Aboriginal contributions to the evaluation of housing (and to postcolonial theory)

Michael Christie,Matthew Campbell

doi:10.18793/lcj2014.14.11

Abstract

Housing Reference Groups (HRGs) began to be established in remote Northern Territory (NT) Aboriginal communities in 2009 when the Northern Territory Government compulsorily acquired remote Aboriginal housing and closed down 75 Aboriginal Housing associations. In this highly contested context, we were invited to undertake an evaluation of the HRGs. Through both open discussion and semi-structured interviews, we learnt from the Aboriginal people we worked with to see a much wider, more structural understanding of housing and its governance. This in turn led us to reflect upon Aboriginal contributions to the theory and practice of evaluation, and their various relations to received theories such as social justice, pragmatist philosophy and ethics, and Frierian conscientization. This collaborative ground-up evaluation process contributed to our own ongoing practices of evaluation, and possibly to some slight but reverberating changes in government policy and practice.

Highlights

Remote Housing NT is a division of the NT Department of Housing which was established to manage the delivery and improvement of Aboriginal public housing in the Northern Territory
It is a system through which the NT and Australian governments are implementing their National Partnership Agreement on Remote Indigenous Housing (NPARIH; 2009)
Two construction company consortia known as Alliances were engaged to deliver the Strategic Indigenous Housing and Infrastructure Program (SIHIP), an element of NPARIH (2009) in which houses will be built, rebuilt or refurbished

Summary

Introduction

We conducted semi-structured interviews with senior bureaucrats in the Department of Housing, with ‘street-level bureaucrats’ (Lipsky, 1980) working to organise housing and HRGs in remote communities, and Aboriginal members of HRGs and senior local authorities. 7. Senior community members who work with governments on decision making around housing and other issues should be remunerated for their knowledge, authority and insights.

Results

Conclusion