<i>Dark Emu</i> and Indigenous Studies

Abstract Indigenous Studies seeks to affirm the distinct worth of “Indigenous Knowledge” and to question, as colonial, the privileging of Western Knowledge. How should Bruce Pascoe’s Dark Emu be taught, after it has been persuasively criticised by Peter Sutton and Keryn Walshe in Farmers or Hunter-Gatherers? The Dark Emu Debate. Australia’s “culture wars” have encouraged readings that sharply distinguish the two books’ theses, and this paper attempts to soften that polarity. After noting a point of convergence between Dark Emu and Farmers or Hunter-Gatherers? I outline two ways to think about knowledge that may help answer the question: How should Dark Emu be taught? Paul A. Cohen distinguishes among three ways that we can know the past: as event, as experience, and as myth. Martin Nakata considers the relationship between Indigenous experience and university-authorised critique. This paper seeks to draw out what is useful in each author: an acceptance that our thinking about the past is both mythical and critical. We can teach Dark Emu as “myth” without equating myth with error.