ASP e-newsletter – Issue 14, December 2009

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CONTENTS

Free AIATSIS resources | Latest releases | Forthcoming books | Interviews and Launches |

FREE RESOURCE MATERIALS FROM AIATSIS

Aboriginal Studies Press now has a dedicated academic/tertiary catalogue. It includes areas of study where books are being used and relevant subject areas. Download here: www.aiatsis.gov.au/asp/docs/TertiaryCatalogueSpring2009.pdf

Request an inspection copy of any our titles here www.aiatsis.gov.au/asp/contact.aspx, or contact kim.johnston@aiatsis.gov.au. Our 2010 trade catalogue will be available in March 2010.

To keep up to date in the fast-evolving area of native title, or to subscribe, visit Native Title Research Unit publications. The Research Program also publishes widely, including free online papers and books. Visit Research Publications to see the full range.

LATEST RELEASES

murray

Murray River Country
An ecological dialogue with traditional owners
Jessica K Weir
RRP $34.95, ISBN 9780855756789

Place, country, and care are at the heart of this wise book, which is so astutely responsive to the diverse, active Aboriginal individuals and nations of the Murray–Darling Basin. Like the Central Valley of California near where I live, where vast rivers and wetlands have been engineered to produce a precarious and poisoned breadbasket for settler empires, the Murray–Darling Basin cries out for new practices of care from all of its people. Weir’s book gives me hope that these blasted places and the lives of so many species, human and not, might again be whole, in new ways and old.

Professor Donna Haraway, University of California at Santa Cruz

 

throwing

Throwing Off the Cloak
Reclaiming self-reliance in Torres Strait
Elizabeth Osborne
RRP $39.95, ISBN 9780855756628

This is a passionately written and valuable chronicle of events of great significance to the recent history of Torres Strait and has broader resonances for the future of remote Aboriginal mainland communities.

Dr Anna Shnukal, Queensland Museum

 

 

 

 

comp

Compromised Jurisprudence
Native title cases since Mabo 2nd Edition
Lisa Strelein
RRP $45.00, ISBN 9780855756635

The work of a gifted legal scholar and writer, the book contains many valuable lessons and insights that Indigenous rights advocates around the world will be able to utilise in their own legal efforts aimed at decolonisation of Indigenous peoples under both domestic and international law.

Professor Robert A. Williams, Jr, University of Arizona Rogers College of Law

 

 

 

FORTHCOMING BOOKS

ASP’s 2010 list is shaping up well. March begins the publishing year with Joanne Watson’s hard-hitting history of Palm Island. Compared to other writings and newspaper reports, this book puts the Palm Islanders (Bwgcolman) at the centre of their own history. Watson’s book is the first substantial history of the island from pre-contact to the present – set against a background of some of the most explosive episodes in Queensland history.

palm

Palm Island
Through a long lens
Joanne Watson
March 2010, RRP $34.95, ISBN 9780855757038

Despite prolonged media attention, much of it negative and full of stereotypes, few Australians know the turbulent history of ‘Australia’s Alcatraz’, a political prison set up to exile Queensland’s ‘troublesome blacks’.
Joanne Watson

This is an outstanding contribution to Indigenous history — especially the history of Palm Island. Watson has made great use of historical records, media reports, discussions with Palm Island people alive today, and historical recollections from family members.
Stephen Hagan, University of Southern Queensland

 
INTERVIEWS & LAUNCHES

Listen to an interview with Weir on ABC Radio National: www.abc.net.au/rn/latenightlive/stories/2009/2699908.htm

jess

Jessica Weir with Garry Pappin, courtesy Clive Hilliker

Book launch, Melbourne Writers Festival, 29 August 2009
Jessica K Weir’s Murray River Country was launched by Yorta Yorta woman, Monica Morgan, and journalist John Doyle at the Melbourne Writers Festival:
A few years ago I had the sobering pleasure of taking a tinnie from the catchment in St George in South West Queensland down the full stretch of the Darling River before taking the craft the full length of the Murray. This was for the making of the documentary Two in A Tinnie with Professor Tim Flannery…This is a book that askes fundamental questions and examines the difficulties of marrying science and government beaucracies with visceral cultural knowledge and practice...The larger question is, can people be reconnected with place and will the rivers and the forces of narture be strong enough for the foodbasket of the nation to recover and survive?

Book launch, ANU Public Law Weekend, 12-13 November
Lisa Strelein’s Compromised Jurisprudence (2nd edn) was launched by Mr Brian Wyatt, CEO of Goldfields Land and Sea Council, at the ANU Public Law Weekend in October, in front of a crowd of constitutional and other lawyers. We expect strong sales of this book when the word gets out that this economically priced, beautifully written and succinct book is available.