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apprehend it, any more than the Dream time stories can be translated
. . 1
into English without losing some of their meaning and force .
There is no means of testing this out. However it is apparent
that Aboriginal students, whether adult teacher trainees or ’school
age’ youth are confronted with two forces theorizing about the
Aboriginal world with which the individual is constantly interacting in
♦
the establishment of his identity.
Tonkinson*s account £1974:99) of Jigalong makes it clear that,
in that location, the theorizing of the two groups - white missionaries
and Aborigines - was almost diametrically opposite on all issues.
Observation and interviews at Strelley lead to the conclusion
that the prime aim of all the white staff is to seek to understand
the policy and the decisions of the Aboriginal community and to carry
these out.
The problem lies in the degree to which it is possible for individuals
, Sl
to perform Schutz’s epoche - to be able to stand aside from a
situation outside one’s own realm of meaning and examine it, rather
than transmute the Aboriginal meaning by filtering it through one’s
own ethno-centrism, even though this is based in an ideology of liberation.
13.2 Theorizing as a dynamic force
The theorizing of Strelley is one expecting continuity,, one
that expects success and the survival of the group.
This psychological model in itself helps to bring about the
well-known situation of the self-fulfilling prophecy, the prophecy
that realises itself in practice. The process of theorizing is well
adapted to its realisation. In order to maintain the cohesion of
the group, theorizing about its ’world view’, and the prescription
*This point was brought out strongly by a linguist at Strelley during
a taped interview.
2
Such an examination would demand for them the practice of Husserl’s
epoche (Schutz 1973:122, 123), a standing outside one’s ’given’ world, a
suspending of belief temporarily to direct one’s view exclusively to
one’s own consciousness of the world.