<p>From the Canadian <em>Indian Act</em> to Freud's <em>Totem and Taboo</em> to films such as <em>Nanook of the North</em>, all manner of cultural artefacts have been used to create a distinction between savagery and civilization. In <em>Defamiliarizing the Aboriginal</em>, Julia V. Emberley examines the historical production of aboriginality in colonial cultural practices and its impact on the everyday lives of indigenous women, youth, and children.</p><p>Adopting a materialist-semiotic approach, Emberley explores the ways in which representational technologies - film, photography, and print culture, including legal documents and literature - were crucial to British colonial practices. Many indigenous scholars, writers, and artists, however, have confounded these practices by deploying aboriginality as a complex and enabling sign of social, cultural, and political transformation. Emberley gives due attention to this important work, studying a wide range of topics such as race, place, and motherhood, primitivism and violence, and sexuality and global political kinships. Her multidisciplinary approach ensures that <em>Defamiliarizing the Aboriginal</em> will be of interest to scholars and students of cultural studies, indigenous studies, women's studies, postcolonial and colonial studies, literature, and film.</p>