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Of interest, a sample of other textbooks, across the three eras investigated for this research,
where parts of this quote from Dampier are used include New syllabus for third grade
(Dunlop & Palfrey, 1934, p. 38); Social Studies for Queensland schools grade 7 (Department
of Education, 1960/1963, p. 28); and Australia: Colony to Nation (Dunlop & Pike, 1963, p.
9). It is only in this last textbook where this quote is mediated effectively for contemporary
audiences (see Source 7.13).
Source 7.13. Dampier extract from Australia: Colony to Nation (Dunlop & Pike,
1963, pp. 9-10)
These examples of the use of Dampier’s diaries can be linked to what Hall terms “inferential
racism” (2006, p. 399), that is Indigenous Australians are only described from the “white
eye”, writing:
...the ‘absent’ but imperialising ‘white eye’; the unmarked positions from which all
these ‘observations’ are made and from which, alone, they make sense. This is the
history of...conquest, written, seen, drawn...by The Winners. They cannot be read
and made sense of from any other position. The ‘white eye’ is always outside the
frame but seeing and positioning everything within it. (Hall, 2006, p. 400)
7.4.3 Discourses of kinship.
From the textbooks selected for analysis, kinship is the most common topic used as a learning
opportunity for students in the category of valuing Indigenous knowledges. Student
understanding of traditional Indigenous culture is mediated through this topic, used as an
avenue to raise awareness of core Indigenous communities’ values. Textbooks and curriculum
materials where this topic is covered in depth include: Primary Social Studies sourcebook
year 5 (Department of Education, 1988a), Living history (Gurry, 1987) and Crossroads:
Imperialism and race relations (Cowie, 1982). Briefly, kinship refers to family structures,
people’s relationship to each other in the family and responsibility for different decision
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