White Flour, White Power: From Rations to Citizenship in Central Australia
White Flour, White Power: From Rations to Citizenship in Central Australia Book
- Author(s): Rowse, T
- Published: 2002
- Publisher: Australian National University Press
- ISBN: 0521624576 0521523273
Abstract: The colonial practice of rationing goods to Aboriginal people has been neglected in the study of Australian frontiers. This book argues that much of the colonial experience in Central Australia can be understood by seeing rationing as a fundamental, though flexible, instrument of colonial government. Rationing was the material basis for a variety of colonial ventures: scientific, evangelical, pastoral and the post-war program of 'assimilation'. Combining history and anthropology in a cultural study of rationing, this book develops a new narrative of the colonisation of Central Australia. Contents 1. Rationing the inexplicable 2. Rationed actors 3. Rural central Australia, 1914-40 4. Town, cash and supervision 5. 'A christian cannot be a parasite' 6. The world war in town and hinterland 7. 'Assimilation' 8. The crisis of managed consumption 9. Settlements and families 10. Alice Springs and its town camps.