Anthropologists in Australia are becoming increasingly involved in government contract work on Indigenous land tenure and management issues, most of which require some ‘expert’ input to help authenticate cultural identity and establish connection to ‘country’. In this paper I have reviewed some issues and themes drawn from my uneven and serendipitous work as an anthropologist. This work has been done as both an academic and practitioner, over the past couple of decades on Indigenous land tenure, hunting, management, and ranger training at this dynamic and contentious interface between Indigenous cultural processes and government agencies. My aim is to raise questions of both ethics and epistemology and to reflect on the work of the anthropologist in these domains, without attempting to systematically cover all of the possible issues.
“The Truth Hangs over Your Head”: Toward an Indigenous Land Ethic