Bushwalking in Kakadu: A study of cultural borderlands

Abstract

This paper examines the relationship between the contested domains of Aboriginal traditional owners and non-Aboriginal Park users, specifically bushwalkers, in Kakadu National Park in the Northern Territory of Australia. It argues that Kakadu remains a cultural borderland where a negotiated relationship between local Aboriginal traditional owners and non-Aboriginal Park users is struggling to emerge. It finds that the rhetoric of Aboriginal/non-Aboriginal co-existence, which pervades the Park, is infused by the legacy of a colonial settler state, which has presumed access to territory, marginalized Indigenous people and obviated their social and cultural landscape in favour of an expansionis..