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Davidson Conformity

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In Madness and Civilization: A History of Insanity in the Age of Reason, Michel Foucault, the French philosopher, writes, “What desire can be contrary to nature since it was given to man by nature itself”. In this quote, Foucault examines the absurd nature of human conformity to social norms. Society has a way of creating unofficial rules and regulations for how the human race should behave and carry out daily activities. Australian writer and traveler Robyn Davidson challenged the constraints of conformity when she trekked 1,700 miles across the Australian desert with only four camels and a dog. As a young, broke, inexperienced, female embarking on an extraordinarily difficult solo journey, Davidson had all odds for success against her. From …show more content…

The Australian government degrades the Aboriginal culture and makes life difficult for them. Over the course of Davidson’s trek, she discovered the culturally constructed racist policies implemented by the government and how they affect the Aboriginals. According to the account of Davidson, “[government policies] ensure that Aboriginal lands go once again into the hands of the whites...that a cheap labour source is made available by removing all trace of black ethics and culture, leaving the white races pure”(49). The destruction of Aboriginal land as observed by Davidson, “once dispossessed of this land, ceremonial life deteriorates, people lose their strength, meaning, essence and identity”(171). Not only did the Australian government take land away from the Aboriginals in the physical sense, but they stripped them of their identity. In her travels, Davidson discovered, “no white person can fully enter Aboriginal reality and the more you learn, the more you’re aware of the vast gap of knowledge and understanding”(167). Although Davidson took the initiative to better understand the culture of the Aboriginals, she could never be considered one of the Aboriginals. On her journey, Davidson discovered there was no need for such racism and discrimination, and the Aboriginal people are not inferior to the white Australians. The Aboriginal people …show more content…

They do not need anything but the land to live off of, which is why they cannot understand the western culture and their materialistic need. In the words of Davidson, “[the Aboriginal people] are not separate from the land. When they lose it, they lose themselves, their spirit, their culture...by denying them their land, we are committing cultural and, in this case, racial genocide”(171). After observing Mr. Eddie, the Aboriginal man who accompanied Davidson for a leg of her journey, “[taking] nothing but his tin of medicines”(175), Davidson learned to shed her figurative and literal burdens. After meeting Eddie, Davidson “discarded much of [her] junk...so the pack was lighter and easier to load”(175). With a newfound ‘I only need the essentials’ mindset she learned from Mr. Eddie, Davidson “[began the] process of paring down possessions...until [she] had only the barest of essentials”(175). By the end of her journey, Davidson carried only “a survival kit,..a filthy old sarong for hot weather and a jumper and wooly socks for cold weather and [she] had something to sleep on and something to eat and drink out of”(259) with her. Everything she needed could be found in the desert. Before her trip, Davidson “had been sick of carrying around the self-indulgent negativity which was so much the malaise of [her] generation, [her] sex, and [her] class”(37). The Aboriginals taught Davidson to defy the materialistic norms of

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