Sociospatial aspects of Australian aboriginal underdevelopment. Empirical evidence from the East kimberley

Abstract

Prior to the penetration of the European capitalist economy into central and northern Australia, the Aboriginal mode of production was one of hunting and gathering. Spiritual, economic and social relationships betwen people and land produced a spatial distribution of small bands of people living on their traditional lands. To the incoming white settlers the low population density and type of land use appeared uneconomic. This observation was used as ideological justification for the expropriation and development of the land for commercial pastoralism. This paper discusses the articulation of the Aboriginal and European modes of production in the East Kimberley region of northwest Australia. It argues that the introduced capitalist economy virtually destroyed the Aboriginal means of subsistence, incorporating Aborigines into the new mode of production within various subordinate roles. The exploitation of Aborigines, formerly as labour and now predominantely as consumers, is fundamental to the maintenance of the capitalist mode of production in pastoral areas. The spatial effects of the dominant mode of production have been to centralise Aborigines in locations suited to the various phases of development of the European economy, undermining the traditional Aboriginal social-spatial structure. The centralisation of the Aboriginal population also enhances the opportunities for the further development of the mining industry, which is in direct competition with Aboriginal interests in land. Aboriginal resistance to these spatial tendencies is intense in many quarters, but efforts to return to living on traditional lands and to develop alternative ways of living are hampered by the dominant mode of production.