Terrie Goldie in his article “The Representation of the Indigene” has documented Australia’s age-long, continuing and generally uneasy relationship of the indigenous and non-indigenous representation of Aboriginality. Using the chessboard analogy, Goldie implies the underlying politics of every form of representations whether essentialist or universalist. He confirms that there can be only two possibilities: the white culture incorporating the “Other,” or the complete negation of the “Other” (Goldie 174). The main aim of this paper is to consider these competing viewpoints and their underlying politics with reference to Patrick Brantlinger’s article “Notes on the postmodernity of fake (?) Aboriginal literature” (2011).
Brantlinger’s Approach to Authenticity
Brantlinger begins his essay by advocating a Marxian way of understanding literary production, where materiality as a result of social practices becomes a strong determining factor in the reception of literary productions. He raises a poignant question: “In all postmodern cultures, commodification reigns supreme, and how can any commodity, even if it is original and one-of-a-kind, be Aboriginal?” (Brantlinger 355).
The crisis of representation and the notion of fragmentation which are characteristic of the postmodern condition provide strong ground for Brantlinger’s assertion of the impossibility of authenticity. He declares, “what I am calling ‘fake’ Aboriginal writing might be viewed as authentically postmodern although not authentically aboriginal” (Brantlinger 356).
Performance and Literary Hoaxes
Using performance as a method of analysis, Brantlinger explores various literary hoaxes by tracing the authors’ participation in the general pursuit for legitimacy. He engages in a serious critical inquisition of Mudrooroo’s literary case study, disapproving the whole enterprise of fraudulence ascribed to Mudrooroo’s literary career by underlining the significance of the cultural authenticity seen in his works. Brantlinger consequently declares that “race today should be a factor of no consequence whatsoever in judging the quality of anyone’s writing” (Brantlinger 358).
Brantlinger also examines Sretan Bozic’s literary issue, a Serbian immigrant who wrote under the pseudonym “B. Wongar.” He traces the evolutionary literary history of the hoaxes in Australia, examining numerous cases from George Barrington to the Ern Malley issue (1944) and the Helen Demidenko scandal (1995).
Orality, Writing, and the Limits of Authenticity
Drawing on the ideas of critics like Terrie Goldie, Walter J. Ong and Jacques Derrida, Brantlinger analyses the concept of authenticity in the dichotomy framework of orality and written/print medium. He writes, “Writing is here defined as the condition of social inauthenticity. One upshot is that all written, literary renderings of Aboriginality, even the most strictly autobiographical accounts, fail to be authentic in these terms” (Brantlinger 363).
He concludes that “In both racial and literary terms, the stress on authenticity is misleading, especially when it is considered that any translation of an oral source into a printed text is in some sense and to some degree already inauthentic” (Brantlinger 366).
Critique and Limitations
When Brantlinger advocates for cultural authenticity, he indirectly propagates a cultural appropriation. This is problematic since appropriation destroys cultural autonomy. Philip Morrissey’s article “Stalking Aboriginal culture: the Wanda Koolmatrie affair” brings into light the ethicality and legality lurking behind such cultural appropriation processes.
As Terrie Goldie states, “The necessities of indigenization can compel the players to participate but they cannot liberate the pawn” (Goldie 175).
Works Cited
- Auslander, Philip. Liveness: Performance in a Mediatized Culture. London: Routledge, 1999.
- Clark, Maureen. “Mudrooroo: Crafty Impostor Rebel with a Cause?” Australian Literary Studies 21.4 (2004): 101-110.
- Fee, Margery. “Who can write as Other?” The Post-Colonial Studies Reader. Ed. Bill Ashcroft, Gareth Griffiths and Helen Tiffin. London: Routledge, 2008.
- Fordham, Finn. “Introduction: Transcultural Hoaxes.” World Literature Written in English 40.2 (2004): 5-10.
- Goldie, Terry. “The Representation of the Indigene.” The Post-Colonial Studies Reader. Ed. Bill Ashcroft, Gareth Griffiths and Helen Tiffin. London: Routledge, 2008.
- Morrissey, Philip. “Stalking Aboriginal culture: the Wanda Koolmatrie affair.” Australian Feminist Studies 18.42 (2003): 299-307.
- Nolan, Maggie and Carrie Dawson, eds. Who’s Who?: Hoaxes, Impostures and Identity Crises in Australian Literature. Australia: U of Queensland Press, 2004.
- Park-Fuller, Linda M. “Performing Absence: The Staged Personal Narrative as Testimony.” Text and Performance Quarterly 20.1 (2000): 20-42.
- Patrick, Brantlinger. “Notes on the postmodernity of fake (?) Aboriginal literature.” Postcolonial Studies 14.4 (2011): 355-71.
- Povinielli, Elizabeth A. “Consuming Geist: Popontology and the Spirit of Capital in Indigenous Australia.” Public Culture 12.2 (Spring 2000): 501-28.
- Weimann, Robert. “(Post)Modernity and Representation: Issues of Authority, Power, Performativity.” New Literary History 23.4 (Autumn, 1992): 955-81.