Aboriginal Land Rights Research Articles

Aboriginal Self‐determination, Land Rights, and Recognition in the Whitlam Era: Laying Groundwork for Power Sharing and Representation

The Whitlam Labor government (1972–75) is remembered for ushering in a new era in Indigenous affairs, with the move to “self‐determination”, abandoning the longstanding insistence on “assimilation”. The new government intended to deploy the Commonwealth's new legislative power established in the 1967 constitutional referendum to bring in a range of reforms, responding to consistent demands from Indigenous leaders, activists, and supporters through the previous decade. Whitlam's campaign speech promised anti‐discrimination legislation, provisions to allow Aboriginal communities to incorporate, and legislation of a system of land tenure. The government faced considerable political obstacles, ultimately curbing the ambitious reform agenda. Nevertheless, these initial efforts to conceptualise representation, recognition, and compensation laid important foundations for the current public debate about “Voice, Treaty, Truth”, following the Uluru Statement from the Heart. This paper explores self‐determination through the path‐breaking work of the Woodward Aboriginal Land Rights Commission and the establishment of well‐resourced land councils as authoritative and legitimate representatives of Aboriginal people in the Northern Territory. The Whitlam government's willingness to experiment with power‐sharing in the sensitive area of land ownership provided a valuable prototype for genuine engagement with First Nations people today, as Australia contemplates the failure of the constitutional referendum around a Voice to parliament.

Cultural care and Aboriginal land rights in New South Wales

AbstractAn appreciation of Aboriginal land rights in New South Wales (NSW) is characterised by two dominant narratives. One is that land rights are central to achieving and advancing recognition and support for the existence and survival of Aboriginal peoples in the settled spaces of south‐eastern Australia. In this view, Aboriginal land rights realise intrinsic political power. The second dominant narrative is that the land estate restituted to Aboriginal people's Local Aboriginal Land Councils (LALCs) is to be “activated” and “leveraged” for economic prosperity of collectively defined groups and shared to support and sustain individuals and families. This perspective holds that land enables realisation of wealth and prosperity. Although these narratives are based in truth, they have served to make some important work and values held by Aboriginal people less visible in any evaluation of the benefits of land rights. It is this less visible work the work of care that is unique to Aboriginal worlds and made possible by the resources and structures of LALCs realised through the Aboriginal Land Rights Act, 1983.

Investigating the potential for a blue carbon economy on Australia’s northern coastline

The term ‘Blue Carbon’ (BC) recognises the ability of mangroves, saltmarshes, and seagrasses to capture and store carbon in their soils and biomass. Given their anoxic sediment, BC ecosystems can sequester up to as much as four times more carbon per hectare, and store it 30–50 times faster, than terrestrial forests. Australia has some of the world’s largest BC storage capacity, with 5–11% of global BC soil stocks and 2–7% of annual BC sequestration, based on available global estimate. Evidence indicates that mangrove and saltmarsh degradation from cyclone damage, feral damage and disease, is occurring throughout the Northern Territory (NT). This is a growing issue with feral animal populations degrading Indigenous lands and areas of conservation significance. This cumulative pressure on BC habitat means that northern Australia is uniquely positioned to expand BC methods to also account for protection and restoration of degraded coastal habitats including freshwater wetlands that have been damaged by non-native feral animals. Researchers from Charles Darwin University (CDU), University of Queensland (UQ), and the Northern Australian Indigenous Land and Sea Management Alliance Ltd (NAILSMA) recently worked to explore the opportunity and potential for economically viable BC methods in the NT. The study had a particular focus on Aboriginal Land gazetted under the Aboriginal Land Rights (NT) Act (1976) (Cth). We present the research outcomes and identify the pathway to focused research on BC stores and tailored methods for generating Australian Carbon Credit Units (ACCUs) and potentially biodiversity credits, in the NT.

Alaska Native Allotments at Risk: Technological Strategies for Monitoring Erosion and Informing Solutions in Southwest Alaska

After the United States’ purchase of Alaska from Russia in 1867, Alaska Native lands have existed in a legal state of aboriginal title, whereby the land rights of its traditional occupants could be extinguished by Congress at any time. With the passage of the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act (ANCSA) in 1971, however, Alaska Native individuals were given the opportunity to select and secure a title to ancestral lands as federally administered ANCSA 14(c) allotments. Today, though, these allotments are threatened by climate-change-driven erosion. In response, our article provides an erosion monitoring tool to quantify the damage caused by coastal and riverine erosion. Using the Yup’ik (pl. Yupiit) community of Quinhagak as a case study, we employ high-precision measurement devices and archival spatial datasets to demonstrate the immense scale of the loss of cultural lands in this region. From 1976 to 2022, an average of 30.87 m of coastline were lost according to 9 ANCSA 14(c) case studies within Quinhagak’s Traditional Land Use Area. In response, we present a free erosion monitoring tool and urge tribal entities in Alaska to replicate our methods for recording and quantifying erosion on their shareholders’ ANCSA 14(c) properties. Doing so will foster urgent dialogue between Alaskan Native communities and lawmakers to determine what measures are needed to protect Alaska Native land rights in the face of new environmental challenges.

A history of CSIRO’s Central Australian Laboratory 2, 1980–2018: interdisciplinary land research

In the first 27 years of the Central Australian Laboratory (CAL), to 1980, research focussed almost entirely on the needs of the pastoral industry. By the 1980s, ongoing campaigns for Aboriginal land rights and demands to conserve biodiversity plainly showed that there were other land uses deserving research attention. Initially CAL’s research agenda expanded to include conservation in spinifex grasslands and grazing lands but remained biophysical in nature. It subsequently became clear that people’s roles in decision-making about land use and management should be part of research. By the 2000s, scientists were able to build trusting relationships with Aboriginal people and organisations and undertake collaborative studies to improve livelihoods and wellbeing on country. Over the 38 years from 1980 to 2018, CAL’s research activities responded to diverse societal expectations but it was not enough to prevent the laboratory’s eventual closure as public investment in rangelands dwindled.

McGirt v. Oklahoma: Implications of the 2020 Supreme Court Decision for Native America

On October 12, 2020, four Native American scholars, jurists, and activists engaged in a panel discussion (via Zoom) that examined the historical contexts and implications of the US Supreme Court’s McGirt v. Oklahoma ruling, a significant victory for Native land rights. The edited transcript presented here includes a question-and-answer segment from the virtual audience. This panel was made possible through the generous financial support of the Hightower Lecture Fund of Emory University and was co-sponsored by the Native American and Indigenous Students Initiative, Emory's Michael C. Carlos Museum, and the School of Law Health Law, Policy & Ethics Project.

Hak Orang Asal Berkaitan dengan Pengambilalihan Tanah: Kajian Perbandingan antara Malaysia dengan Filipina

The Orang Asli are in a precarious position compared to other majority groups in Peninsular Malaysia as their customary land rights are continuously infringed upon. This is worrying because land is a vital part of the Orang Asli livelihood. Several issues regarding the provisions of native land rights, acquisition of Orang Asli ancestral land not in line with correct procedure, and issues concerning compensation for any acquisition of ancestral land are the main problems faced by the Orang Asli. Hence, the main objective of this research is to examine the legal rights of the Orang Asli to their ancestral land in Peninsular Malaysia, to throw light on the correct procedure of acquisition of such according to legal provisions, and to compare and contrast acquisition of native ancestral land in Peninsular Malaysia to that in the Philippines. Through a doctrinal and comparative approach, this research hopes to enhance knowledge regarding Orang Asli customary rights to land and land acquisition in Peninsular Malaysia, as well as to aid law-makers to reform existing laws and policies in order to ensure protection of Orang Asli rights in the future.

Mining and Communities in the Arctic: Lessons from Baker Lake, Canada

In this paper, we explore mining in Arctic Canada from the perspective of the people on the communities there, in particular the Inuit, the pre-colonial people of the area. To do so, we first provide a brief overview of the history of mining in Canada including recent incursions into Nunavut. Then, we examine the place of aboriginal people including the Inuit in the modern global economy. We focus on their desire to participate in this economy on their own terms, meaning the respect of traditional land rights, and the respect and incorporation of traditional environmental knowledge, culture, values and practices in economic activities. Following this, we examine aboriginal land rights and settlement in Northern Canada. After this is done, we go on to consider the particular case of Baker Lake in Nunavut. Finally, we draw some conclusions from the case that can be generalised to other communities in the Arctic.

Songlines and Land Claims; Space and Place

The Songlines of the Indigenous peoples of the country now called Australia are an invisible web of pathways which trace the journeys of ancestral spirits as they created the earth, seas, creatures and plants. They contain information about the land, encoding the locations of resources across the landscape throughout the seasons, and mapping sacred spaces and notable places. In addition, Songlines have also been of central significance in claims concerning title to land, taken under both the Aboriginal Land Rights (Northern Territory) Act, 1976 and the Native Title Act 1993 (Cth) (Commonwealth Native Title Act, 1993). Songlines have been ‘translated’ and ‘interpreted’ by experts, including historians and anthropologists, for use in land claims under the common law and have been recognised as symbols of land ownership. This article provides a discussion of the Songlines, discusses their status in the legal system of Australia as evidence of title to land, and analyses the role of experts in decoding Songlines in legal proceedings.

By the Fox or the Little Eagle: What Remains Not Regional?

By the Fox or the Little Eagle: What Remains Not Regional?

“Weird Melancholy” and the Modern Television Outback: Rage, Shame, and Violence in Wake in Fright and Mystery Road

In the middle of the nineteenth century, Marcus Clarke famously described the Australian outback as displaying a 'Weird Melancholy' (qtd. in Gelder 116). The strange sights, sounds, and experiences of Australia’s rural locations made them ripe for the development of the European genre of the Gothic in a new location, a mutation which has continued over the past two centuries. But what does it mean for Australia’s Gothic landscapes to be associated with the affective qualities of the melancholy? And more particularly, how and why does this Gothic effect (and affect) appear in the most accessible Gothic media of the twenty-first century, the television series? Two recent Australian television adaptations, Wake in Fright (2017, dir. Kriv Stenders) and Mystery Road (2018, dir. Rachel Perkins) provoke us to ask the question: how does their pictorial representation of the Australian outback and its inhabitants overtly express rage and its close ties to melancholia, shame and violence? More particularly, I argue that in both series this rage is turned inwards rather than outwards; rage is turned into melancholy and thus to self-destruction – which constructs an allegory for the malaise of our contemporary nation. However, here the two series differ. While Wake in Fright posits this as a never-ending narrative, in a true Freudian model of melancholics who fail to resolve or attend to their trauma, Mystery Road is more positive in its positioning, allowing the themes of apology and recognition to appear, both necessary for reparation and forward movement.

Unsettled: The Afterlife of the Newcastle Post Office

ABSTRACTThe former central post office (1900–1904) in the regional Australian city of Newcastle is a substantial public building and significant landmark. Designed by the New South Wales Government Architect Walter Liberty Vernon (1846–1914) and constructed in a phase of confident urban growth, it reflects major trends in public architecture of the period. In this sense, it is normative cultural heritage, a major marker of civic progress as traditionally understood, and therefore, a representative place in its community. But its sale by Australia Post in 2002 set in train a sequence of events that unsettled the seemingly stable meaning of the building. The period of obsolescence and dilapidation that followed culminated in a successful land claim by the Awabakal Local Aboriginal Land Council (LALC) in 2015 under the NSW Aboriginal Land Rights Act (1983). This paper investigates the after-life of the Newcastle Post Office and the intertwining of heritage and land rights via the politics and legal process connected with the building. Ultimately, the paper argues that the building’s story and its condition highlight the haunted character of all settler heritage in Australia and the troubled claims of place-based citizenship that are connected with it.

Native Title vs land rights: is change more effective when it is achieved through social and political activism or the courts?

This paper explores the effectiveness of social and political activism in achieving change compared with pursuing legal action through the courts, analysing campaigns to achieve Aboriginal land rights and the Mabo case.

“If Land was a Head: A Critique of ‘Country’”

This paper considers specific cultural practices and beliefs and contemplates the western rejection of exotica (head-hunting) in one instance, and exotifying of land (increasingly referred to as country) in other. The paper will argue that while precise meaning of head-hunting remains elusive to aliens (even other head-hunters from different cultures), just as full meaning of land or to Aborigines remains elusive to aliens (including Aborigines from different regions), there are contiguities between Indigenous understandings of heads and Indigenous understandings of country. Contrary to taking of heads paper then argues that notions of land and country are readily sentimentalised along lines of the earth is my mother, and that such sentiments contribute to broad support for Aboriginal land rights. Such sentiments also provide a ready means for Aborigines who have never lived on country to nevertheless explain its significance to them. A broad sweep of contemporary interests – concern for environment for example – intersect with customary beliefs relating to country and are reified in local communities, which in turn influences how specific cultures are understood and which aspects of culture should be conserved.

Remediating Australia’s cultural memory: Aboriginal memoir as social activism

During the 1980s Aboriginal Australians experienced setbacks in their quest for the restoration of their land rights. Neoliberal politics reframed such demands as special interests seeking to gain a material advantage at the expense of the general community and as a threat to the economic security of the nation. As a consequence, politicians failed to pass legislation that would formalize the national land rights system that would guarantee Aboriginal economic self-sufficiency. This paper argues that it was in this context that Aboriginal memoir emerged to prompt social action by recounting experiences of discrimination and exploitation erased by official history and by challenging the imposed racist stereotypes used to marginalize Aboriginal claims. These memoirs prompted sympathy and understanding among a broad readership, which enabled the formation of a political solidarity over the recognition of Aboriginal land rights. These memoirs also expressed a commonality of Aboriginal experience that served to unite an increasingly frayed Aboriginal activist movement eroded by neoliberal policies.

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

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

友永雄吾著, 『オーストラリア先住民の土地権と環境管理』, 明石書店, 2013年

友永雄吾著, 『オーストラリア先住民の土地権と環境管理』, 明石書店, 2013年

The Struggle for Land Rights Will Not Be Televised

Clare Corbould examines the Roots miniseries’ impact on both white Australians’ quest for a glorified settler history and on black Australians’ activism around Aboriginal land rights.

Where Fanny Balbuk Walked: Re-imagining Perth’s Wetlands

Where Fanny Balbuk Walked: Re-imagining Perth’s Wetlands

Nganampa Health Council Dental Program: Remote Dentistry in the Australian Desert-Partnership or Perish.

The Nganampa Health Council (literally "Our Health Council") is an Aboriginal community-controlled Primary Health Care service established in 1983. It was born out of the political struggle for Aboriginal Land Rights in South Australia which culminated in The Anangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara (APY) Land Rights Act, 1981, a milestone in Indigenous Land Rights both in Australia and internationally.