Contributions To Australian Anthropology
In addition to Dr Hiatt's detailed ethnographic records and works, there is a substantial body of written works inquiring into, questioning and sometimes challenging some of the more conventionally 'received' anthropological knowledges held by academia and the general public about Australian Aboriginal peoples. Some of these works are identified and briefly annotated below.
Significantly, for instance, Dr Hiatt effectively challenged the previously conventional understanding that patrilineal descent is the primary social organisational principle across all Aboriginal Australians (a 'knowledge' inherited from the work of British social anthropologist, Professor Alfred Radcliffe-Brown)
In 1982 the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland (RAI) awarded its annual ethnographic film prize to a film ('Waiting for Harry') recorded at Maningrida, within which Dr Hiatt played a key role both in its filming and as an 'actor' within the film
Read more about this topic: Lester Hiatt
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