White Flour, White Power
From Rations to Citizenship in Central Australia

This cultural study of rationing in Central Australia develops a new narrative of colonisation.

Tim Rowse (Author)

9780521523271, Cambridge University Press

Paperback, published 11 July 2002

272 pages, 3 maps 14 tables
22.9 x 15.2 x 1.6 cm, 0.4 kg

' … a good, well-researched and cogently argued study of Aboriginal policy in central Australia … It sparkles with intelligent insights.' Henry Reynolds, Australian Journal of Political Science

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. Two arguments underpin this story: that the colonists were puzzled by the motives of the Indigenous recipients; and that they were highly inventive in the meanings and moral foundations they ascribed to the rationing relationship. This study goes to the heart of contemporary reflections on the nature of Indigenous 'citizenship'.

A theatre of stages
Part I: 1. Rationing the inexplicable
2. Rationed actors
Part II: 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
Conclusion: Indigenous welfare at mid-century
Part III: 7. 'Assimilation
8. The crisis of managed consumption
9. Settlements and families
10. Alice Springs and its town camps
Continuities.

Subject Areas: Modern history to 20th century: c 1700 to c 1900 [HBLL], Australasian & Pacific history [HBJM]