Deriding Demand: A Case Study of Indigenous Imaginaries at an Australian Aboriginal Tourism Cultural Park

As Australia’s largest and most successful cultural tourist attraction and the Australian domestic tourism industry’s largest employer of Aboriginal people, Aboriginal-owned Tjapukai Aboriginal Cultural Park is the premier destination to experience Tjapukai culture.¹ As such, visitors look to this attraction to fulfil their expectations for “Aboriginal people” with whom they are already somewhat familiar through the imaginaries of the Indigenous Other. One visitor described the Tjapukai experience: While I was in Australia, I was looking for an appreciation of Aboriginal culture … What I wanted was someone to explain to me how Indigenous people lived, what they thought was important,