Aboriginal Agency Research Articles

Aboriginal-led development – the case of the Warlpiri Education and Training Trust

ABSTRACT This case study explores the developmental practices and institutional environment which have supported the Warlpiri Education and Training Trust to build a sense of Aboriginal agency and ownership over efforts to promote development in remote central Australia. Drawing on interview data with practitioners and Aboriginal participants, the study demonstrates that flexible, adaptive practices which embrace learning and prioritise respectful relationships in pursuit of culturally appropriate fit-for-purpose governance is conducive to supporting Aboriginal-led development. The study further identifies the importance of institutional settings that enable this work, including relational leadership, long-term commitment, risk appetite, creating space for reflection and adaptation, and appropriate recruitment. It also identifies the constraints on the Warlpiri Education and Training Trust (WETT) within the contemporary political economy of Indigenous affairs, which limit the extent to which such practices and institutions can, by themselves, further Aboriginal-led development approaches.

Paying Aboriginal Rural Workers: Racism, the Labour Market and Worker Agency

Research into experiences of Aboriginal workers on pastoral stations in Queensland has revealed systemic slave-like conditions and underpayment, primarily focusing upon northern regions of the state. This article reveals details of Aboriginal workers’ employment on one station in the less examined southern districts of Queensland, specifically the South Burnett region, that suggest calibrated payments were well above the (later) legislated rate of pay, but less than rates awarded to white men on the same property. We adopt micro-historical and socio-linguistic methods to examine the Kilkivan station diary of 1898. By conducting a close reading of employment practices adopted by station owner, Aubrey Jones, we reveal how linguistic management of cultural difference intersected with the agency of Aboriginal workers. The level of business risk apprehended by Jones impacted the level of trust he exercised and the autonomy he granted to Aboriginal workers. The spare but unguarded prose of the diary reveals how Jones mobilised anonymising racist language or chose to individuate Aboriginal workers, depending on their compliance and perceived reliability. This article thus extends previous understandings of crossracial relations, the racialised pay gap, and Aboriginal agency in the Australian pastoral industry.

Co-location of a Government Child Welfare Unit in a Traditional Aboriginal Agency: A Way Forward in Working in Aboriginal Communities

This article describes the learning that took place in the context of a provincial family enhancement unit within an Aboriginal child welfare agency. Many benefits were identified for the workers, the families, and the relationship to the community. Most notable were the positive effects on non-Aboriginal government staff who were immersed in a more traditional Aboriginal agency. Key learnings include the importance of relationship in child welfare practice, the desire of child welfare workers for greater creativity in their responses to children and families and the need for more supportive leadership in the creation of the conditions necessary for this to happen. Recommendations are made to provincial officials to assist in the creation of such an environment.

The Queensland Native Police and Strategies of Recruitment on the Queensland Frontier, 1849–1901

ABSTRACTAlthough historians have provided substantial insights into the structure, development and activities of the Queensland Native Mounted Police, they have rarely focused on the complex and sensitive issue of Aboriginal recruitment. A careful reading of historical records, however, identifies several methods, including coercion, intimidation, kidnapping and inducement, as well as “voluntary” enlistment. It is difficult to identify Aboriginal agency in recruitment processes as the records are entirely one-sided—the voices of the troopers themselves are absent from the archival sources. In this article, we examine the cultural and historical contexts of Aboriginal recruitment—for example, the dire social situations of Aboriginal survivors of the frontier war and the absence of future survival options for the potential recruits. We explore, through the framework of historical trauma, the impacts on vulnerable victims of violence and other devastating effects of colonisation. We conclude that the recruitment of Aboriginal troopers was far from a homogeneous or transparent process and that the concept of agency with regard to those who can be considered war victims themselves is extremely complex. Unravelling the diverse, conflicting and often controversial meanings of this particular colonial activity remains a challenge to the historical process.

"We Will Show the Country": Bringing History to Life

"We Will Show the Country": Bringing History to Life

Lightning strikes: rethinking the nexus between Australian Indigenous land management and natural forces

ABSTRACTResearch in the 1960s and 1970s by Merrilees, Hallam and Jones brought to prominence the concept that ‘fire-stick’ farming shaped the Australian environment creating small-scale mosaic vegetation patterns such that the productive capacity increased and that grasslands with spaced trees were maintained, a ‘caring for country’. Signs of fire during the colonial period (1788–1901) have been interpreted as expressions of Aboriginal ‘caring for country’. Close examination of other kinds of cultural causes for fire and smoke, as well as an assessment based upon bushfire incidents in south-eastern and south-western Australia, suggests there is a likelihood that at least some, if not the majority, of the ignitions attributed to Aboriginal agency were caused by lightning strikes. A brief case study of the Jingera Rocks wildfire, inland from Bega, south-eastern New South Wales, and in close proximity to lands described by Weatherhead in a colonial narrative, is provided to illustrate the impact of lightning that strikes in mountainous and distant locations. A comparative study of colonial period and contemporary Western Australia wildfire incidents highlights the discrepancies in fit between the reality of today, an understanding of Aboriginal caring for country and fire behaviour attributed to lightning ignitions. The implications for researchers are apparent in that they no longer can rely upon generalised interpretations of the colonial record but must validate assumptions concerning the use of fire by Aboriginal people and be particularly careful when those notions are applied to guide contemporary fire management practices.

‘Australia – Drive It Like You Stole It’: automobility as a medium of communication in settler colonial Australia

More than a means of transportation, the global system of automobility is simultaneously a meaning-making assemblage. In Australia automobility was central to the formation of a settler colonial polity, and its pervasive mediatization trumpeted settlers’ legitimate possession of the continent. The rich archives of settler automobilism are not matched, however, when it comes to Indigenous automobilities. Aboriginal people created tenacious and lively automobile cultures whenever and however they were able. While Aboriginal agency was far from erased, they were relegated to, and sometimes chose, historical silence. Automobility has been integral to imagining and materializing settler claims over the Australian continent, but also to evading, mitigating, contesting and re-visioning it.

Rhetoric, Aboriginal Australians and the Northern Territory Intervention: A Socio-legal Investigation into Pre-legislative Argumentation

Presented within this article is a systematic discourse analysis of the arguments used by the then Australian Prime Minister and also the Minister for Indigenous Affairs in explaining and justifying the extensive and contentious intervention by the federal government into remote Northern Territory Aboriginal communities. The methods used within this article extend the socio-legal toolbox, providing a contextually appropriate, interdisciplinary methodology that analyses the speech act’s rhetorical properties. Although many academics use sound-bites of pre-legislative speech in order to support their claims, this analysis is concerned with investigating the contents of the speech acts in order to understand how the Prime Minister’s and Minister for Indigenous Affairs’ argumentations sought to achieve consensus to facilitate the enactment of legislation. Those seeking to understand legislative endeavours, policy makers and speech actors will find that paying structured attention to the rhetorical properties of speech acts yields opportunities to strengthen their insight. The analysis here indicates three features in the argumentation: the duality in the Prime Minister’s and Minister’s use of the Northern Territory Government’s Little Children are Sacred report; the failure to sufficiently detail the linkages between the Intervention and the measures combatting child sexual abuse; and the omission of recognition of Aboriginal agency and consultation.

“You're Native but You're not Native Looking”: A Critical Narrative Study Exploring the Health Needs of Aboriginal Veterans Adopted and/or Fostered During the Sixties Scoop

This study employed a critical narrative approach to examine the experience of Aboriginal Veterans in Canada adopted and/or fostered during the Sixties Scoop. The objectives of this study was to: 1) understand lived experiences of Aboriginal veterans adopted and/or fostered during the Sixties Scoop, 2) investigate health needs articulated by this population, and 3) provide suggestions for the creation of health services to aid Aboriginal veterans adopted and/or fostered during the Sixties Scoop with their health needs. Individual interviews were audio-recorded and conducted with eight participants from across Canada. All interviews were transcribed verbatim and analyzed using the holistic-content model (Lieblich, Tuval-Mashiach & Zilber, 1998). Data analysis of the interviews uncovered three overarching themes: a) sense of belonging, b) racism: experienced and perceived, and c) resilience: not giving up in the face of adversity. Two main health needs conveyed by the participants included mental health care and support to fight substance abuse. More awareness regarding the historical realities experienced by this population and the impact this may have on their overall health is needed. Increased coordination between Veterans Affairs Canada (VAC), Royal Canadian Legion (RCL), National Aboriginal Veterans Association (NAVA), Aboriginal Veteran Autochthones (AVA), and Aboriginal agencies is needed to address the mental health needs experienced by this group of veterans.

Cultural Permanence for Indigenous Children and Youth: Reflections from a Delegated Aboriginal Agency in British Columbia

The article discusses cultural permanence for Indigenous children and youth from the perspective of the executive director of Northwest Inter-Nation Family and Community Services (NIFCS), a delegated Aboriginal child welfare agency that serves nine Indigenous communities from three First Nations on British Columbia’s northwest coast. Through increasing cultural knowledge, NIFCS aims to enhance its practice to meet the holistic needs of children and youth in care, in particular, to ensure that children and youth maintain connections with their families, extended families, and communities. NIFCS provides experiential opportunities for children and youth to know about, and learn their languages, spiritual teachings, and cultural traditions from their Elders, families, and communities. Ultimately, NIFCS’s goal is for the children and youth in its care to be strongly connected to their roots and experience a sense of belonging. This paper looks at connectedness and cultural diversity in the context of cultural planning for permanence, relates these concepts to NIFCS, and outlines promising practices within NIFCS.

Aboriginal Agency and Marginalisation in Australian Society

It is often argued that while state rhetoric may be inclusionary, policies and practices may be exclusionary. This can imply that the power to include rests only with the state. In some ways, the implication is valid in respect of Aboriginal Australians. For instance, the Australian state has gained control of Aboriginal inclusion via a singular, bounded category and Aboriginal ideal type. However, the implication is also limited in their respect. Aborigines are abject but also agents in their relationship with the wider society. Their politics contributes to the construction of the very category and type that governs them, and presses individuals to resist state inclusionary efforts. Aboriginal political elites police the performance of an Aboriginality dominated by notions of difference and resistance. The combined processes of governance act to deny Aborigines the potential of being both Aboriginal and Australian, being different and belonging. They maintain Aborigines’ marginality.

Radical hope – surprising will

Jonathon Lear and Noel Pearson suggest radical hope to be the force impelling Native American and Australian Aboriginal peoples to endure crises of dramatic change. Positioned at best as subjects, at worst as victims, Aboriginal protagonists are portrayed throughout history to turn simply and stoically towards unknowable, compromised futures. ‘I shall surprise you by my will’, Romaine Moreton asserts with measured force. Her poem offers a frame through which to review Aboriginal peoples’ conscious acts for calculated outcomes, and to reassess altered ways of being not as compromises to unchangeable pasts, but assertions of Aboriginal agency with a view to shared futures: recognising Kulin as active treating partners negotiating pragmatic recompense with John Batman in 1835, being able to grasp Truganini's shell threads as they continue to weave through history, seeing the fluidity of post-contact environments revealed in a Yolngu metaphor, where both Yolngu and Balanda may thrive, Samson and Delilah, propelled by will, relocate to a place where they are agents for their own futures. Past acts rise out of the melding of hope and will. Present depictions represent perpetual capacity for change.

From passive to active dialogue? Aboriginal lands, development and métissage in Québec, Canada

Over the last decade, northern Québec (Canada) has been the stage of tremendous changes regarding the active role played by Aboriginal peoples in matters of planning and territorial development. This gradual rise, if incomplete, of the Aboriginal agency greatly impacts, as we shall argue here, on the identities and territorialities of both Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal communities, through new policies, legislation, treaty processes, institutions (public or private) devoted to development, territorial governance or the increasing number of cross-cultural partnerships and investments. The goal of this paper is to offer a critical portrait of the recent changes affecting the relations between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal communities in northern Québec, and discuss the limits of the cross-cultural dialogue in which they are engaged. This argument is an attempt to show how development and planning are rich grounds for understanding the state and the economy as ontological. It will be illustrated through the recent emergence of the Québec government’s Plan Nord (‘Northern Plan’), an ambitious program of development, and the treaty process involving three Innu First Nations in the regions of Saguenay-Lac-Saint-Jean and Côte-Nord. Conceived of as a dynamic form of cross-cultural dialogue shaped by power relations, the concept of métissage (hybridity) grounds our analysis and highlights the challenges of multicultural territorial planning. If Québec is presently engaging in a renewed cross-cultural dialogue with First Nations, the final result of this dialogue, however, remains uncertain.

Colonists, Settlers and Aboriginal Australian War Cries: Cultural performance and economic exchange

This paper examines a traditional Aboriginal Australian genre of performance for fun, known as ‘war corroborees’. These performances along with many other genres were an important part of commercial cross-cultural entertainment in Australia in the long nineteenth century. The performance practices have received little academic attention. When they have it has been within the frame of cultural tourism. This point of reference hides the Aboriginal practices that are drawn on for these performances as well as Aboriginal agency within the practices of commercial entertainment. My aim is to examine the extant documentation from non-Aboriginal observers in the archive related to Aboriginal initiated commercial performance practices in the context of Aboriginal cultures and practices to reveal a different account of these performances.

Policing isolated Aboriginal communities: perspectives of Canadian officers

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to compare the self‐reported attitudes toward Aboriginal policing of officers in isolated/remote communities with those from accessible Aboriginal communities.Design/methodology/approachSurvey results are reported for 294 officers working in Aboriginal communities throughout Canada.FindingsOfficers working in remote jurisdictions tended to be younger, better educated, and had less policing experience than those working in non‐isolated Aboriginal communities. Social problems in these remote communities were thought to be more serious than those reported by officers working in accessible Aboriginal communities. Despite these demographic and contextual differences, self‐reported attitudes toward Aboriginal policing were generally similar, although officers working in isolated communities tended to report more conservative views on enforcement.Research limitations/implicationsThe generalizability of the results is limited by the modest (40.7 percent) response rate, and the fact that officers working in Aboriginal agencies were less likely to participate than those working for national or provincial police services.Practical implicationsThe results suggest that more effective recruiting, training, and retention strategies should be developed for officers working in Aboriginal communities.Originality/valueThis is the first comprehensive study of the perceptions of officers toward Aboriginal policing. While the police in isolated communities represent a small proportion of all law enforcement officers, their insight sheds light on this often misunderstood and under‐researched aspect of law enforcement.

The Demonization of Aboriginal Child Welfare Authorities in the News

This study compares news representations of Aboriginal child welfare agencies with those of provincial authorities such as BC’s Ministry of Children and Family Development. News coverage of critical incidents involving children under the care of provincial bodies focused on systemic problems such as programs cuts, scarcity of resources and organizational deficiencies—conditions over which individual social workers had little control. In contrast, these contextual factors were largely absent from reportage of delegated Aboriginal agencies. Instead, most news reports and opinion pieces focused on blaming Aboriginal social workers and agency officials as well as questioning the competence of Aboriginal service providers in general. On the other hand, opinion pieces written by Aboriginal people introduced structural issues and contextual factors not included in the news.

Colonial Wars and Indigenous Geopolitics: Aboriginal Agency, the Cuba-Florida-Mexico Nexus, and the Other Diaspora

Cuba served as a frontier outpost and key to the defence of the Spanish American empire and became one of the first centres for slavery in the colonial Americas. At the same time, Cuba also served the interests of various North American Amerindian groups and individuals who conducted trade, diplomatic, and other missions to the island colony, and also undertook migration and settlement there. Aboriginal peoples were not merely the object of the earliest forced migrations; they too generated and directed (and/or adapted) their own missions and diasporas. Florida and New Spain/Mexico represented two substantial sources for Amerindian migration to and settlement in Cuba. This article raises questions about both the aboriginal presence in Cuba and its diasporic dimension, and examines the movement and migration of Amerindian peoples from the North American continent to the largest island in the Caribbean.

Dancing into Being: The Tjapukai Aboriginal Cultural Park and the Laura Dance Festival

Focusing on the connection between dance performance and the politics of identity, I explore the problem of human agency and interrogate the concept of a dualistic split between mind and body. I interpret dance as a form of corporeal politics and use the example of dance in two tourist arenas—the Tjapukai Aboriginal Cultural Park and the Laura Dance and Cultural Festival—to illustrate Aboriginal agency in both participating in and resisting structures of state bureaucratic practice, and representations of cultural authenticity.

'The Nature and Effects Thereof Were... by Each of Them Understood': Aborigines, Agency, Law and Power in the 1867 Gurnett Contract

This paper examines an 1867 contract for a European tour between a group of Aboriginal workers, a white manager and a white entrepreneur to explore incongruities between literally read legal rights, assumptions of indigenous agency, and historicised inequalities of inter racial (and inter-class) power. Resulting from an unsuccessful initial attempt to launch the famous 1868 Aboriginal tour of England, its primary functions were twofold. In the face of powerful government and philanthropic opposition, it was an attempt to convince an influential legal advocate for Aborigines of the propriety of the tour. Furthermore, it bound the potentially lucrative Aborigines by contracting not only them but their familiar 'manager'', Hayman, to the entrepreneur, Gurnett. Explicit conditions of the indenture reveal the extent of control over the Aboriginal signatories and distinct racial and class inequities. But more severe disproportions of power and limitations to the exercise of Aboriginal agency can be located outside the contract. Conditions relating to touring Native American performers provide a critical commentary on both the organisers of the Aboriginal tour and the Victorian government's legislative reactions.