Racial ideologies in Australia's Gulf Country*

This article presents an ethnographic study of European1 and Aboriginal conceptions of ‘race’ and ‘racial’ groups, in a region of Australia's Gulf Country. It considers the extent to which European ideology has influenced Aboriginal thinking, particularly in relation to the ideological constitution of mixed-descent people as a separable and distinctive group. By focusing on the way mixed-descent people have been perceived, and on their situation in social life, it has been possible to clarify some of the complex issues of ‘race relations’ in this region (see Figure 1).