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E-book Dark Skies : Places, Practices, Communities

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Penilaian

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A fascination with the night sky is integral to the story of what it is to be human. The history of our relationship with dark skies is diverse and rich, a connection across space and time that has shaped and been shaped by society, culture, and reli-gion, as well as science. Beyond the astronomical, scientific understandings about the universe, the stars, planets, and moon have proved inspiration for artists, poets, and philosophers. As a realm in which we search for meaning, dark skies have been integral to how we commune with our hopes and fears. And while there is no definitive theory as to how or why humans started to relate to dark skies, a grow-ing body of evidence across a range of disciplines suggests that it is plausible that it began at about the same time as recognisably modern humans evolved, around 70,000years ago (Clark, 2020, p.4). Before the advent of modern science, the relationship between an individual and the night sky was typically immediate and powerful. With no light pollution to obstruct the view, the stars were conspicuous, and cosmic understandings were shaped by common beliefs that the conditions of dark skies revealed what was happening on Earth.In their significant work on exploring Australian Aboriginal meanings and uses of dark skies, Karlie Noon and Krystal De Napoli (2022) investigate cultural inter-pretations and practices that go back at least 65,000years. To Western thinking, stories based on astronomical figures may appear mythical; however, they contain much that is practical. Noon and de Napoli demonstrate the highly sophisticated, complex, and diverse ways in which different Indigenous communities have used the star-studded sky to provide a guide for navigation, mark times for hunting, journeying, and collecting, and demarcate seasonal ceremonies and rituals. Across millennia, elements in the night sky have been scripted into the land, generating tales that explain the mythic origins of landforms and trigger the enaction of travel, song cycles, dance, and art. Importantly, these oral traditions avoid the reifications generated by writing down authoritative knowledge, with understandings and prac-tices remaining dynamic, evolving, protean, and multiple.More specifically, Noon and de Napoli (2022, p.43) show how knowledge from the skies has informed “interrelations between ecological, medicinal, celestial and technological knowledge”, understandings that are simultaneously relational, practical and cyclic, that mark weather patterns (through star scintillation, for instance), the fruiting of edible plants and the related migratory routes that lead animals to consume food sources.Such networks of associations spread across space and time but are necessarily situated amongst particular Indigenous groups and spaces. And while the ever-changing positions in the firmament mark out daily, seasonal, and annual fluctua-tions, they also inscribe much longer, millennium-spanning changes. For shifting alignments in the sky, over 13,000-to-26,000-year cycles are registered through oral traditions that testify to the longevity of knowledge and the ancient witness-ing of celestial processes. These extensive temporalities are also underlined by the continuing importance of faint dark sky constellations; those gaps in which stars cannot be seen are sites of enduring knowledge. With the advent of light pollu-tion, many such cosmic spaces can now rarely be discerned. Best known of these dark realms is the widespread phenomenon known as the Dark Emu, a bird-shaped hole in the Milky Way and the focus of diverse myths from different Aboriginal nations. By following the progress of the bird across the sky throughout the year, the most auspicious time to collect emu eggs, visit waterholes, and move camps are identified.

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Ketersediaan

Informasi Detail

Judul Seri

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No. Panggil

150 ASF d

Penerbit

London : Taylor & Francis., 2024

Deskripsi Fisik

294 hlm

Bahasa

English

ISBN/ISSN

9781003408444

Klasifikasi

150

Tipe Isi

text

Tipe Media

computer

Tipe Pembawa

online resource

Edisi

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Subjek

Psychology

Info Detail Spesifik

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Pernyataan Tanggungjawab

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Versi lain/terkait

Lampiran Berkas

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