The Cunning of Recognition: Indigenous Alterities and the Making of Australian Multiculturalism

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Elizabeth A. Povinelli

The Cunning of Recognition

Indigenous Alterities and the Making of Australian Multiculturalism

Elizabeth A. Povinelli

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English

Duke University Press
19 July 2002

History; Ethnic minorities & multicultural studies; Indigenous peoples

Series: Politics, History, and Culture

The Cunning of Recognition is an exploration of liberal multiculturalism from the perspective of Australian indigenous social life. Elizabeth A. Povinelli argues that the multicultural legacy of colonialism perpetuates unequal systems of power, not by demanding that colonized subjects identify with their colonizers but by demanding that they identify with an impossible standard of authentic traditional culture. Povinelli draws on seventeen years of ethnographic research among northwest coast indigenous people and her own experience participating in land claims, as well as on public records, legal debates, and anthropological archives to examine how multicultural forms of recognition work to reinforce liberal regimes rather than to open them up to a true cultural democracy. She explains that, while aboriginal peoples have an official ""place"" in Australia, they must uphold stereotypically authentic ways of being. In the end, Australia is revealed as an exemplary site for studying the social effects of the liberal multicultural imaginary: much earlier than the United States and in response to very different geopolitical conditions, Australian nationalism renounced the ideal of a unitary European tradition and embraced cultural and social diversity. While addressing larger theoretical debates in critical anthropology, political theory, cultural studies, and liberal theory, The Cunning of Recognition demonstrates that the impact of the globalization of liberal forms of government can only be truly understood by examining its concrete - and not just philosophical - effects on the world.

By: Elizabeth A. Povinelli
Imprint: Duke University Press
Country of Publication: United States
Dimensions: Height: 235mm, Width: 156mm, Spine: 22mm
Weight: 476g
ISBN: 9780822328681
ISBN 10: 0822328682
Series: Politics, History, and Culture
Pages: 352
Publication Date: 19 July 2002
Audience: Professional and scholarly , Undergraduate
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Unspecified

Reviews for The Cunning of Recognition: Indigenous Alterities and the Making of Australian Multiculturalism

An intelligent, valuable, and absorbing study. Povinelli relentlessly dissects the legal and affective bases of contemporary multicultural liberalism, while bringing the Australian case squarely into an ethics debate that has up to now been dominated by the North American experience. - James Ferguson, co-editor of Culture, Power, Place: Explorations in Critical Anthropology Elizabeth Povinelli's The Cunning of Recognition is a breakthrough work that has major implications for redefining the relations between cultural studies and anthropology. With a consistently high level of intellectual excitement and commitment, Povinelli draws together work from a variety of fields in new and provocative ways. -Benjamin Lee, author of Talking Heads: Language, Metalanguage, and the Semiotics of Subjectivity