Collaboration, collision and (re)conciliation: Indigenous participation in Australia's maritime industry—a case study from Point Pearce/Burgiyana, South Australia

Fowler, Madeline and Rigney, Lester-Irabinna (2017) Collaboration, collision and (re)conciliation: Indigenous participation in Australia's maritime industry—a case study from Point Pearce/Burgiyana, South Australia. In, Caporaso, A. (ed.) Formation Processes of Maritime Archaeological Landscapes. Cham. Springer, pp. 53-77. (doi:10.1007/978-3-319-48787-8_4).

Abstract

This chapter investigates maritime cultural landscapes of Point Pearce Mission/Burgiyana, in the Yorke Peninsula/Guuranda region of South Australia . Burgiyana is home to the Narungga peoples. This research investigates the participation of Aboriginal peoples in Australia’s maritime industry, an important component of Australian maritime heritage. Maritime activities at Point Pearce/Burgiyana have contributed to Australia’s maritime industry through engagements that include in-kind transactions, employment within the fishing economy, and shipping trade labor—both at sea and on land. This research uses a maritime cultural landscape framework to explore Indigenous themes previously rarely employed in archaeological research. In addition, most maritime archaeological studies have neglected Aboriginal missions as potential sites/landscapes for analysis and, similarly, archaeological research at missions has largely ignored maritime aspects. The outcomes of the project illustrate that Aboriginal maritime cultural landscapes are not only a prominent part of the Australian landscape, but also provoke reconsiderations regarding how archaeologists see the relationship between the maritime and Indigenous archaeological record. The findings propose that maritime archaeologists could employ a maritime cultural landscape framework within other themes of cultural contact that include missions situated on waterways.

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