Women's Business: Culture, Identity and Policy for Urban Australian Indigenous Entrepreneurs

Abstract

This thesis explores culture and gender through a focus on women in Australian Government Indigenous economic development policies. It particularly focuses on entrepreneurship or business ownership as an avenue available towards economic participation. It argues that business ownership may be a way for Indigenous women to maintain social and cultural values in a contemporary and urban context. Indigenous Australians have seldom been portrayed or studied as complex economic participants, with most anthropological engagements with Indigenous economic activity not extending far beyond employment in tourism, land management, or mining industries. While these options are appropriate for rural or remote areas, over three-quarters of Indigenous Australians reside in urban areas. This suggests that anthropology may not have adequately considered the diversity of contemporary Indigenous engagements with the money economy. Part of this may be due to conceptualisations held about Aboriginal culture and identity. This thesis adopts a critical discourse analysis of five major Australian (Commonwealth Government) Indigenous economic development policies to see how culture and women have been represented in the policies. Findings are that while past policies seem to have portrayed Aboriginal culture in terms of deficit, policies released following the 2015 business Procurement Policy seem to have shifted in approach, portraying Indigenous Australian men and women as capable economic participants. This suggests that Indigenous business initiatives may be changing the conversation surrounding the perception of Indigenous Australians as economic actors, including Indigenous women. This has important implications for anthropology, which may risk becoming irrelevant to policy development in this area if it does not consider the matter of economic development and cultural change arising from the involvement of Indigenous people in business.