Context

This piece was the result of a month spent studying abroad in Western Australia during my Sophomore year. The anthropology course we took while travelling throughout the country focused on Aboriginal Australians and their history. We witnesses first hand the struggle Aboriginals went through while dealing with European colonization and mistreatment. The result of Aboriginal adaptation toward white settlers is still strongly evident in the country, therefore, I was able to perform a vast amount of qualitative research during my stay. Once I returned home and digested all of the information absorbed over the semester, I began to develop ideas for my final research topic. We visited many missionaries throughout Australia, and religion played a huge part in the development of modern Aboriginal Australians. I decided that I would focus on the clash between Aboriginal "dreamtime" religion and European Christianity and how this eventually led to what is known as Aboriginal Christianity. 

Rhetorical Decisions

When approaching this essay, I needed to utilize all of the textual and observational information I picked up throughout my brief stay in Australia. I only had two weeks to research and write the essay while back at school and had to work fast. The goal in mind was to point out a crucial reason for why Aboriginal Australians have still not established a strong identity within Australian culture. Obviously, there were many theories that could have been argued to give reasoning to their struggle. I needed to uncover a line of logic that I had both first hand experience observing as well as a wealth of data to back my points up with. This combination of qualitative and quantitative research would undoubtedly lead to an effective, convincing study.

As mentioned in my introduction, much of my experience in Australia was spent visiting both Christian missionaries and significant Aboriginal places of worship. Therefore, I deliberated that studying the interaction of these two religions had a strong chance of leading me to an explanation for Aboriginal struggle. I had to provide my readers with a brief background on European settlement in Australia and their forceful placement of Aboriginals in missionaries. This then led me to the point of contest between traditional Aboriginal beliefs and their new exposure to Christianity. I examined this struggle within an Aboriginal's core, cultural values and how it was difficult for them to completely drop their Dreamtime religion. However, this eventually led to an extremely difficult period in history for Aboriginals as they struggled with poverty and substance abuse.

Once I had established all of the main players and ideologies in play within Australia, I was able to introduce my audience to how I believe Aboriginal Australians began to mesh Christianity and Dreamtime. I explained the social and culture aspects supporting this intertwining of religion and how it was a way for Aboriginals to reevaluate their situation and make positive steps toward joining an inevitably white, European society.  Finally, I was able to tie in all of ideas to convince my audience  that Aboriginal religious assimilation was unavoidable considering their economical and cultural situation. I truly wanted to leave my readers thinking about this situation and understanding the hardships the modern Aboriginal Australians face. Therefore, I provided the two main options for how this culture could move forward in Australia. They could either go "back to the land" and re-adopt their core Aboriginal values, or continue to assimilate with European influence and adapt to their beliefs and societal customs. This, I left up to my readers. 

Reflection

This piece is one of my strongest examples of my ability to research and compound large amounts of both qualitative and quantitative information in order to project a concrete idea or point of argument. I had picked up so much while travelling throughout Australia and initially was unsure about where I could apply my new knowledge. Then, upon returning home, and needing to produce an essay analyzing my experience I knew that I would be capable. I did not by any means sit down and write this piece in a few short sessions. It took, chiefly, the compilation and organization of information deriving from days of research. Then, the ability to pull out key ideas and details from my research in order to both invent an point of contention and back it up with specific evidence. Overall, this is a core, distinct example of my early ability to write individual research-based text.