How does a traditional hunting and gathering society adapt its social structure and cultural identity when confronted with rapid modernization? C. W. M. Hart and Arnold R. Pilling utilize their extensive ethnographic fieldwork to document the Tiwi people of North Australia across several decades. The authors present a framework that contrasts traditional marriage contracts and kinship systems with the subsequent shifts caused by external modern influences.

This work is widely regarded as a foundational ethnographic case study for students of anthropology. Readers frequently note the clarity of the authors' observations regarding the intersection of kinship and social change.