'Old contempt and new solicitude': Race relations and Australian ethnography - Introduction

This introduction will consider how these four papers mark new boundaries o f an expanding anthropological project both in their theoretical aspiration s and their empirical reach. While the papers address quite different quest ions, each is relevant to the contemporary relationship between anthropolog y, indigenous people and the Australian nation. To high light that relevanc e I will draw on elements of anthropology's history using some of Stanner s observations in the 1950s. In the last section I discuss some contemporary conditions and criticisms of anthropology.