature and structure. Linguis ...
who has, since 1969, contributed to: recording
Australian Aboriginal languages; promoting
Australian Aboriginal art
Indigenous Australian art includes art made by Aboriginal Australian and Torres Strait Islander peoples, including collaborations with others. It includes works in a wide range of media including painting on leaves, bark painting, wood carvin ...
; mapping
Australian Aboriginal
Aboriginal Australians are the various Indigenous peoples of the Australian mainland and many of its islands, such as Tasmania, Fraser Island, Hinchinbrook Island, the Tiwi Islands, and Groote Eylandt, but excluding the Torres Strait I ...
cultural landscapes
Cultural landscape is a term used in the fields of geography, ecology, and heritage studies, to describe a symbiosis of human activity and environment. As defined by the World Heritage Committee, it is the "cultural properties hatrepresent the co ...
; and increasing societies' general understanding of contemporary Australian Aboriginal
social structure
In the social sciences, social structure is the aggregate of patterned social arrangements in society that are both emergent from and determinant of the actions of individuals. Likewise, society is believed to be grouped into structurally rel ...
s and
systems of land tenure.
[SUTTON, Peter (2003) ''Native Title in Australia: an Ethnographic Perspective.'' Cambridge University Press. Cambridge.]
In 2004–2008 Sutton held an
Australian Research Council (ARC) Professorial Fellowship at the
University of Adelaide
The University of Adelaide (informally Adelaide University) is a public research university located in Adelaide, South Australia. Established in 1874, it is the third-oldest university in Australia. The university's main campus is located on N ...
's School of Earth & Environmental Sciences and within the
South Australian Museum
The South Australian Museum is a natural history museum and research institution in Adelaide, South Australia, founded in 1856 and owned by the Government of South Australia. It occupies a complex of buildings on North Terrace in the cultu ...
's Division of Anthropology. In 2003-2009 he was an Honorary Research Fellow at the
Institute of Archaeology,
University College London
, mottoeng = Let all come who by merit deserve the most reward
, established =
, type = Public research university
, endowment = £143 million (2020)
, budget = ...
.
Biographical material
Born in
Melbourne
Melbourne ( ; Boonwurrung/Woiwurrung: ''Narrm'' or ''Naarm'') is the capital and most populous city of the Australian state of Victoria, and the second-most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Its name generally refers to a met ...
in 1946, Peter Sutton's earliest years were spent growing up in a
Port Melbourne
Port Melbourne is an inner-city List of Melbourne suburbs, suburb in Melbourne, Victoria (Australia), Victoria, Australia, south-west of Melbourne's Melbourne central business district, Central Business District, located within the Cities of ...
working class
The working class (or labouring class) comprises those engaged in manual-labour occupations or industrial work, who are remunerated via waged or salaried contracts. Working-class occupations (see also " Designation of workers by collar colo ...
environment
His paternal grandfather was a driver at the local fish markets (and prone to violent, alcoholic outbursts).
His paternal grandmother worked in the Swallow and Ariell Biscuit Factory. His maternal grandfather was a pastry cook, and his mother and father began life as factory workers.
His father attended, and was profoundly affected by, a
Lord Somers Camp
Lord Somers Camp, or "Big Camp", is an annual week-long camp for boys and girls held in Somers, Victoria, Australia.
Founded in Anglesea, Victoria, in 1929 by The 6th Baron Somers, the then Governor of Victoria, the camp has been running co ...
held to 'dissolve' class barriers between waterfront children and the sons and daughters of Melbourne's doctors and lawyers, and, early on he and his wife pushed to break out of the working class mould:
"We were not dirt poor, but my mother pushed to get out of Port Melbourne, to get a small business, a Milk Bar in East Malvern, and then a block of land and build a house."
After working as an anthropologist and linguist in Aboriginal Australia for more than 40 years, publishing or co-writing more than 15 books on Aboriginal languages, art, culture and land rights, Peter Sutton wrote a book titled ''The Politics of Suffering: Indigenous Australia and the end of the Liberal consensus'' (2009) in which he reflects upon all he has seen and begins questioning Australian public policy across all those years, as follows:
[Age article about Peter Sutton]
Accessed 13 July 2009
"Through personal observation, forensic rigour and an anthropologist's eye, he questions the foundations on which 40 years of public policy, often imposed with bipartisan goodwill, has been constructed"
A 2016 symposium on Sutton's life and work led to a two-volume tribute: Finlayson and Morphy (eds) 2020, Ethnographer and Contrarian. Biographical and Anthropological Essays in Honour of Peter Sutton, and Monaghan and Walsh (eds), ''More than Mere Words. Essays on Language and Linguistics in Honour of Peter Sutton''. Both Wakefield Press.
In 2021 Sutton published two books: ''
Farmers or Hunter-Gatherers? The Dark Emu Debate'' (with Keryn Walshe), a forensic critique of
Bruce Pascoe’s ''
Dark Emu
''Dark Emu: Black Seeds: Agriculture or Accident?'' is a 2014 non-fiction book by Bruce Pascoe. It reexamines colonial accounts of Aboriginal people in Australia, and cites evidence of pre-colonial agriculture, engineering and building constr ...
'', and ''Linguistic Organisation and Native Title: The Wik Case, Australia'' (with
Ken Hale).
By 2021 when he retired from consulting work, Sutton had acted in various differing capacities as a researcher assisting with 87 Aboriginal land claims in three jurisdictions: the
Aboriginal Land Rights Act (Northern Territory) 1976, the
Queensland Aboriginal Land Act 1992, and the
Native Title Act 1993.
Awards
*
Anisfield-Wolf Award The Anisfield-Wolf Book Award is an American literary award dedicated to honoring written works that make important contributions to the understanding of racism and the appreciation of the rich diversity of human culture. Established in 1935 by Clev ...
(Anisfield-Wolf Foundation, USA 1988), for serious works that combat racism, awarded to Sutton (ed.) Dreamings (1988).
James Henry Breasted Prize(American Historical Association, USA 1999, for the best English-language book on the ancient and early medieval history of Africa, North America and Latin America, awarded to the Woodward and Lewis (eds) volume ''The History of Cartography, Volume 2.3: Cartography in the Traditional African, American, Arctic, Australian, and Pacific Societies'' (1998, contains two chapters by Sutton, see papers below)
* The Manning Clark House National Cultural Award for an outstanding contribution to the quality of Australian cultural life in 2009, for ''The Politics of Suffering: Indigenous Australia and the End of the Liberal Consensus''..
* The 2010 John Button Prize for the best piece of non-fiction writing on politics or public policy published in Australia in the previous year, for ''The Politics of Suffering: Indigenous Australia and the End of the Liberal Consensus.''
Bibliography
*
MORPHY, Howard (200
"Seeing Aboriginal Art in the Gallery" ''Humanities Research'' Volume 8. Number 1
*MORTON, John (2007) "Sansom, Sutton and Sackville: Three Expert Anthropologists?". ''Anthropological Forum''. Volume 17. Number 2. Pages 170–173
*PONSONNET, Maia. (2007) "Recognising victims without blaming them: a moral contest? About Peter Sutton's 'The Politics of Suffering: Indigenous Policy in Australia since the 1970s' and Gillian Cowlishaw's replies. " ''Australian Aboriginal Studies.'' 43(8).
*SCHWAB, R.G (2007) "Sutton, Peter. Native title in Australia: an ethnographic perspective. xxiii, 279 pp., map, figs, bibliogr. Cambridge: Univ. Press, 2004." ''Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute'' Volume 13. Pages 504–505.
*WEINER, James F (2007) "Anthropology vs. Ethnography in Native Title: A Review Article in the Context of Peter Sutton's Native Title in Australia". ''The Asia Pacific Journal of Anthropology''. Volume 8, Number 2. Pages 151 – 168
Filmography
* MacDOUGALL, David (1980)
Familiar Places Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies. 53' (filmed in 1977)
* MacDOUGALL, David (1980), Narrator and anthropological advisor for Familiar Places: a film about Aboriginal ties to land. Director: David MacDougall. Canberra: AIAS 1980. Colour, 53 minutes. A film from the Aurukun project.
*''Aboriginal art: conserving, exhibiting, interpreting''. Part d of Video 4 of the series Talking about Aboriginal art. Videotaped lecture by Peter Sutton. University of Sydney: Power Institute of Fine Arts, 1992 (original forum 1990). Producers: P. Lipscombe, D. Roberts & C. Willing. Colour, 18 mins.
*Assisted with the production of ''Dhuway: An Australian Diaspora and Homecoming''. Producer and Director: Lew Griffiths.
Canberra: Oziris Productions 1995. Colour, 60 minutes.
References
External links
Accessed 1 January 2008
Accessed 1 January 2008.
*
ttp://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/stories/s2115948.htm Peter Sutton (2007) "The worst of good intentions?" on ABC's 'Unleashed' 11 December 2007Accessed 4 October 2009
Age article about Peter SuttonAccessed 13 July 2009.
"The Politics of Suffering: Peter Sutton with Marcia Langton" Video on CrickeyAccessed 13 August 2009
Accessed 4 October 2009
* [http://inside.org.au/driven-into-action/ Anderson, Ian (2009) "Driven into action: Ian Anderson reviews Peter Sutton’s unsettling account of Indigenous policy, The Politics of Suffering" Inside Story webpage] Accessed 27 November 2009.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Sutton, Peter
Australian anthropologists
1946 births
Living people
Fellows of the Chartered Institute of Linguists