"They are among the Best Workers, Learning the Ways of a Vineyard Quickly": Aboriginal People, Drinking, and Labor in the Early Australian Wine Industry. Issue 1 (4th May 2019)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: McIntyre, Julie; Brady, Maggie; Barnes, Jillian
• Is Part Of: Global food history. Volume 5:Issue 1/2(2019)
• Page Start: 45
• Page End: 66
• Publication Date: 2019-05-04
• Subjects: Wine production -- wine consumption -- Indigenous-settler relations -- Aboriginal agency; Food habits -- History -- Periodicals; Food preferences -- History -- Periodicals; Diet -- Economic aspects -- Periodicals; 394.1209
• DOI: 10.1080/20549547.2019.1569442
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 2054-9547

Abstract

ABSTRACT: Studies of the impact of European forms of alcohol on Indigenous peoples tend to focus on health and social problems arising from overconsumption. This article takes a new approach by, first, parsing wine from the non-culturally specific treatment of all forms of alcohol in the lives of Aboriginal Australians; and, second, considering Aboriginal employment in Australian wine production since the early nineteenth century alongside these peoples' exclusion from the late-twentieth century rise of an Australian "good life" of democratized wine drinking practices. By re-entangling these elements of Aboriginal lives in settler colonial society, we reveal an unknown facet of Aboriginal economic contribution, highlight relationships between Aboriginal- and Italian-Australians, and challenge negative stereotypes that Aboriginal Australians are unable to control themselves in the presence of alcohol.