Regina Ganter

Mixed Relations: Asian-aboriginal Contact in North Australia Regina Ganter

The author looks at the interactions of Australian indigenous people with Japanese, Chinese, Filipinos, Malays and Afghans. Based on over 100 interviews with members of families who still form extensive networks across the continent, this book is part family stories, part historical narrative, creating a new way of looking at Australia's past. Challenging the 'white Australia' perspective as descriptive of the whole continent, the author argues that Australian settlement history starts in the north, with the well-documented Makassan trade. Both numerically and in terms of their impact on Aboriginal policy, Asians have continued to play a dominant role in the north and therefore in Australia, and are implicated in the Aboriginal Stolen Generation.