The name is absent

293

18.3’ Faetors of Continuity
■ ∙ *          ÷    * V       ∙ ∙  ♦ ∙       ⅛ ■ .          V *

18.31 Group loyalty

Gilbert, Marshall, Vera Lovelock, Gail Lovelock and
Charles Perkins QTatz, 1975: 58-59, 61, 68-69, 130) make an
important point, raised also by white writers, in that they
point to factions within Aboriginal society, a problem area in
itself for the building of Aboriginal identity, but important
also in that it alerts the outsider to, the fact that Aborigines
cannot be seen as having a monolithic identity. Identity will
be lived out in a particular social context, and this will
change from group to group.

Newman (1973:19) has pointed out the existence of sectional
groupings within minority groups in the United States of America,
where fissures occur along lines such as those of religion as well
as ethnic origin.

The same phenomenon of sectional groups within a minority'group
is evident amongst Aboriginal people.

Berger's theory (and also structural theories such as those,
for example, of Gordon (1964) and Glazer and Moynihan (1963)) is
inadequate in that it does not take account of the diversity of
minority group goals and of the fragmentation within ethnic groups.

At first glance, it would seem that ethnic groups provide a
'world* within which identity is consolidated.

For some ethnic groupsɪ, the situating of the self within the
group is an anchor for identity. For many Aborigines this is not

ɪNot all ethnic groups in Australia are cohesive. There are
fractures along political Iines_j for example, with Serbs and Croats
from Yugoslavia_jWith different political groups from Chile; there
are fractures along religions lines in the case of groups from
Greece, etc., There are fractures along class lines in other
instances.

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