ABSTRACT
This chapter evaluates the notions of 'tradition' and 'heritage', as they are applied to Indigenous peoples in Australia. It examines the construction of 'traditional' Aboriginal gender relations within the non-Indigenous Australian legal system, where post/neo-colonial understandings about the Aboriginal 'other' have become enforced in law. The chapter considers the certainly popular and apparently general tendency for Indigenous heritages to be locked within archaeological pasts. It discusses the ever-evolving constructions of 'heritage' currently being applied to the swiftly gentrifying urban environment of inner Sydney. The chapter also considers some of the motivations behind the use of the concept of heritage, its selective designation, its expanding embrace, and its protection. The notion of heritage, as it is popularly conceived and as governments have legislated for it, exhibits a certain consistency. While Aboriginal people may be acknowledged as having heritage, such understandings are tied to the non-urban, cultural and ethnic pre-colonial homogeneity.
