Disciplining the Savages: Savaging the Disciplines by Nakata, Martin - 2007

Aboriginal Studies Press, 2007. Book. Very Good. Soft cover. 1st Edition. 150mm x 235mm. Minimal wear to covers. Spine not creased. A feint pencil mark to top corner of ffep, otherwise internally very clean. 255pp Nakata, a Torres Strait Islander academic, casts a critical gaze on the research conducted by the Cambridge Expedition in the late 1890s. Meticulously analysing the linguistic, physiological, psychological and anthropological testing conducted, he offers an astute critique of the researchers' methodologies and interpretations. He uses these insights to reveal the similar workings of recent knowledge production in Torres Strait education. In systematically deconstructing these knowledges, Nakata draws eloquently on both the Torres Strait Islander struggle and his own personal struggle to break free from imposed definitions, and reminds us that such intellectual journeys are highly personal and political. Nakata argues for the recognition of the complexity of the space Indigenous people now live in - the cultural interface - and proposes an alternative theoretical standpoint to account for Indigenous experience of this space..