Blackfellas, Whitefellas, and the Hidden Injuries of Race

Book excerpt: In December 1997, in a small town in rural Australia, a fight broke out among local Aborigines that turned into a full-blown riot when police intervened in force. In Blackfellas, Whitefellas, and the Hidden Injuries of Race, anthropologist Gillian Cowlishaw uses this vivid incident as a means of launching a larger discussion about race, identity, and racialized violence. Brings indigenous Australians into the contemporary global race discourse in a lively, highly readable ethnography. Explores the local and national meanings of a race riot in Australia and the entrenched racial binary evident in everyday relationships. Raises questions about history, memory, citizenship, respect, and abjection as means of considering the politics, social science, and psychology of race rivalry and indigenous marginality. Written by a prominent scholar with clarity, verve, and accessibility both for beginners and those well-versed in contemporary debates.