Dear Is Mise,

Mate happy to answer the question.

I haven't read the book but this is apparently one of the "selective quoting" they have seeminglyly taken issue with.

Pascoe: Paths led from this spot to almost every point of the compass, and walking along one came to a village consisting of nineteen huts...

Sturt: Paths led from this spot to almost every point of the compass, and walking along one to the left came to a village consisting of nineteen huts, but there were not any signs of recent occupation.

http://theconversation.com/book-review-farmers-or-hunter-gatherers-the-dark-emu-debate-rigorously-critiques-bruce-pascoes-argument-161877

If this is the standard of 'debunking' in the rest of the critique then Pascoe has little to be worried about.

Abridging quotes is hardly a hanging offence particularly if you provide direct references to source material, something Pascoe did for almost all of it.

What else do you have for us?

SR,

"Abridging quotes is hardly a hanging offence" as long as in doing so one does not substantially alter the message which Pascoe did. Even worse, Pascoe went further in modifying and extending the quotes to give a meaning that wasn't there.

Now that is academically a hanging offence.

shadowminister,

Bloody hell, how many times does this need to be repeated to get it through your thick skulls? Dark Emu wasn't an academic paper, it never purported to be one. It was a book that referenced many early explorer's quotes which challenged conventional wisdom, something it did magnificently.

That a couple of academics might have gotten their noses out of joint due to the popularity of the book, and decided to go through Dark Emu in attempt to take it apart by applying 'absolute academic rigor', is unsurprising. But you and they don't get to claim it's something it isn't.

A book written like this is always going to have more 'academic' faults than a paper or a book written by specialists in the field. It certainly something I can live with in this case.

Attacks on Dark Emu always seem to come with agendas and while this critique might not fit the hard right version it still smacks of one.

Steele,
That was a nice bit of selectively quoting a quote on your part and if ‘Dark Emu’ isn’t an academic work why has a version of it been introduced into schools?

On a general note it took only a fe w years for Aboriginal musicians to.adapt to western instruments, notably the guitar.
In 60,000 years of steady development they had only produced the clicking sticks and with the unwitting aid of termites, the didgeridoo.

I don't know what they do these days, but fiction was studied when I went to school. Dark Emu is in that category.

Dear Steele,

Thank You for your patience and your well reasoned
responses. However, from experience it is virtually
impossible to try to convince some people once
their minds are made up. I gave links that I thought
would make people look at things in a different
light and as you can see - all to no avail.
There's no point in continuing to go around in circles.

I think, as I've stated previously that Bruce Pascoe,
Peter Sutton and Keryn Walshe are doing important work
and I hope that it will continue in shining the light
on the Indigenous people's land management and history.

As for Bruce Pascoe's qualifications? As the links
indicated - he's a:

" recognised researcher and speaker in Indigenous
agriculture, food production and land management;
a former Adjunct Professor of Indigenous knowledge in
the Jumburna Institute for Indigenous Education and
Research at the University of Technology Sydney;
a board member of the Twofold Aboriginal Corporation,
Eden, and he received the 2019 UTS Vice Chancellor's
Social Justice and HUman Rights Award.

He also teaches at Melbourne University and he grows
Indigenous crops and bush food on his farm and again
works with young people and Indigenous folk.

He's full committed to his involvement with Indigenous
projects.

Once again Thank You for your posts.