The Kyana Corroboree: Cultural Production of Indigenous Ethnogenesis

This article analyzes the 1993 Kyana Corroboree of the Noongah Aborigines of Western Australia as a case study of the cultural production and cultural politics of ethnogenesis and indigeneity through public celebration. Kyana is a local example of how indigenous peoples globally experience "ethnic reorganization," an often inchoate, mutable process of social reproduction that encourages the survival of an ethnic group, albeit in an altered form. This article demonstrates how Noongah and Aboriginal ethnogenesis is composed of a mercurial mixture of conflict and concordance, especially in regard to aspirations toward some level of influence over the self-definition of Aboriginality and its symbolic representations.
The organization of contemporary ethnicity and the nature of current ethnic relations reflect contemporary adaptations and continually evolving identities and institutions.—Nagel and Snipp 1993, p. 225
Celebration is a "text," a vivid aesthetic creation that reflexively depicts, interprets and informs its social context. [Celebration] articulates and modifies power relations.—Manning 1983, p. 6