CHAPTER VIII
THEORIZING ABOUT THE ABORIGINAL WORLD
BY MAINSTREAM SOCIETY PRE-1967
We now turn to examine the symbolic universe within which
urban Aboriginal people are located by mainstream society as it
is found in Government legislation, policy and practice.
8.1
Hypothesis I
It is hypothesized that there are not different models of
Aboriginal worlds conceptualized by mainstream society, that the
conceptual machinery of nihilation has been employed historically
to locate Aboriginal people outside mainstream society, and that
the boundary formed to locate Aborigines as a group is a boundary
from without.
8.2 Theorizing about the Aboriginal world by the dominant society -
the conceptual framework
of universe maintenance become necessary when aspects of the world
of meaning become problematic rather than taken-for-granted
facticities.
Thus, within a society, those who not merely commit deviant
acts, but embrace a deviant life style, throw into question the
symbolic universe accepted by the majority as the only possible
inevitable universe. In defence of its structures, the society
then takes steps to articulate its universe of meaning through
a theoretical Systemisation which shows it as the only possible
acceptable universe. In naive societies this happens through
the articulation of mythologies. In developed societies
legitimations have been, and are, articulated through the sciences
philosophy, theology, the natural sciences and the social sciences.
Berger and Luckmann (1966:130) dwell on two particular forms
of conceptual machinery for the maintenance of a symbolic universe
therapy and nihilation.
