Aboriginal History Journal & Monograph Series

Aboriginal History Journal: Volume 49 - Edited by: Crystal McKinnon, Ben Silverstein

The articles in Volume 49 explore Aboriginal histories of survival, activism, cultural practice and resistance, from nineteenth-century smallpox epidemics to Black Power movements and Noongar care for Country:

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Nicholas Pitt and Heidi Norman trace Wiradjuri, Gomeroi and Wailwan histories of smallpox in the 1830s, emphasising Aboriginal understandings, responses to and treatments for the disease they called either Boulol or Thunna Thunna. This work reveals the networks of knowledge and experience that secured the survival of people in Country.
Gary Foley, Clare Land and Shannon Woodcock then document a Community Organisation Course offered at Swinburne College of Technology, 1975–1977. The importance of this course can be seen in the sovereign futures it enabled; participants went on in the following years to organise Aboriginal Community Controlled Organisations and other Black Power movements across the southeast of the continent.
Will Bracks, takes up this theme in describing the networks involved in organising Rock Against Racism concerts in Adelaide, Melbourne, Canberra, Brisbane and Sydney throughout the 1980s. Organised in a manner characteristic of Black Power, this series of concerts raised political consciousness and generated resources to support Aboriginal communities.
Turning to the West, Sean Winter considers Noongar practices of cultural burning in the mid-nineteenth century, a period of government suppression through legislation that limited the way Noongar people could care for Country; Winter shows us how an insistence on displacing Noongar knowledges has caused cultural and ecological harm.
Lastly, Bianka Vidonja Balanzategui brings to the fore the valuable writing of John Naish, a Welsh author based in the Queensland cane fields in the mid-twentieth century. Naish’s realist novels and autobiography, she shows us, offer us insight into the position and resistance of Aboriginal people in tropical north Queensland.

Previous volumes can be found at ANU Press.

About Aboriginal History

The journal Aboriginal History was founded in 1977. For over forty years, it has been a flagship of the field of Australian Aboriginal history. The journal has a close association with the ACIH, and the School of History contributes by housing its editorial office.

Aboriginal History is published by ANU Press. It is freely available online. Hard copies can be purchased through ANU Press.

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SUBMITTING ARTICLES	BOOK REVIEW	MONOGRAPH SERIES
Details about submitting articles to the journal can be found here, or by emailing the editor at aboriginal.history@anu.edu.au	Books for review should be sent to: Editors Aboriginal History, ACIH - School of History, RSSS Building - 146 Ellery Crescent, ANU Canberra ACT 2601 Australia or contact the Reviews Editor, Dr Annemarie McLaren, on aboriginal.history@anu.edu.au	The Aboriginal History Monograph Series can be found here. Monograph Series Editor: Dr Laura Rademaker Associate Editor: Dr Julia Hurst.