This article examines the utility of, and embarrassment around, strategic essentialism in Tasmanian Aboriginal public culture. My argument is informed by extensive participant observation in community-led education programs. Australia’s Tasmanian Aboriginal community has historically been defined by outsiders in terms of racial and cultural deficiencies. These judgments preceded and followed their supposed 1876 extinction. These education programs, catering primarily to elementary school students, idealized Tasmanian Aboriginal culture by emphasizing continuity and connection into deep antiquity. They also included moments in which private anxieties about essentialism, deficiency, and what I term their taxonomical fuzziness are made public. The delicate interplay between essentialism and private feelings about loss, appearance, and cultural inferiority is best understood in relation to Herzfeld’s “cultural intimacy.” I argue that approaching public culture through this concept forces researchers to engage with the pervasive fluency of stereotypes through which Native and Indigenous voices regularly must speak in order to be heard.

中文翻译：

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塔斯马尼亚土著公共文化中的文化亲密关系

本文探讨了战略本质主义在塔斯马尼亚原住民公共文化中的作用和尴尬之处。我的观点是通过在社区主导的教育计划中广泛的参与者观察得出的。从历史上看，澳大利亚的塔斯马尼亚原住民社区是在种族和文化缺陷方面被局外人定义的。这些判决是在其假定的1876年灭绝之前和之后。这些主要针对小学学生的教育计划通过强调连续性和深远的古代联系，理想化了塔斯马尼亚土著文化。它们还包括一些时刻，这些时刻使人们对本质主义，缺陷和我所谓的分类学模糊性的私人焦虑变得公开。本质主义与私人关于失落，外表，相对于赫兹菲尔德的“文化亲密感”，文化自卑感得到了最好的理解。我认为，通过这种概念进入公共文化，迫使研究人员必须应对千篇一律的定型观念，而土著和土著人的声音必须定期通过这种定型才能被听到。