An Adjustment Movement in Arnhem Land. Northern Territory of Australia.

An Adjustment Movement in Arnhem Land was published in 1962. An earlier and abbreviated form of the book had been recognised by the award of the Royal Anthropological Institute Wellcome Medal for 1958. But in spite of this distinguished recognition, anthropology in Australia seemed not to know what to make of it. It had no obvious predecessors, nor was it written in a genre appropriate to the anthropological issues of the day. It was short - only 103 pages - and its internal organization was decidedly odd, with descriptions of individual Aboriginal people, their roles and relationships, an elaborate attempt to decode the designs on the sacred objects which form the centre of the account, forewords and appendices, and some black and white photographic plates. Finally, the anthropologist himself is, if not at centre stage, at least a frequent and sometimes significant presence in the text. In many respects it seems more like a postmodern work, filled with fragments and reflexivity, than the formalized ethnographies which were canonical at the time. It is concerned with Aboriginal life in Northeast Arnhem Land in the encounter with "change", most particularly with concepts, beliefs and ideas arising from the penetration of mission Christianity. -- Preface, p. 2.