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Bruce Pascoe
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Bruce Pascoe
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Bruce Pascoe (born 1947) is an Australian writer of literary fiction, non-fiction, poetry, essays and children's literature. As well as his own name, Pascoe has written under the pen names Murray Gray and Leopold Glass. Pascoe identifies as Aboriginal. Since August 2020, he has been Enterprise Professor in Indigenous Agriculture at the University of Melbourne.

Key Information

Pascoe is best known for his work Dark Emu: Black Seeds: Agriculture or Accident? (2014), in which he argues that traditional Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples engaged in agriculture, engineering and permanent building construction, and that their practices provide possible models for future sustainable development in Australia.

Early life and education

[edit]

Pascoe was born in Richmond, Victoria in 1947.[2] He grew up in a poor working-class family; his father, Alf, was a carpenter, and his mother, Gloria Pascoe, went on to win a gold medal in lawn bowls at the 1980 Arnhem Paralympics.[3][4][5] Pascoe spent his early years on King Island where his father worked at the tungsten mine. His family moved to Mornington, Victoria, when he was 10 years old, and then two years later moved to the Melbourne suburb of Fawkner. He attended the local state school before completing his secondary education at University High School, where his sister had won an academic scholarship. Pascoe went on to attend the University of Melbourne, initially studying commerce but then transferring to Melbourne State College. After graduating with a Bachelor of Education,[6] he was posted to a small township near Shepparton. He later taught at Bairnsdale for nine years.[7]

Career

[edit]

While on leave from his teaching career, Pascoe bought a 300-hectare (740-acre) mixed farming property and occasionally worked as an abalone fisherman. In his spare time he began writing short stories, poetry and newspaper articles.[7]

In 1982 he moved back to Melbourne and sought to publish a journal of short stories. He came into conflict with existing publishers and instead decided to form his own company, raising A$10,000 in capital with his friend Lorraine Phelan. He ran Pascoe Publishing and Seaglass Books with his wife, Lyn Harwood.[8][2]

From 1982 to 1998 Pascoe edited and published a new quarterly magazine of short fiction, Australian Short Stories, which published all forms of short stories by both established and new writers, including Helen Garner, Gillian Mears and Tim Winton.[3][8][2] The first issue came close to selling out its initial print run of 20,000.[7]

The main character in his 1988 novel Fox is a fugitive, searching for his Aboriginal identity and home. The book deals with issues such as Aboriginal deaths in custody, discrimination and land rights, as well as blending Aboriginal traditions with contemporary life and education.[9]

Convincing Ground: Learning to Fall in Love with Your Country (2007), whose title is drawn from the Convincing Ground massacre, examines historical documents and eyewitness accounts of incidents in Australian history and ties them in with the "ongoing debates about identity, dispossession, memory and community". It is described in the publisher's blurb as a book "for all Australians, as an antidote to the great Australian inability to deal respectfully with the nation's constructed Indigenous past".[10][11]

Pascoe featured in the award-winning documentary series which aired on SBS Television in 2008, First Australians,[8] has been Director of Commonwealth Australian Studies project for the Commonwealth Schools Commission,[8] and has worked extensively on preserving the Wathaurong language, producing a dictionary of the language.[2]

Fog a Dox, a story for young adults, won the Prime Minister's Literary Awards in 2013 and was shortlisted for the 2013 Western Australian Premier's Book Awards (Young Adult category) and the 2013 Deadly Awards (Published Book of the Year category).[12] Judges for the PM's Award commented that "The author's Aboriginality shines through but he wears it lightly...", in a story which incorporates Indigenous cultural knowledge.[13]

Dark Emu (2014)

[edit]

Dark Emu: Black Seeds: Agriculture or Accident?, first published in 2014, challenges the claim that pre-colonial Australian Aboriginal peoples were only hunter-gatherers.[14] Pascoe argues that his examination of early settler accounts and other sources provides evidence of agriculture, aquaculture, engineering and villages of permanent housing in traditional Aboriginal societies.[15][16] The book won Book of the Year at the NSW Premier's Literary Awards, and was widely praised for popularising past research on the sophistication of Aboriginal economies. The book also attracted controversy.[17] A favourable review of its cultural implications in the academic online magazine The Conversation touched off a debate there about Pascoe's use of his historical sources.[18] A second edition, entitled Dark Emu: Aboriginal Australia and the Birth of Agriculture was published in mid-2018,[19] and a version of the book for younger readers, entitled Young Dark Emu: A Truer History, was published in 2019.[20] The 2019 version was shortlisted for the 2020 Adelaide Festival Awards for Literature in the Children's Literature Award section.[21]

The success of Dark Emu and Young Dark Emu prompted a book-length critique by Peter Sutton and Keryn Walshe who argue that Pascoe selectively quotes sources and misinterprets archaeological and anthropological evidence to draw conclusions which give a misleading view of Aboriginal societies.[22]

In October 2019 it was announced that a documentary film of Dark Emu would be made for television by Blackfella Films, co-written by Pascoe with Jacob Hickey, directed by Erica Glynn and produced by Darren Dale and Belinda Mravicic.[23]

Later work and other roles

[edit]

In September 2015, in a collaboration with Poets House in New York, a recording of six First Nations Australia Writers Network members reading their work was presented at a special event, which was recorded. Pascoe was one of the readers, along with Jeanine Leane, Dub Leffler, Melissa Lucashenko, Jared Thomas and Ellen van Neerven.[24]

Pascoe was appointed Enterprise Professor in Indigenous Agriculture at the University of Melbourne in September 2020, in a role "within the School of Agriculture and Food,... designed to build knowledge and understanding of Indigenous agriculture within the Faculty and to grow engagement and research activities in this area".[25][26]

Pascoe is a Country Fire Authority volunteer. He battled the 2019–20 bushfires near Mallacoota.[27] In January 2020, he went to New South Wales to help out there, before returning to Mallacoota. He cancelled his scheduled appearances at a Perth Festival event in February and at the Adelaide Writers' Week in March, to remain in East Gippsland to assess the damage done to his Mallacoota property, and to assist his community in the recovery effort in the aftermath of the bushfires.[28]

Aboriginal identity

[edit]

Pascoe states that in his early thirties he found Aboriginal ancestors on both sides of his family, including from Tasmania (Palawa),[29] from the Bunurong people of the Kulin nation of Victoria, and the Yuin of southern New South Wales.[30][8] He identified himself as Koori by the age of 40.[3] He acknowledges his Cornish and European colonial ancestry but says that he feels Aboriginal, writing, "It doesn’t matter about the colour of your skin, it's about how deeply embedded you are in the culture. It's the pulse of my life". He said that his family denied their own Aboriginality for a long time, and it was only when he investigated the "glaring absences" in the family's story that he was drawn into Aboriginal society and culture.[31]

In Convincing Ground (2007), Pascoe wrote about the dangers of "people of broken and distant heritage like me...barging into their rediscovered community expecting to be greeted like the Prodigal Son", saying that those who have grown up without awareness of their Aboriginality cannot have experienced racism, being removed from family or other disadvantages, and cannot "fully understand what it is to be Aboriginal. You've lost contact with your identity and in quite profound areas it can never be reclaimed." He says that some branches of family trees and public records have often been "pruned of a few branches".[32][33] In this book and in interviews, Pascoe admits that his Aboriginal ancestry is distant, and that he is "more Cornish than Koori".[3]

Following columnist Andrew Bolt's breach of the Racial Discrimination Act in 2011 relating to comments about fair-skinned Aboriginal people, Pascoe suggested that he and Bolt could "have a yarn" together, without rancour, because "I think it's reasonable for Australia to know if people of pale skin identifying as Aborigines are fair dinkum". He described how and why his Aboriginal ancestry – and that of many others – had been buried,[34] and that the full explanation would be very long and involved.[3]

In January 2020, Pascoe said he believed allegations that he is not Aboriginal are motivated by wanting to discredit Dark Emu. He had already responded to the Boonwurrung Land and Sea Council's rejection of his connection to the Bunurong, saying his connection was through the Tasmanian family, not through Central Victorian Bunurong.[35] A few days later, the chairman of the Aboriginal Land Council of Tasmania, Michael Mansell, stated that he does not believe Pascoe has Indigenous ancestry, and he should stop claiming he does.[36] However, Mansell acknowledged that some Indigenous leaders including Marcia Langton and Ken Wyatt supported Pascoe’s Aboriginality based on his claim to community recognition.[37][38]

In 2021, Nyunggai Warren Mundine stated that genealogists "have produced research that all Pascoe’s ancestry can be traced to England. Pascoe has not addressed this and has been persistently vague about who his Aboriginal ancestors are and where they came from."[39] Historian Geoffrey Blainey stated that "it is now known that [Pascoe's] four grandparents were of English descent".[40]

Awards

[edit]

Pascoe was nominated as Person of the Year at the National Dreamtime Awards 2018, and was also invited by Yuin elder Max Dulumunmum Harrison to a special cultural ceremony lasting several days.[3][49] In the same year he presented "Mother Earth" for the Eric Rolls Memorial Lecture.[50]

Personal life

[edit]

In 1982, Pascoe separated from a woman whom he had married after graduating from college.[7] They have a daughter.[51] In the same year, he married Lyn Harwood. They have a son.[51] In 2017, Pascoe and Harwood separated. According to Pascoe, the split was due to his many absences and his late-life mission to pursue farming.[3]

Pascoe lives on a 60-hectare (150-acre) farm, Yumburra, near Mallacoota in East Gippsland, on the eastern coast of Victoria.[3] He is also working for his family-run company, Black Duck Foods,[3][52][53] which is aiming to produce the type of Indigenous produce mentioned in Dark Emu on a commercial scale.[54] His 2024 book is titled Black Duck – A Year at Yumburra.[55]

Works

[edit]

The following list is a selection of the 182 items by Pascoe as listed on Austlit as of December 2019:[56]

  • A Corner Full of Characters, Blackstone Press, 1981, ISBN 0959387005
  • Night Animals, Penguin Books, 1986, ISBN 9780140087420
  • Fox, McPhee Gribble/Penguin books, 1988, ISBN 9780140114089
  • Ruby-eyed Coucal, Magabala Books, 1996, ISBN 9781875641291
  • Wathaurong : Too bloody strong : Stories and life journeys of people from Wathaurong, Pascoe Publishing, 1997, ISBN 0947087311
  • Cape Otway: Coast of secrets (1997)
  • Shark, Magabala Books, 1999, ISBN 9781875641482
  • Nightjar, Seaglass Books, 2000, ISBN 9780947087357
  • Earth, Magabala Books, 2001, ISBN 1875641610
  • Ocean, Bruce Sims Books, 2002, ISBN 9780957780064
  • Foxies in a Firehose : A piece of doggerel from Warragul, Seaglass Books, 2006, ISBN 0947087362
  • Bloke. Penguin Books Limited. 3 August 2009. ISBN 978-0-85796-558-5.
  • Convincing Ground: Learning to Fall in Love with Your Country. Aboriginal Studies Press. 2007. ISBN 978-0-85575-549-2.
  • The Little Red Yellow Black Book : An introduction to indigenous Australia, Aboriginal Studies Press, 2008, ISBN 9780855756154
  • Fog a Dox, Magabala Books, 2012, ISBN 9781922142597
  • Dark Emu: Black Seeds: Agriculture Or Accident?, Magabala Books, 2014, ISBN 9781922142436[57][58]
  • Seahorse, Magabala Books, 2015, ISBN 9781921248931
  • Mrs Whitlam, Magabala Books, 2016, ISBN 9781925360240
  • Young Dark Emu: A Truer History, Magabala Books, 2019, ISBN 9781925360844
  • Salt: Selected Stories and Essays, Black Inc, 2019, ISBN 9781760641580[59]
  • Black Duck – A Year at Yumburra, with Lyn Harwood, Thames & Hudson, 2024, ISBN 978-1-76076-311-4

He has also written under the names Murray Gray (The Great Australian Novel: At Last it's Here, a 1984 satirical novel)[60] and Leopold Glass (Ribcage: All You Need Is $800,000 – Quickly, a 1999 detective novel).[8][61]

References

[edit]

Further reading

[edit]
Revisions and contributorsEdit on WikipediaRead on Wikipedia

Bruce Pascoe

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from Grokipedia
Bruce Pascoe (born 1947) is an Australian author of fiction, non-fiction, poetry, and children's literature, with a focus on Indigenous Australian themes. He has published over 36 books, including the controversial Dark Emu: Blackseeds: Aboriginal Australia and the Birth of Agriculture (2014), which contends that pre-colonial Aboriginal societies systematically cultivated crops, built permanent structures, and managed landscapes in ways indicative of agricultural practices rather than mere hunter-gathering. Pascoe identifies as having Bunurong, Yuin, and Tasmanian Aboriginal ancestry through his maternal line, but genealogical research tracing his family records to British convict stock has found no evidence of Indigenous descent, leading to disputes over his claims to Indigenous identity. Pascoe's early career included roles as a schoolteacher, deckhand, barman, and farmer, before he became a publisher and editor involved in Australian studies projects. achieved commercial success, selling over 400,000 copies and receiving awards such as the NSW Premier's for Book of the Year in 2016, influencing public discourse on pre-colonial land use and contributing to debates around Indigenous recognition in . However, the work has faced substantial scholarly criticism for relying on selective quotations from early European explorers, ignoring contradictory evidence, and overstating the extent of Aboriginal agriculture; anthropologists Peter Sutton and archaeologist Keryn Walshe, in their 2021 book Farmers or Hunter-Gatherers? The Dark Emu Debate, argue that Pascoe's interpretations distort historical and archaeological data, portraying Indigenous economies as sophisticated systems rather than farming equivalents. The controversies surrounding Pascoe extend to accusations of academic misconduct in historical representation, with critics highlighting factual errors and unsubstantiated extrapolations in Dark Emu, such as claims of widespread grain storage and irrigation unsupported by archaeological consensus. These debates underscore broader tensions in Australian historiography regarding the interpretation of Indigenous capabilities, where Pascoe's narrative has been embraced in some educational and cultural contexts despite rigorous rebuttals from specialists emphasizing from ethnography and excavation.

Early life and family background

Childhood and upbringing

Bruce Pascoe was born on 11 October 1947 in , to Alfred Francis Pascoe (1916–1989), a carpenter, and Una Gloria Cowland Smith (1919–2004). The family resided in Melbourne's working-class suburbs and faced financial constraints typical of post-war households without significant wealth. Pascoe's mother later competed as a paralympian, earning a in lawn bowls at the 1980 Arnhem Games, though this achievement occurred after his childhood. During his early years, Pascoe grew up in an environment where potential Indigenous family heritage was not emphasized or discussed by relatives, including allusions from his maternal that surfaced only later in life. No detail siblings or specific formative experiences beyond the modest socioeconomic context of his parents' occupations and circumstances.

Ancestry and early heritage claims

Bruce Pascoe was born on 11 October 1947 in , to Alfred Francis Pascoe, a fitter and turner of Cornish English descent, and his wife Una Gloria (née Riley). Historical records trace Pascoe's paternal lineage to 19th-century English immigrants, primarily from , with forebears including miners and laborers who arrived in during the colonial era; no Indigenous ancestry appears in these documented lines. Maternal records similarly indicate British origins, with ancestors born in or colonial Victoria, lacking any reference to Aboriginal heritage in birth, death, or marriage certificates. Pascoe's early public assertions of Indigenous heritage emerged in his writings during the 2000s and 2010s, predating the 2014 release of Dark Emu. In a contribution to Griffith Review, he stated that "both my mother's and father's families had an Aboriginal connection," citing descent from the people via a great-great-grandmother named Mary and additional ties to the Bunurong of Victoria's . He later expanded these claims to include Palawa (Tasmanian Aboriginal) ancestry on his mother's side, positioning himself as connected to multiple Indigenous nations across southeastern . These assertions were framed as discoveries from family research and oral histories, which Pascoe described as revealing suppressed Indigenous roots amid colonial erasure of records. Independent genealogical analyses, drawing on primary archival sources such as Victorian and Tasmanian civil registries, have consistently found no evidentiary support for these claims. Verifiable trees terminate in non-Indigenous British settlers, with specific lineages—for instance, Pascoe's purported forebear—attributed instead to English or Irish immigrants based on consistent documentary naming, locations, and spousal . In late , shortly before Dark Emu's , Pascoe inquired about Tasmanian Aboriginal ancestry verification through relevant bodies but received no affirmative from official . Critics contend that the claims rest on anecdotal lore, potentially amplified by self-identification practices in Australian Indigenous contexts, where cultural affiliation can override strict genealogical proof; however, the lack of primary documentation contrasts with empirical standards for heritage validation.

Education and early career

Formal education

Bruce Pascoe attended the , initially studying commerce before transferring to Melbourne State College for teacher training. He graduated from Melbourne State College with a qualification, described in some accounts as a , which qualified him to teach in schools. This tertiary education in education, rather than in history or , formed the basis of his early professional entry into . Pascoe has no recorded advanced degrees or formal academic training in Indigenous studies or related disciplines.

Initial professional roles

Pascoe's earliest documented employment was as a , prior to commencing tertiary studies. Upon completing his at Melbourne State College in the mid-1970s, he entered the teaching profession, serving as a high school teacher in regional Victoria. This included a nine-year position in , where he instructed students until transitioning toward writing in the late 1980s. In parallel with , Pascoe engaged in practical rural occupations such as farming and , which informed his later interests in and Indigenous . These roles preceded his emergence as an author and editor, marking the foundational phase of his career in and hands-on environmental work.

Literary career

Early publications

Pascoe's literary output began in the early with centered on rural Australian life and local histories. His debut book, A Corner Full of Characters, appeared in 1981 under Blackstone Press, comprising short stories, sketches, and anecdotal histories drawn from the Mallacoota district in Victoria, including yarns about settlers, Indigenous interactions, and coastal characters. In 1986, issued Night Animals, Pascoe's first major short story collection with a national publisher, featuring narratives exploring human-animal boundaries, isolation, and the Australian bush, often with elements of the or . This was followed in 1988 by the novel , published by (an imprint later absorbed by Penguin), which depicts a young man's coming-of-age amid and rural hardships in eastern Victoria. Parallel to his writing, Pascoe entered publishing in by co-founding and editing Australian Short Stories, a quarterly journal that ran until 1998 and showcased emerging Australian writers, reflecting his commitment to short-form literary development during this period. These early efforts established Pascoe as a voice in regional fiction before his pivot toward non-fiction in the 2000s.

Dark Emu: Claims and arguments

, published in 2014, asserts that pre-colonial systematically practiced , , and other forms of that supported semi-sedentary communities, rather than relying exclusively on foraging as traditionally depicted in historical narratives. Pascoe draws on accounts from 19th-century European observers, including explorers such as Thomas Mitchell and , to argue that these practices demonstrated deliberate cultivation and resource engineering capable of sustaining larger populations than previously acknowledged. He contends that colonial , often dismissed or misinterpreted, reveal evidence of planting, harvesting, and storing crops, as well as constructing elaborate water management systems for fishing and farming. In the domain of , Pascoe claims Indigenous groups sowed and tended fields of native plants, including yams and grains like kangaroo grass (), which were harvested en masse and processed into using grinding stones. He interprets sightings of vast, ordered fields—such as those reported by Mitchell in northwestern Victoria in 1836—as products of intentional tillage and weeding, supplemented by fire-stick methods to promote desired vegetation growth and suppress competitors. Pascoe further argues that these techniques constituted farming by first-principles criteria, involving selection, propagation, and seasonal management, rather than opportunistic gathering. Regarding aquaculture, Pascoe emphasizes engineered systems for capturing and farming aquatic resources, citing the people's stone-walled channels and ponds in western Victoria for rearing eels, which could be harvested year-round and smoked for storage. He also references the extensive stone fish traps at on the Barwon River, documented by early settlers, as evidence of sophisticated communal designed to regulate and yields, supporting permanent or semi-permanent settlements nearby. These examples, Pascoe maintains, illustrate a causal link between human intervention and reliable food surpluses, enabling population densities incompatible with pure nomadism. Pascoe extends his arguments to housing and settlements, claiming that some groups constructed durable bark huts, stone dwellings, and villages, as observed by explorers like in and in the Lake Condah region. He posits that food storage in elevated granaries and pits, combined with these structures, facilitated and territorial control, refuting portrayals of transient camps. Overall, Pascoe frames these practices as empirically grounded innovations adapted to Australia's variable , urging a reevaluation of Indigenous economies as agriculturally sophisticated.

Initial reception and cultural impact of Dark Emu

Upon its 2014 publication by Magabala Books, Dark Emu: Black Seeds: Agriculture or Accident? received positive attention in literary and Indigenous-focused circles for challenging the prevailing narrative of pre-colonial as solely hunter-gatherers, instead highlighting evidence of agricultural practices drawn from historical accounts. Early reviewers praised its engaging style and compilation of primary sources, such as explorer journals, to argue for Indigenous techniques including yam cultivation and . The garnered several literary accolades in its debut year, including shortlistings for the Literary Awards' History category and the Victorian Premier's Award for Indigenous Writing. It also secured victories in the Premier's Literary Awards, winning both of the Year and the Indigenous Writers' Prize, which elevated its profile among publishers and readers interested in reframing Australian history. Culturally, Dark Emu contributed to a broader reevaluation of Indigenous capabilities in public discourse, with initial sales reflecting growing interest; by late 2018, approximately 35,000 copies had been sold, prompting international editions. Its arguments permeated educational materials, influencing curricula and the development of a edition, Young Dark Emu, adopted in Australian schools to present evidence of pre-contact farming and settlement. This adoption fostered discussions on "truer history" in media and academia, though it later sparked debates over evidential selectivity. The book's reception underscored a public appetite for narratives emphasizing Indigenous ingenuity, marking an early shift in perceptions of pre-colonial beyond assumptions.

Scholarly criticisms and evidential debunkings of Dark Emu

In 2021, anthropologist Peter Sutton and archaeologist Keryn Walshe published Farmers or Hunter-Gatherers? The Dark Emu Debate, a peer-reviewed scholarly asserting that Dark Emu distorts evidence by exaggerating sporadic resource management practices into claims of full-scale , while ignoring archaeological consensus on pre-colonial Aboriginal economies as complex but non-agrarian systems reliant on , seasonal mobility, and wild resource exploitation rather than or . Sutton and Walshe document Pascoe's selective editing of primary sources, such as omitting from explorer Sturt's 1840s journals the detail that observed "villages" were not year-round habitations but temporary camps aligned with resource availability. Pascoe interprets grooved stone artifacts termed "Bogan picks" as tilling tools indicative of crop cultivation, but Walshe reclassifies them through comparative analysis as hafted axes for or , with no residue or wear patterns consistent with disruption found in excavations. Similarly, assertions of plant domestication—such as yam "fields"—are critiqued as misrepresentations of managed wild stands, lacking genetic, , or evidence of or across Australia's diverse biomes, where archaeological surveys reveal no channels, plows, or seed storage silos typical of early agrarian societies elsewhere. Aquaculture claims, centered on stone fish traps at () and (Victoria), are debunked as incorporations of natural volcanic and riverine features rather than engineered farms; ethnographic accounts attribute their origins to ancestral beings, and comparative studies show such traps were regionally limited, not indicative of continent-wide husbandry, with no evidence of fish breeding or feed supplementation. Claims of permanent stone houses and villages are refuted by site surveys indicating these were rare, windbreak-style shelters in specific coastal or highland areas, contradicted by skeletal, isotopic, and settlement pattern data supporting low-density, mobile populations averaging 0.1–1 person per square kilometer, incompatible with agrarian . Linguistic analysis across Australia's 250+ pre-contact languages reveals no specialized vocabulary for plowing, harvesting, or , undermining assertions of inherited agricultural knowledge. Sutton and Walshe further note Pascoe's reliance on anecdotal explorer accounts without cross-verification against modern or , which show no domesticated species and nutritional profiles aligned with broad-spectrum , not staple crop dependence. Keen has echoed these concerns, deeming the evidentiary basis for Aboriginal farming "deeply problematic" due to inconsistent historical testimonies and absent material correlates.

Subsequent publications and responses

In 2019, Pascoe published Young Dark Emu: A Truer History, an illustrated adaptation of targeted at children and young adults, which reiterated claims of pre-colonial Indigenous Australian , , and semi-permanent villages while simplifying the original's source excerpts for accessibility. The book sold over 20,000 copies by 2021 and was incorporated into school curricula in several Australian states, despite ongoing scholarly disputes over its evidential basis. Pascoe co-authored Loving Country: A Guide to Sacred in 2017 with photographer Lynley Ritvos, expanding on Dark Emu's themes by documenting Indigenous land management practices at specific sites, such as fish traps and yam cultivation areas, presented as evidence of sophisticated rather than nomadic . The work drew from historical accounts and contemporary observations but faced criticism for echoing Dark Emu's interpretive liberties, with archaeologists noting insufficient distinction between managed ecosystems and domesticated agriculture. In 2024, Pascoe released Black Duck, a memoir chronicling a year managing his small farm in eastern Victoria, framed as a personal reckoning with the "difficult decade" following Dark Emu's release, including public backlash and heritage scrutiny; it emphasizes themes of land connection and resilience without directly engaging historical debates. Pascoe's responses to scholarly critiques, notably Peter Sutton and Keryn Walshe's 2021 book Farmers or Hunter-Gatherers? The Evidence for Indigenous Land Management, which analyzed archaeological data to argue against Dark Emu's portrayal of widespread tillage and cereal cropping, have primarily occurred through media and a 2023 ABC documentary, The Dark Emu Story. In these, Pascoe defended his selective sourcing from colonial journals as valid reinterpretation overlooked by "settler paradigms," while Sutton, an emeritus professor of anthropology with decades of fieldwork, countered that Pascoe's claims ignored empirical absences like seed storage or plow artifacts, prioritizing narrative over interdisciplinary evidence. Pascoe has not issued a comprehensive scholarly rebuttal, instead attributing intensified scrutiny to resistance against elevating Indigenous achievements, though Walshe, an archaeologist, emphasized that fire-stick farming and seasonal resource use—well-documented in peer-reviewed studies—do not equate to Eurasian-style farming systems.

Indigenous identity controversy

Pascoe's self-identification and assertions

Bruce Pascoe identifies as an Aboriginal Australian of Bunurong (Boonwurrung), , and Tasmanian descent. He has described himself in these terms in public statements, including a 2019 Federal Court , and maintains affiliations with relevant communities, such as membership in the Wathaurong Aboriginal Co-operative in southern Victoria. Pascoe states that he grew up unaware of his Indigenous heritage and only identified as Aboriginal at age 32, following a conversation with an uncle that prompted family research. He asserts having traced Indigenous ancestors on both sides of his family, claiming that "both my mother's and father's families had an Aboriginal connection," with lineages extending to , the people of the south coast of , and the Bunurong people of Victoria. Pascoe has characterized his heritage as remote, noting in one instance that it traces back to his mother's grandmother, while acknowledging in genetic terms that he is "more Cornish than ." Despite this, he emphasizes self-knowledge, family records, and community acceptance as validating his identity, stating, "I know who I am and I know who my family is and I know my place in the community."

Genealogical and historical evidence

Genealogical research based on public records, including birth, marriage, death certificates, and immigration documents, traces Bruce Pascoe's paternal ancestry to European settlers primarily from Cornwall and other parts of England. His father, Alfred Francis Pascoe (1916–1989), was born in Victoria; paternal grandfather Joseph Harold Pascoe (1891–1933) also in Victoria; and great-grandfather Francis Pascoe (1859–1935) in Victoria, with roots linking to Cornish immigrants arriving in the 19th century as miners and laborers. Further back, great-great-grandparents originated from English counties such as Northumberland, Durham, Devon, and Dorset, with no records indicating Aboriginal intermarriage or descent in this line. On the maternal side, Pascoe's mother, Una Gloria Cowland Smith (1919–2004), was born in Victoria, with grandparents including John Smith (1864–1952, born Leicestershire, ) and Cecil Gertrude Cowland (1875–1963, Victoria). Maternal great-grandparents hailed from English regions like and , showing consistent European origins without documented Aboriginal connections. Investigations into specific claims of Tasmanian Aboriginal ancestry, such as through a purported great-grandmother, have found no supporting evidence in historical records; for instance, a searched ancestor like Sarah Matthews was documented as born in Dudley, England, in 1844 and immigrating to Australia in 1863 aboard the Burlington, not aligning with claimed Indigenous ties in South Gippsland or Tasmania. The Aboriginal Land Council of Tasmania reviewed Pascoe's traced roots and questioned the validity of his connection, citing absence from their genealogical databases. Overall, comprehensive tracing of verifiable records yields no empirical evidence of direct Aboriginal lineage, with ancestry confined to British Isles immigrants from the 19th century onward.

Responses from Indigenous communities, scholars, and critics

Indigenous critics, including Aboriginal businesswoman , have rejected Pascoe's claims to Aboriginal heritage, with Cashman stating in January 2020 that "Pascoe was not Aboriginal" and urging federal investigation into his eligibility for Indigenous roles. Similarly, Tasmanian Aboriginal leader , a prominent activist and , has described Pascoe as "not Aboriginal," emphasizing the absence of verifiable ties to Tasmanian Aboriginal communities despite Pascoe's assertions of Tasmanian ancestry. /Wemba Wemba woman Saxon Donnelly publicly tweeted in January 2020 that Pascoe's claims offended communities, as "our communities find this offensive," and highlighted that her son, who is Yuin, had no connection to Pascoe's purported lineage. Elders from the and Bunurong nations, to which Pascoe has claimed affiliation, have reportedly denied his heritage assertions, with community statements in 2021 underscoring no recognition of familial links. , an Aboriginal leader, referenced genealogical analyses in 2021 tracing Pascoe's documented forebears exclusively to English origins, arguing this undermines self-identification without . Scholars and non-Indigenous critics, including historians and genealogists cited in Quadrant publications, have corroborated the lack of archival proof for Indigenous descent, attributing Pascoe's narrative to unverified family oral traditions rather than records. These critiques portray Pascoe's identity as potentially appropriative, enabling access to Indigenous-specific opportunities without substantiated ties, though some Indigenous commentators, such as those in SBS Nitv opinions, counter that Aboriginality involves self-identification and community acceptance beyond genealogy, dismissing external scrutiny as colonial interference. The Australian Federal Police dismissed a complaint against Pascoe's heritage claims for lack of criminality, but debates persist over institutional verification of such identities.

Public roles and appointments

Academic and advisory positions

Pascoe served as a professor at the University of Technology Sydney's Jumbunna Institute for Indigenous Education and in the years leading up to 2020. In September 2020, he was appointed Enterprise Professor in Indigenous Agriculture—an honorary title—within the University of Melbourne's Faculty of Veterinary and Agricultural Sciences, School of Agriculture, Food and Wine. The role, newly established for Pascoe, focuses on incorporating Indigenous agricultural practices into contemporary farming and , drawing on themes from his publications. In advisory capacities, Pascoe has been a board member of the Victorian Aboriginal Corporation for Languages, an organization dedicated to preserving and revitalizing Indigenous languages. He has also served on the board of First Languages Australia, the national peak body for Indigenous language programs. These positions align with his advocacy for Indigenous cultural knowledge but have occurred amid broader debates over the evidentiary basis of his historical interpretations.

Advocacy, media, and public engagements

Pascoe has conducted public advocacy emphasizing Indigenous Australian agricultural practices, techniques, and cultural knowledge as models for sustainable farming. He promotes these ideas through speeches highlighting evidence from colonial records of crop cultivation, , and food storage by Aboriginal peoples. His engagements often challenge the traditional view of pre-colonial as solely societies, advocating instead for recognition of sophisticated food production systems adapted to the continent's environment. Key public speeches include a 2019 TEDxSydney drawing on historical accounts to argue for Aboriginal agricultural innovation, viewed over a million times. In 2017, he delivered a keynote at the Futurelands2 conference on farming Australian landscapes using Indigenous methods. Other notable lectures encompass the 2018 Australasian Convergence address on early baking and society, the 2020 "Perennial Soil" talk on sustainable practices, the 2022 Annual History by the History Council of , and a 2025 keynote at the Foundation urging truth-telling and cultural revival. Pascoe has also contributed to educational initiatives, appearing in video resources at the Kamay Environmental Education Centre to discuss Aboriginal life, culture, and ingenuity. In media, Pascoe has featured in numerous interviews across Australian broadcasters and publications. He appeared on ABC's Australia to Me in 2019 discussing Indigenous ceremonies and history. A 2020 conversation with Kerry O'Brien explored topics from colonization's impacts to contemporary Indigenous knowledge. More recently, in 2024, he joined ABC Radio National's Breakfast program to address life on and Indigenous foods alongside partner Lyn Harwood, and featured in The Year That Made Me reflecting on pivotal career moments. These appearances consistently advance his arguments for integrating Aboriginal practices into modern agriculture and environmental policy. At conferences, such as the 2019 Lowitja Institute event, his talks on Indigenous achievements received standing ovations from delegates.

Awards and recognition

Literary and professional awards received

Pascoe's book : Black Seeds: Agriculture or Accident? (2014) received the Book of the Year award ($30,000 prize) and the Indigenous Writer's Prize at the 2016 Premier's Literary Awards. was also shortlisted for the 2014 Victorian Premier's for Indigenous Writing. The adapted children's edition Young Dark Emu: A Truer History (2019) won the Australian Booksellers Association's Kids' Reading Guide Children's Book of the Year in 2020 and the Children's Book Council of Australia's Eve Pownall Award for Information Books in the same year. Earlier works earned Pascoe the Prime Minister's Literary Award for Young Adult Fiction in 2013 and the Deadly Awards' Published Book of the Year in 2013. His novel (Scribe Publications, 2005) won the 2006 Australian Literature Award. In recognition of his overall literary contributions, Pascoe received the Australia Council for the Arts Lifetime Achievement Award for Literature in 2018 ($25,000 prize). He was also named Person of the Year at the 2018 National Dreamtime Awards, honoring Indigenous achievements in arts and literature.

Scrutiny and debates over awards

Dark Emu received the Book of the Year award ($10,000 prize) and the Indigenous Writer's Prize in the 2016 Premier's Literary Awards, recognizing its contributions to Indigenous history. These accolades, announced on May 16, 2016, elevated the book's profile, with judges praising its challenge to traditional narratives of pre-colonial Aboriginal economies as solely based. However, subsequent scholarly critiques have questioned the awards' validity, arguing that the book's evidentiary basis does not withstand rigorous examination. Anthropologists Peter Sutton and Keryn Walshe, in their 2021 book Farmers or Hunter-Gatherers? The Evidence for Indigenous Land Management and the Fate of the 'Farmer's Delusion', described as containing "errors of fact, selective quotations, selective use of evidence, and exaggeration of weak evidence," asserting it lacks the scholarly standards expected for such honors. Sutton, a respected expert on Indigenous with decades of fieldwork, expressed being "stunned" by the book's acclaim, including its literary prizes, given these methodological flaws. Critics contend that the awards, awarded without typical of academic works, amplified unsubstantiated claims of widespread Indigenous , , and storage systems, potentially misleading public understanding of historical records from European explorers and early settlers. Debates have intensified around the Indigenous Writer's Prize specifically, with opponents linking it to broader questions of Pascoe's eligibility amid genealogical challenges to his self-identified Aboriginal heritage, though award administrators have not revisited the decision. Supporters, including some literary reviewers, maintain the awards reflect innovative reinterpretation of primary sources, dismissing critiques as ideologically driven resistance to revising colonial-era assumptions. No formal revocations have occurred, but the controversy has prompted discussions on vetting processes for literary prizes involving historical claims, with outlets like The Spectator Australia highlighting how institutional endorsements may prioritize narrative appeal over empirical verification. The ensuing public and academic discourse, including rebuttals in outlets like Arena Magazine, underscores tensions between accessible popular history and specialized anthropological evidence.

Personal life

Family and relationships

Pascoe entered his first in his late twenties, with whom he had a named Marnie. The ended in separation in 1982, the same year he married Lyn Harwood, an editor, artist, publisher, and co-author. Pascoe and Harwood have a son, Jack, born in 1985. The couple separated in 2017 amid the personal toll of controversy surrounding Pascoe's book Dark Emu, which strained their relationship. They later reconciled, as documented in their co-authored 2024 Black Duck: A Year at Yumburra, which reflects on rebuilding their marriage alongside life on their property near Mallacoota. Harwood has collaborated professionally with Pascoe, including as a director of Black Duck Foods, a co-founded with their son Jack focused on Indigenous food production.

Farming activities and residence

In 2018, Bruce Pascoe relocated to Yumburra, a farm on the banks of the Wallagaraugh River in far east Gippsland, near Mallacoota, Victoria, which he purchased using proceeds from his book Dark Emu. The 100-hectare property serves as both his primary residence and the base for Black Duck Foods, an Indigenous social enterprise he founded to cultivate and process native Australian grains and foods. Pascoe's farming activities at Yumburra emphasize perennial native and traditional land management techniques, including the harvesting of mandadyan nalluk (a local term for dancing grass, a native ), which yielded its first commercial in over 200 years in 2020 for milling into flour and bread production. Daily operations involve clearing watercourses for , maintaining tools, and propagating species such as (yam daisy) and other tubers suited to local soils, with the goal of demonstrating sustainable yields without annual . These efforts align with Pascoe's advocacy for reviving pre-colonial food systems, though outputs remain small-scale, focused on local markets and educational demonstrations rather than large commercial volumes. Prior to Yumburra, Pascoe managed Gurandgi Munjie, an earlier native food cultivation project initiated around in , which tested grain harvesting and stone grinding methods but transitioned into the Victoria-based enterprise. He has described farm life as physically demanding and isolating, interspersed with writing and public outreach, while residing full-time on the property with his partner.

References

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