1st Edition

Keeping Company An Anthropology of Being-in-Relation

By Amanda Kearney Copyright 2022
194 Pages 18 B/W Illustrations
by Routledge

194 Pages 18 B/W Illustrations
by Routledge

194 Pages 18 B/W Illustrations
by Routledge

This book offers up a study of relational modalities in a moment of increasingly vexed identity politics. It takes inspiration from the art of keeping company, a relational habit derived on a kincentric ontology and praxis of interconnected life among the Yanyuwa, Indigenous owners of lands and waters in northern Australia. Diving deep into this multidimensional art of relating, the book... Read more

Introduction: Life in the relational is hard work

1 We just hate you because…

2 Flatlands and identity politics, broadening the ontology of relating

3 An anthropology of being-in-relation

4 Keeping company

5 From interculturalism to modalities of enchantment

Biography

Amanda Kearney is a Matthew Flinders Fellow and Professor of Indigenous and Australian Studies at Flinders University, Australia.

"This is a brave, beautifully written exploration of the nature of human lives, showing that it is possible for us vulnerable, fragile creatures to live together in a shared world. Kearney raises fundamental questions about trust and difference, showing what thoughtful anthropology can achieve." - Thomas Hylland Eriksen, Professor of Social Anthropology, University of Oslo

"Keeping Company is compulsory reading for all who seek insight into themselves and their relationship to Indigenous peoples. Arguing against the flatness of essentialist politics currently in vogue, Kearney provides an alternative future for Australian race relations that is nuanced and complex." - Barry Judd, Professor of Indigenous Studies, Melbourne University

"Interleaving compelling descriptions and theorizations of relational existence, Keeping Company draws on Kearney's extensive engagements with Yanyuwa families to show how relationships survive colonial violence and racist legacies, by keeping faith with the Dreaming ancestors who brought the interconnected cosmos into being." - Michael Jackson, author of Between One and One Another