APPENDIX 1: GLOSSARY
Aboriginal: The descendants of the original inhabitants of a geographically distinct area. For example the Aboriginal peoples of North America including Chinook, Iroquois, and Inuit, the Aboriginal peoples of Scandinavia - the Sami, and the Aboriginal people of New Zealand – the Maori. These separate peoples have unique heritages, languages, cultural practices and spiritual beliefs.
Aboriginal rights: Rights that Aboriginal peoples hold as a result of their ancestors' longstanding use and occupancy of the land. The rights of certain Aboriginal peoples to hunt, trap and fish on ancestral lands are examples of Aboriginal rights. Aboriginal rights vary from group to group depending on the customs, practices and traditions that have formed part of their distinctive cultures.
Aboriginal self-government: Governments designed, established and administered by Aboriginal peoples under national constitutional provisions through a process of negotiation and agreement between First and Second national groups.
Analyse: Consider in detail for the purpose of defining meaning or relationships, and identify patterns, similarities and differences.
Artefact: An object made by a human being, typically one of cultural or historical interest.
Assess: Determine the value, significance or extent of (something).
Assimilation: The absorption and integration of people, ideas, or culture into a wider society or culture. Commonly used by settler-states to vanish First Nations peoples, language, culture and identity.
Bands: In anthropology, bands are the tiniest societies, consisting typically of 5-80 people, most of them close relatives by birth or by marriage.
Clan: A descent group in which genealogical links to a common ancestor are assumed but are not actually known; a group of people with a strong common interest.
Colonisation: The action or process of settling among and establishing control over the indigenous people of an area: •the action of appropriating a place or domain for one's own use.
Comparativism: Comparativism is the process by which cross-cultural differences are examined and the underlying reasons for similarities and differences are explained.
Country: Refers to relationship between First Nations peoples and the spiritual, communal and spatial relationship to place, which includes land, waterways, open space and the sky.
Country group: Otherwise known as a clan, is the landowning group, effectively the ritual owner of a country, responsible for the regular performance of major ceremonies associated with its country. Not all members of a country group live together, as members are typically dispersed into a number of residential bands, however they come together as a single group for major ceremonies.
Contemporary: In terms of First Nations societies and cultures, occurring within the past three generations.
Cosmology: Systems of belief and knowledge about the nature, structure, evolution and origins of the universe as a whole.
Culture: Culture has two elements: (a) the foundation, or body of customary knowledge, beliefs and values shared and learned by members of a group. This element has continuity over time, being passed from one generation to the next. (b) The second element consists of the day-to-day experiences of individuals which add to their cultural foundations, and whereby individual cultures are constructed.
Cultural appropriation: A term used to describe the taking over of creative or artistic forms, themes, or practices by one cultural group from another. It is in general used to describe Western appropriations of non-Western or non-white forms, and carries connotations of exploitation and dominance.
Cultural perspective: The identities, values, norms, and habits that member of a group develop. The processes and activities that members take part in, arising from their shared identities, values, norms, and habits.
Cultural Hybridisation: The process by which a cultural element such a food, language, or music blend into another culture by modifying the element to fit cultural norms.
Critically analyse: Examine the component parts of an issue or information, for example the premise of an argument and its plausibility, illogical reasons or faulty conclusions.
Critically evaluate: Evaluation of an issue or information that includes considering important factors and available evidence in making critical judgement that can be justified.
Critical Theory: Critical Theory is an analytical concept which stresses the reflective assessment and critique of society and culture by applying knowledge from across the social sciences and the humanities. Critical Theory in the social sciences is a social theory that aims to critique and change society and aims to emancipate and liberate society, in particular minorities and those without voice, power or agency, by critiquing society in terms of its own (often abstracted) values (these abstracted values are frequently referred to as ‘metanarratives’) such values subject to critique include western concepts including ‘modernity’ ‘liberty’ ‘reason’; ‘freedom’ ‘democracy’ and ‘progress.’ Critical Theory has a strong normative dimension as it critically seeks to ‘deconstruct’ false, unprovable dogmatic, or privileged social and political beliefs and ideologies, and to empower the powerlessness. In the context of First Nations Studies, understanding, addressing and responding to non-indigenous, privileged concepts including colonialization, invasion, assimilation and protection on one hand and, on the other, decolonisation and disappropriation by First Nations peoples can be readily achieved by the utilisation of Critical Theory.
Catalysis: The experience of several ethnic groups interacting and mixing with each other often in a contentious environment that gives way to new forms of identity and experience.
Closing the Gap: Closing the Gap is an Australian government strategy that aims to reduce disadvantage among Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples with respect to life expectancy, child mortality, access to early childhood education, educational achievement, and employment outcomes. Closing the Gap was developed in response to the call of the Australian Human Rights Commission Social justice Report 2005
Creolization: Societies that arise from a mixture of ethnic and racial mixing to form a new material, psychological, and spiritual self-definition.
Diaspora: The voluntary or enforced migration of peoples from their native homelands. Diaspora literature is often concerned with questions of maintaining or altering identity, language, and culture while in another culture or country.
Decolonise: In general, to grant independence to a colony, specifically, in the context of First Nations Studies, to remove western Settler states privileged values, policies and action from the sphere of First Nations economic, social, cultural and political lived experience.
Describe: Give an account of characteristics or features.
Disappropriate: The act of taking away from someone. In the context of First Nations Studies, it means the process by which First Nations peoples have regained control over their lives, identity, lands and waters, cultural identity and narrative.
Doctrine of Discovery: The Doctrine of Discovery is a concept of public international law expounded by the United States Supreme Court in a series of decisions, initially in Johnson v. McIntosh in 1823. The doctrine was Untied States Chief Justice John Marshall's explanation of the way in which colonial powers laid (legitimate) claim to newly discovered lands during the Age of Discovery. Under it, title to newly discovered lands lay with the government whose subjects discovered new territory. The doctrine has been primarily used to support decisions invalidating or ignoring Indigenous possession of land in favour of settler state governments.
Doomed race: A pejorative nineteenth century term which, in part based in Social Darwinism, which characterised First Nations as being inferior and which were declining in numbers and likely to become extinct, particularly in the context of contact with settler-states, which, according to this logic, were considered to be more ‘civilised’.
Dreaming: Dreaming broadly describe the complexity of important Australian Aboriginal concepts and beliefs. It is the realm of the spiritual that encompasses all living things, as well as those things in the natural world (land, seas, rocks, mountains, people, flora and fauna, winds, constellations and so on.), and relates to the past, the present and the future.
Early: In the context of First Nations Studies Level 3, the period prior to invasion
Episteme: A system of understanding; the body of ideas which shape the perception of knowledge in a particular period. First Nations have their own unique and distinctive episteme.
Epistemology: The study or a theory of the nature and grounds of knowledge especially with reference to its limits and validity.
Ethical perspective: A person’s individual perception of moral values, beliefs and rules based on his or her personal view of right and wrong.
Ethnolinguistic: The study of language as an aspect or part of culture, especially the study of the influence of language on culture and of culture on language.
Ethnocentrism: The practice of regarding the customs, standards and beliefs of one’s own social/ethnic/cultural group as the normal way of behaving and thinking and those of other social groups as inferior and/or not natural.
Ethnocide: The deliberate and systematic destruction of the culture of an ethnic group, such as that of a First Nation.
Evaluate: Provide a detailed examination and substantiated judgement concerning the merit, significance or value of something.
Evidence: The available body of facts or information indicating whether a belief or proposition is true or valid.
Exoticism: The process by which a cultural practice is made stimulating and exciting in its difference from the settler state’s normal perspective. Ironically, as European groups educated local, indigenous cultures, schoolchildren often began to see their native lifeways, plants, and animals as ‘exotic’ and the European counterparts as "normal" or "typical." The concept in addition to ‘orientalism’ (see below) forms part of a colonial episteme.
Explain: Provide additional information that demonstrates understanding of reasoning and/or application.
First Nation(s): An organised aboriginal group or community, in certain circumstances, such as in Canada and the United States any of the bands officially recognized by their respective state governments.
According to the World Health Organisation, First Nations exhibit the following characteristics:
- Identify themselves and are recognized and accepted by their community as indigenous.
- Demonstrate historical continuity with pre-colonial and/or pre-settler societies.
- Have strong links to territories and surrounding natural resources.
- Have distinct social, economic or political systems.
- Maintain distinct languages, cultures and beliefs.
- Form non-dominant groups of society.
- Resolve to maintain and reproduce their ancestral environments and systems as distinctive peoples and communities.
(See: http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs326/en/)
First Peoples: A collective term for the native peoples, of a particular state such as the Inuit of Canada, the Maori of New Zealand and the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples of Australia.
Genocide: The systematic and widespread extermination or attempted extermination of a national, racial, religious, or ethnic group.
Hegemony: The power of the ruling class to convince other classes that their interests are the interests of all, often not only through means of economic and political control but more subtly through the control of education and media.
Historical: Of or concerning past events.
Hybridity: New transcultural forms that arise from cross-cultural exchange. Hybridity can be social, political, linguistic and/or religious. It is not necessarily a peaceful mixture, for it can be contentious and disruptive in its experience. Note the two related definitions: catalysis: and creolization.
Identify: Establish or indicate who or what someone or something is.
Identity: The condition or fact of a person being that specified unique person. Indigenous peoples identities are linked with place and culture.
Ideology: The cultural system, including values and beliefs about the nature of the universe, its order, structure and functioning, which is consciously learned and incorporated, as an integrated whole, into the culture of a group of people.
Indigenization: the act of making something more native; transformation of some service, idea, etc. to suit a local culture, especially through the use of more indigenous people in administration, employment and policy making
Indigenous: Originating in and characteristic of a particular region or country.
Indigenous people: People native to a particular land or place: original inhabitants, see: First Peoples and First Nations.
Indigenous World View: The concept of the world held by Indigenous people. It may include the notion that all things are parts of a single system within which people, animals, plants, and places are intimately related to each other physically and spiritually; and that humans have custodial responsibilities that relate to maintain the natural order of the universe
Intercultural: Existing between, relating to or involving one or more cultures. For example the relationship between Aboriginal and European cultures.
Indigeneity: The fact of originating or occurring naturally in a particular place. The assertion and/or authentication of First Peoples culture, Identity and solidarity.
In 1991, the World Bank adopted the following definition of indigeneity:
Indigenous Peoples can be identified in particular geographical areas by the presence in varying degrees of the following characteristics:
- close attachment to ancestral territories and to the natural resources in these areas;
- self-identification and identification by others as members of a distinct cultural group;
- an indigenous language, often different from the national language;
- presence of customary social and political institutions; and
- primarily subsistence-oriented production.
Source: https://johansandbergmcguinne.wordpress.com/official-definitions-of-indigeneity/
Land Rights: The rights held by Indigenous people to determine the use of lands (and waters) to which they claim traditional ownership or connection. Land rights encompass compensation for lands (and waters) taken from them.
Makarrata: Australian Aboriginal Youngu word suggesting a negotiation of peace after conflict, an agreement between parties so there is no ongoing dispute or bad feeling. More commonly understood as the coming together after a struggle.
Manifest Destiny: The belief or doctrine, held chiefly in the middle and latter part of the 19th century, that it was the destiny of the United States to expand its territory over the whole of North America and to extend and enhance its political, social, and economic influences, frequently at the expense of North American Indigenous peoples.
Metis: People of mixed Aboriginal and European ancestry – specifically those Metis people of Canada.
Modernity: Modernity is the social phenomena explained by sociologists as the ideas and styles of post traditional society. Initially the movement can be described as a rejection of traditional lifestyles economic systems, social norms and hierarchy and fixed ideas. It is characterised, in general terms by secularism, a reliance upon logic, reason and the scientific method. Politically it is exhibited in forms of liberal and participative forms of government. Socially it is a reordering of social hierarchies based on merit, income and education and the decline of extended family and the Church as primary agents of social control, values and influence. Economically, exchange is deregulated and determined by the profit motive in a progressive capitalist economic system.
Multimodal: Multiple (more than one) modes of delivery to demonstrate understanding of key concepts and the general objectives and criteria of the course through a combination of aural, oral, visual, graphical, tactile, practical and written modes. For example: tutorials, presentations, seminars, webpages, interactive presentations visual and performing arts, craft production, photographic or video graphic essays
Nation: Larger groups or collectives of people with common characteristics attributed to them—including language, traditions, customs (mores), habits and ethnicity.
Nation-State: a (sovereign) state inhabited by a relatively homogeneous group of people who share a feeling of common nationality.
Newcomer(s): See: Settler states
Noble savage: A noble savage is a literary stock character who embodies the concept of the indigene, outsider, wild human, an "other" who has not been "corrupted" by civilization, and therefore symbolizes humanity's innate goodness.
Normative: Establishing, relating to, or deriving from a standard or norm, especially of behaviour.
Ontology: A theory about the nature of being or the kinds of things that have existence.
'Other'/ Otherness: The 'Other' is the cumulative constituting factors which separate (an)other person or group from the self or observer and thus is a constituent element of the observers self-concept. The condition of 'otherness' is the state of being different from and alien to the identity of the self or different to the social identity of a group, such as a national or ethnic group. The term has been used by settler states to exclude, belittle and reduce the value, power and significance of First Nations and their peoples, which are frequently constituted as the 'Other'. This is most readily found in the use of terms including 'uncivilised natives', 'savages', and 'primitive', as well as the policies, actions and perspectives which provided for the subordination of First Nations including through processes of colonisation, invasion, protection and assimilation.
Outline: Give the main features or aspects of.
Orientalism: The process (from the late eighteenth century to the present) by which "the Orient" was constructed as an exotic 'other' by contrast to European society and culture. Orientalism is not so much a true study of other cultures as it is broad Western generalization about Oriental, Islamic, and/or Asian cultures that tends to erode and ignore their substantial differences. The concept in addition to 'exoticism' (see above) forms part of a colonial episteme.
Pan-Indigenous: Referring to all First Nations peoples without taking account of settler-state boundaries or borders. The practice of considering all First Nations peoples as having the same or similar interests and world views.
Post-colonialism: Broadly a study of the effects of colonialism on cultures and societies. It is concerned with both how European nations conquered and controlled First Nations cultures and how these groups have since responded to and resisted those encroachments. Post-colonialism, as both a body of theory and a study of political and cultural change, has gone and continues to go through three broad stages:
- An initial awareness of the social, psychological, and cultural inferiority enforced by being in a colonized state
- The struggle for ethnic, cultural, and political autonomy
- A growing awareness of cultural overlap and hybridity
Post-Modernism: Early sociological theory and inquiry was founded and formed within the ideals of modernity. Early social thinkers largely took for granted and adopted the dominant themes of modernity; universalism, progress, patriarchal and hierarchical institutions. By contrast post-modernism is a critique of, and attempts to deconstruct the underlying assumptions of mainstream sociological theory as they are applied to the metanarratives of universalism, progress, institutions, and the certainty of the scientific method. Post-modernism, while inherently lacking a locus of core theory can be characterised as a sociological approach which critically reflects on modernity, its institutions and its underpinning logic as well as its largely and hitherto unquestioned metanarratives (such as civilization and civilized, freedom, progress, logic and liberty) Postmodernist writers and theorists seek to challenge the power of dominant, privileged (western) institutions and dominant narratives, which have privileged the west at the expense of the south (including First Nations) and to offer a more democratic, diffused view of social order and social and political institutions. In the context of First Nations Studies, Postmodernism is a methodological approach which critiques settler states dominance in language, power and institutions and seeks to apply a more diverse, more authentic, less privileged and more democratic approach to social understating and ordering from multiple viewpoints, one of which viewpoint is that of First Nations and their peoples.
Primary sources: Include: first-hand accounts, interviews, surveys, autobiographies, photographs, physical artefacts, audio recordings, maps.
Race: A concept used to refer to the alleged existence of separate biological groups or subspecies of people on the basis of differing physical characteristics, particularly skin, and eye colour. Modern biology has shown extensive diversity in genetic inheritance which determines such characteristics. This has revealed that there is sometimes greater genetic similarity between people of different social/cultural groups than between the members of the same so-called ‘race’.
Racism: An extreme form of ethnocentrism in which one social group attributes negative characteristics to another social/cultural group which is seen as physically or racially distinctive in order to justify excluding or exploiting its members. Racism may take many forms, such as overt or covert, and result from individual as well as institutional behaviour.
Recognition: In general terms, recognition refers to the acknowledgement of the existence, validity, or legality of someone or something. In the context of First Nations Studies it refers to the process of the decolonisation of First Nations ‘otherness’ as well as the communal, social and political acceptance of the apriori rights of First Nations to affirm their continued existence, identity and sovereignty. Arguably the most powerful form of recognition for First Nations is constitutional recognition.
Reconciliation: The restoration of friendly relations, and the action of making one view or belief compatible with another.
Register: A variety of a language or a level of usage, as determined by degree of formality and choice of vocabulary, pronunciation, and syntax, according to the communicative purpose, social context, and standing of the user.
Resistance: The refusal to accept or comply with something.
Range of sources: Has dimensions of type (primary and secondary), number (how many sources) and scope (books, academic articles, internet, film/video etc.)
Secondary sources: Include: textbooks, history books written by scholars, biographies, documentaries, second hand accounts, recounts.
Seminar Presentation: A class held in which learners discuss original research, under the guidance of a teacher, while presenting.
Settler states: The peoples as well as their organizational, political, legal, economic and cultural structures and institutions which have dispossessed First Nations and their peoples and which hold appropriated privileges and power in relation to First Nations.
Self-determination: Determination by oneself or itself, without outside influence; freedom to live as one chooses, or to act or decide without consulting another or others; the determining by the people of the form their government shall have, without reference to the wishes of any other nation.
Settlement: The act or state of settling or the state of being settled: the settling of persons in a new country or place.
Society: A group of people who inhabit the same territory, regularly spend time together, and are often part of the same political unit, usually distinguished from other surrounding groups.
Southern Theory: A theoretical perspective which seeks to recognise and include in discourses forms of knowledge and ways of knowing other than those of the dominant ‘northern’ (western) perspectives and narratives. In the context of First
Nations Studies it applies to the incremental acceptance and traction of First Nations ontology and epistemology in the physical and agricultural sciences, philosophy, mathematics and medicine, amongst other fields of inquiry.
State: A politically organised body of people usually occupying a definite territory; especially one that is sovereign.
(Sovereign) State: A state with a defined territory that administers its own government and is not subject to or dependent on another power. A nonphysical juridical entity that is represented by one centralized government that has sovereignty over a geographic area. International law defines sovereign states as having a permanent population, defined territory, one government, and the capacity to enter into relations with other sovereign states. It is also normally understood that a sovereign state is neither dependent on nor subjected to any other power or state. A state may comprise of one or a number of nations – for example the United Kingdom is made up of four nations –England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.
Subaltern: The ‘lower’ or colonised classes who have little access to their own means of expression and are thus dependent upon the language and methods of the ruling class to express themselves.
Task characteristics: May include, but are not limited to: word limits; format of response; mode of response; and presentation requirements.
Terms: Word or phrase used to describe abstract aspects or features of legal and political systems.
Terra nullius: Territory belonging to no state, i.e. territory not inhabited by a socially and politically organized community. The original legal basis for European colonisation of Australia.
Tools and strategies: Used to collect and organise information include, but are not limited to:
- graphic organisers
- note taking
- use of categories to organise information.
Traditional: An inherited, established, or customary pattern of thought, self and/or group-concept, action, or behaviour. (Such as a religious belief or custom, a social custom or pattern of lived experience or day to day behaviour.)
Treacherous savage: A stereotypical viewpoint and discourse supporting the proposition that First Nations peoples as being violent, untrustworthy and warlike. Used by European settlers, particularly in the nineteenth century, to justify warfare, dispossession and subjugation.
Treaty: An agreement between (a) government and a First Nation that defines the rights of Aboriginal Peoples with respect to land and resources over a specified area, and may also define the self-government authority of a First Nation. Modern treaties, once ratified become part of the law of the Sovereign state.
Treaty rights: Rights specified in a Treaty. For example rights to hunt and/or fish in traditional territory, the right to control and decide permissions and scope of natural resource extraction from a geographically defined territory and the use and occupation of a territory are typical treaty rights. For example, in Canada, treaty rights are constitutionally recognized and affirmed: the terms of Canadian treaties take precedent over the other laws and policies in Canada. However, by contrast, in the United States, the primacy of treaties and treaty rights for First Nations peoples is not observed by the Federal law and decisions of the Supreme Court of the United States.
Values: Emotional/affective beliefs about the world, often used by people to identify and evaluate what is ‘good’ and ‘bad, ‘right’ and ‘wrong’, appropriate and inappropriate and so on. Values are frequently accommodated and reflected as part of ideology, religion and world view, and are often reflected in law.
Whiteness: A contemporary term from Critical Theory. ‘Whiteness’ refers to more than skin colour; it is the privileging of those racial, cultural and religious identities that most resemble the typical characteristics associated with white Europeans. Privileges include (but are not limited to) not being discriminated against in employment and education, being less likely to be arrested for the same behaviour than ‘non-whites’, as well as being adequately represented in all forms of popular media. Consequently, the terms 'white' and 'people of colour' are not merely descriptive – they are political. When we talk about 'white people', we are not really talking about skin colour but about those who most benefit from whiteness. Correspondingly, when we talk about 'people of colour', we talk about those who are most excluded from power, wealth and status.
White man’s burden: A phrase used to justify European imperialism in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries; it is the title of a poem by Rudyard Kipling. The phrase implies that imperialism was motivated by a high-minded desire of whites to uplift First Nations peoples. The associated supposed duty of white people to bring education and Western culture to the inhabitants of their colonies.
World view: The basic cultural orientation (combining beliefs, knowledge and values) shared by members of a group. It includes ways of looking at life and the nature of the world and its inhabitants, as well as the basis of the choices people make. World views might be expressed as philosophy, ideology, cosmology, religion; and integrated into morality, ethics, ritual, behaviour, belief and knowledge. They are the foundation of shared and agreed understandings and acquired wisdom amongst members of a group.
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