Aboriginal Relations Research Articles

The Macassan–Aboriginal relationship and the Commonwealth of Australia 1901–1906

The relationship between Macassan trepangers and Aboriginal people became a political issue for the Commonwealth of Australia between 1901 and 1906. The cultural interchange between these groups, and how their interactions were understood and acted upon by white Australian society, has been the subject of academic investigation. This article builds upon existing research and highlights that in the final years of the trade the Macassan–Aboriginal relationship raised diplomatic, constitutional and political questions for the Commonwealth before the trade was ended in 1906. The Commonwealth’s position has not been widely understood and is noteworthy for its disinterest and unwillingness to act against the trade.

Discussing the Negative Impacts of Virtual Pilgrimage on Socio-Cultural & Religious Activities of Selected Asian Destinations during the Covid-19 Crisis, and the Need for Physical Presence

Pilgrimage tourism involves the physical traveling of pilgrims to a specific place of rituals. Pilgrimage as a distant journey has immense contributions to the sustainable development of tourism destinations until recently. The emergence of the Covid-19 crisis introduced some socio-cultural and religious changes through virtual pilgrimage (VP). VP is a type of pilgrimage that limits the physical presence of pilgrims to the place of rituals. Although VP reduces the spread of Covid-19 infections, it limits the sustainable development of socio-cultural benefits of biodiversity. For example, it reduces the aesthetic values of natural ecosystems and aboriginal relationships with the pilgrims. Previous studies on pilgrimage tourism have neglected the socio-cultural impacts of VP on tourism destinations during the Covid-19 crisis, preferring to focus instead on tourism development and types of pilgrimage. This emphasis could be critical if not well addressed. This study explored the negative impacts of VP on the socio-cultural dimensions of biodiversity and religious activities of selected pilgrimage destinations during the Covid-19 crisis using primary and secondary data. Findings from stage one suggested that VP introduces socio-cultural and economic changes such as a decrease in arrivals, pilgrim’s well-being, and job opportunities. Stage two analysis confirmed the findings. The study also discussed the limitations and future studies.

Evaluation of the Aboriginal Relationship and Cultural Competency Courses among a sample of Indigenous Services Canada nurses

In 2015, Cancer Care Ontario launched the Aboriginal Relationship and Cultural Competency (ARCC) courses, which stress the importance for healthcare professionals to understand and apply First Nations, Inuit, and Métis (FNIM) cultural safety to provide effective person-centred care. The courses address a key recommendation from the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada report, to provide skills-based training in cultural competency, conflict resolution, human rights and anti-racism. The objective of the evaluation is to validate the tool to assess: if the delivery mechanism is appropriate and feasible; if participants acquire an increased knowledge of the courses' contents; and if positive change in how healthcare practice is delivered is perceived to have resulted. After the ARCC courses were mandated for Indigenous Services Canada (ISC) nurses, an anonymous survey was delivered and a focus group was conducted at a regional meeting. The responses from the surveys were gathered in an excel spreadsheet for analyses and the focus group data were analyzed for key themes. All the nurses in attendance completed the survey (n=22) and a portion participated in the focus group (n=8). Our evaluation demonstrated that free, online, module formatted courses were appropriate and relevant for ISC nurses (81%); the courses increased the knowledge about FNIM people (72%); and the nurses have/will apply what they learned in their practice (82%). There has been an increasing movement for regions and organizations in Canada to complete cultural competency training. Our evaluation demonstrated that free, online, module formatted courses were successful at meeting learning objectives.

‘Factotum and friend’: Anthropologists, informants and ethnographic exchange in central Australia

ABSTRACTIn this paper I discuss the ethnographic encounter between two Aboriginal men and various Australian anthropologists during the late nineteenth and early twentieth-century. These men, Mickey Dow Dow and Jim Kite, played a critical role in the development of a body of knowledge associated with Australian Aboriginal people. The important role that these men played in shaping an understanding of Aboriginal relationships to place, personhood and myth is significant. By critically interrogating the field notebooks and diaries of the seminal Australian ethnographers that worked with these men I bring to the fore the nature of these engagements and discuss the various ways in which ideas were communicated. Critically, it was illustrations, maps and acts of translation and performance that often worked to bridge the gap between understandings.

Aboriginal relationships to the natural world: colonial ‘protection’ of human rights and the environment

Colonialism has challenged Aboriginal obligations and relationships to the natural world. This article describes the efforts of First Nations on the continent now known as Australia to maintain their authority and existences in the face of neoliberalism and colonialism, which the British initially inflicted and under which we still survive. The colonial policies of Australia denied our existence and at the same time attempted to demolish our languages and cultures, and to assimilate the consequences. This article asks the questions: what underpins state claims to the title to Aboriginal lands? Does Australia renounce terra nullius and the racist principles and beliefs which make up such a doctrine? And finally does Australia acknowledge and support all ‘Peoples’ as having an inherent right to self-determination, and as a component of such a right, that all ‘Peoples’ have a right to collectively care for their country and to benefit from a relationship to the land which sustains future generations of all Peoples? The possibility of a future for all life forms on earth lies in the responses states might deliver to these questions.

Significant Tree Legislation in South Australia: Reflecting Aboriginal and colonial relationships to the environment

Adelaide, the capital city of South Australia, is experiencing dramatic changes to planning legislation in anticipation of increased population growth as a result of its bid to develop a world-class city. The Kaurna, as the traditional owners, have largely been ignored in consultations over proposed changes. Indeed, the push for development reinforces the next chapter of a colonial project, legitimating a discourse of terra nullius for Kaurna and largely thwarting their native title aspirations. In this article, I discuss how the push to modernize Adelaide and satellite centres hides a reinvigoration of the colonists’ fear of the bush and a desire to impose order and civilization through the built environment. Significant trees have become sites of contested identity within Aboriginal and colonial relationships as pressures for the expansion of the city and suburbs drive changes to regulations protecting trees at the expense of environmental concerns and the protection of wildlife.

Aboriginal Students’ Perspectives on the Factors Influencing High School Completion

The Canadian education system is failing its Aboriginal students as evidenced by the significant proportion not completing high school. The Aboriginal population has experienced a significantly greater proportion of people living in poverty and higher rates of unemployment than has the non-Aboriginal population. These factors can be linked to the Aboriginal population's lower educational attainment. The research questions in this phenomenological study explored the influences that encourage Aboriginal middle-level students to remain engaged in school, thus promoting the likelihood of their completing high school. Data were collected through semistructured interviews with 10 Aboriginal adolescents identified as being at risk of dropping out before completing high school. Data were analyzed using semiotic phenomenology, including description, reduction, and interpretation. Study findings identified the importance of schools providing linkages to students’ Aboriginal heritages and relationship building between teachers and students. This study adds the students’ perspective to the existing body of knowledge related to Aboriginal student school engagement. Positive social change can be effected when classrooms model cultural inclusion, meaningful learning opportunities are provided for all students, and Aboriginal learners perceive they belong, resulting in a greater proportion of Aboriginal people living enriched, satisfying lives. Such activities also can lead to higher graduation rates.

The journey to ‘Forked Mountain’

In this article I examine the ways in which relationships between people and place constitute the factors that were influential in the historical development of a particular Aboriginal community in rural New South Wales. This case study is based on research undertaken in Coonabarabran 1 and may prove to be useful as a small contribution to the growing literature on change and continuity within Aboriginal relationships to land in the southeastern or ‘settled’ 2 regions of Australia. The Coonabarabran region on the northwestern slopes and plains of New South Wales falls within an area in which the matrilineal transmission of moieties and social totemic clans 3 may have significantly affected the nature of social relations amongst kinship groups both before and after contact with European society. 4 Rights in land have customarily been assigned through patrilineal descent. 5 However, such traditional practices in this area were particularly affected by the rapid nature of the process of conquest and appropriation of country 6 , the economic uses to which that land was put and the scale of European migration into the district. 7 In particular the dramatic reduction of the Aboriginal population to that of a marginalised minority, with the emergence amongst that population of a large percentage of people of mixed descent, created the circumstances in which the forms of Aboriginal social organisation through which relationships to land were constituted underwent substantial transformation. 8

Leisure-Like Pursuits as an Expression of Aboriginal Cultural Strengths and Living Actions

An Aboriginal-guided decolonizing methodology is employed in this study to examine the leisure-like lived experiences of urban-dwelling Metis and First Nations women and men living with diabetes (N = 42) in Winnipeg, Canada. Directed by the Aboriginal knowledge and world views to ensure cultural sensitivity and relevance, this methodology served as foreground for the voices of the Aboriginal study participants into three key themes of leisure-like pursuits. The first two themes, (1) family, friends, and relationship-oriented pursuits and (2) helping people in community, are closely related within the nature of Aboriginal relationships. The third theme is spiritual and cultural activities. An overarching quality of these leisure-like pursuits is engagement in enjoyable activities that are a meaningful expression of lived culture.

Environmental conservation and Aboriginal knowledge in Australia

The discourse of the movement for reconciliation between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians is changing from one that is focused on supporting Indigenous social change, to one of developing non-Indigenous appreciation of Indigenous history and culture, which has its context in a specific relationship to land. Could a project that develops appreciation for the traditional Aboriginal relationship to land, and the knowledge arising there from, benefit both the environmental movement and the reconciliation movement? The contributions of four Australian academics on this topic are reviewed in this paper. All point to the need for new epistemological approach to environmental science, both in order to appreciate and incorporate Aboriginal knowledge, and to reembody scientific knowledge and the human being within the natural environment from where they arise. An introduction to Goethean phenomenology is taken from the work of Jochan Bochemuehl. This is offered as a new epistemological approach that affords a dialogue between the scientific community and Aboriginal groups in 'caring for country'.

Sovereign Spaces, Caring for Country, and the Homeless Position of Aboriginal Peoples

The laws of first peoples are connected to our traditional lands. The colonial project dispossesses us of land, but our laws are often still carried with us. These Aboriginal laws become like us, the native peoples, disconnected from country. So how is it possible for first peoples and our laws to survive this disconnection? And what is it we survive as? We are engulfed, inside a state that maintains its claim to sovereignty over Aboriginal lands and lives. This essay will explore the continuing connections to country from a place inside the “sovereign” space of the state, a space that guarantees no power to determine law-full Aboriginal obligations to country. Is it that all we have is a claim to law and homelands, a claim that may or may not be recognized by the colonial state? How can we keep the vision of Aboriginal relationships to country alive in a space where the universal, the global, views this relationship as an antiquated concept?

Water and its Importance: Portrayals Through Australian Indigenous Stories

Australian Aboriginal stories about water occur across the continent from temperate regions, to the desert and tropics. Most are about fresh water and had themes and outcomes that revolved around creation or changes of form. Most stories about waterholes came from the desert, most about floods, rain and swamps came from the tropics while most about water as a drink came from temperate areas. The actors in the stories included giants, spirits, moon, people, birds and other vertebrates. While western concepts of water relate very much to its cyclical nature as well as its use and abundance,those emerging from Aboriginal stories are complex and multi-dimensional extending into spiritual dimensions. The depiction of Aboriginal relationships involving water reveals a body of knowledge that is different from western concepts but that should be regarded as equally valid and respected, bringing with it a new richness to western thought.

The ‘Spirit’ of the Thing: The Boundaries of Aboriginal Economic Relations at Australian Common Law

Aboriginal economic relations have been misconstrued as a type of primitive exchange in at least one native title case discussed in this paper. The pursuit by Aboriginal native title claimants of recognition at law of customary economic rights as inherent in, or an adjunct of, native title rights failed in Yarmirr and Others v. Northern Territory of Australia and Others (1998) 156 ALR 370 (the ‘Croker Island case’) for several reasons. The applicant's native title was found to be non‐exclusive of other interests, and a right to trade in resources of the sea was rejected. This case was argued in part by relying on historical material regarding Macassan trading arrangements. The profound alterity of Aboriginal relationships among persons and things, as the Croker Island evidence of property and trade relations demonstrates, have been re‐constituted in legal discourse as an absence of economic relations. In this paper, we argue that there is no sound basis for the distinction made between commercial and non‐commercial native title rights, whether in the Native Title Act 1993 (Commonwealth of Australia), or in recent judicial reasoning. We contend that native title rights and interests constitute a sui generis species of property relations that enable economic rights as conceived in Aboriginal tradition and custom to circulate in the modern market. Aboriginal customary economic relations of and between Aboriginal groupings are markedly distinct from, yet not incommensurable with, the normative conception of economic relations in the Australian market. We argue that a reformulation of the current Australian legal ideas about economic life is necessary for the recognition of Aboriginal economic institutions in native title claims and other economic arenas.

Introduction: Current Directions in Australian Anthropologies of the Environment

Environmental anthropology is an expanding field in Australia. Extensive research on Aboriginal relationships to land and natural resources has provided the foundation for growing anthropological interest in the interactions of other Australians with the biophysical environments they inhabit. Australian‐based anthropologists also continue to contribute to research on environmental beliefs and practices in other parts of the world. This paper provides a brief overview of previously explored themes in this field as a precursor to introducing new research and proposing additional areas of research. It is suggested that these could be usefully developed to enhance anthropological contributions to debates about environmental change in Australia and surrounding regions. We argue that there are roles for anthropologists as `cultural translators' in cross‐disciplinary engagements with environmental scientists and natural resource managers; as cultural theorists skilled at documenting and interpreting changing environmental attitudes; and as environmental advocates pursuing the knowledge needed to create more ecologically sustainable human communities. We also suggest that Australian anthropologies of the environment can make valuable theoretical and ethnographic contributions to this important international field of study.

Ontologies of the image and economies of exchange

ABSTRACTIn the early 1970s, the Aboriginal artist and activist Wandjuk Marika asked the Australian government to investigate the unauthorized use of Yolngu clan designs on a variety of commodity forms, inaugurating a process of recognizing Indigenous ownership of “copyright” in such designs. This treatment of design—and of culture—as a form of property involves understandings and practices of materiality and subjectivity that differ from those informing indigenous, Aboriginal relationships to cultural production and circulation. In this article I explore the significance for material culture theory of recent work on and events in the development of notions of cultural property. One of my main concerns is the relevance of local understandings of objectification, or objectness, and human action—as embedded in object‐ideologies. I discuss the limited capacity of legal discourses of cultural property to capture and reflect the concerns of Indigenous Australians about their own relation to culture, to creativity, and to expression.

Traditional Environmental Knowledge in Practice

Realizing the potential of comanagement requires that resource managers and First Nations learn to work together more effectively. This is a distant objective unless negative preconceptions of traditional environmental knowledge and management systems are examined and overcome. This article attempts to foster understanding by exploring and dispelling three myths about aboriginal peoples' relationships to the environment: the primitive technology myth, the indiscriminate harvesting myth, and the "disappearing Indian" myth. We argue that each is unfounded and illustrate our views with a case study of Vuntut Gwitchin ideology, resource use, and management practice.

Monitored Lives: Writing Indigenous Land Management and the State (Part Two)

My PhD research focuses on the manifestations of Aboriginal relationships to land in New South Wales. My research at first was very much centered on the specific issue of Aboriginal ‘involvement’ in five newly nominated Aboriginal owned national parks to be jointly managed with the NSW National Parks and Wildlife Service under the National Parks and Wildlife (Aboriginal Ownership) Amendment Act (NSW) 1996.

Seeking the centre: the Australian desert in literature, art and film

1. The land is a map: the Aboriginal relationship to the desert 2. Forms, images, imaginings: European myths of the desert 3. The 'hideous blank': imperatives for discovery 4. Geography is never innocent: or, what the explorers thought they saw 5. Perspectives on the desert: the art of exploration 6. 'On the tracts of thirst and furnace': dead explorers and national identity 7. Ripping yarns at the outpost of empire: the desert as adventure 8. From 'dead heart' to 'red centre': travellers' tales and the lure of gold 9. Seeing red: twentieth-century art of the desert 10. A gothic desert: psychodrama in fiction and film 11. Revisioning the explorers in twentieth-century art 12. Transforming myths: the explorers in twentieth-century literature 13. Seeing through biology: contemporary artists examine the desert 14. The desert in the Age of Aquarius: environmentalism and renewal 15. The art of reconciliation Appendix: some facts about the desert.

Aboriginal Children Want to Learn ‘Good School Work’

The study sets out to find out urban Aboriginal children's views of schools and teachers, particularly the things they enjoy and find valuable in their schooling experience and their ideas on what changes they would like to see. Literature indicates that whilst, on the one hand, Aboriginal parents and communities increasingly “want to help my children do better at school” (de Lacy, 1985, p..282), on the other hand very few succeed, especially once they have entered high school. A study by Goodnow and Burns (1985) has shown that primary school children are very discriminating judges of what helps them learn. Thus finding out what Aboriginal children actually say about their school experience may help educators to interpret their behaviour in the school setting more accurately and consequently to communicate with them more effectively. In the fairly extensive literature on Aboriginal children's education a number of relevant themes recur. One is the importance of personal relationships in Aboriginal children's learning. Affiliation is the basis of traditional Aboriginal relationships with individuality of the person secondary to the close knit family group. This is expressed as concern with affectionate relations in Aboriginal children's interactions with teachers and peers. It relates to what Honeyman (1986) calls traditional Aboriginal society's “humane teaching”, where education was through guidance rather than direct instruction. Another theme is the unpredictability of educational outcomes for Aboriginal students, particularly the nature of the acquisition of English literacy. “It is the most puzzling yet most debilitating characteristic of Aboriginal education to be recognised in recent times.” (Willmot, 1989, p.10) There are contradictory findings on Aboriginal adolescents' attitudes to school. Jordan (1984) in her South Australian study found that Aboriginal students had a “positive view of schooling and school personnel” (p.289).

The Exchange of Sister's Daughter's Daughters in Northeast Arnhem Land

1. Australian Aboriginal relationship terminologies can only (or best) be seen as structured according to patri-sequences (patrilines), in terms of which alliance properties can be expressed. This assumption stems from the pervasive influence of Radcliffe-Brown's The Social Organization of Australian Tribes (1931) and Elkin's The Australian Aborigines (latest edition 1964). Ruhemann (1945), by contrast, has demonstrated the utility of viewing these systems in terms of matri-sequences as well as patri-sequences; her contribution, however, has been largely ignored. RadcliffeBrown's Murngin analysis (1951) is also carried out with the aid of matrisequences, but these are regarded simply as diagrammatic devices with no necessary ethnographic validity. Finally, Berndt's representation of the same system (1955) contains matri-sequences, but these are not systematically described in his text (see Radcliffe-Brown 1956). 2. In societies with prescriptive marriage, alliance categories are identical, or at least isomorphic, with descent groups or local aggregates of kinsmen. Maybury-Lewis (1965) and, recently at least, Needham (1964, 1967) have proceeded without this assumption, but the overwhelming mass of the literature on elementary structures takes it for granted. This means, in the case at hand, that formal properties of alliance in northeast Arnhem Land are viewed largely in terms of patri-categories (see preceeding assumption), since there are patrilineal descent groups but no matrilineal descent groups or preference for uxorilocal residence. 3. Prescriptive marriage systems cannot be viewed as symmetric if they can be seen in terms of at least three patri-sequences with continuous asymmetric relationships with each other. Lane (1961) has challenged this, though her arguments have not been generally accepted and so far lack detailed published ethnographic support (but see Shapiro 1967a, 1967c, 1967d, 1969a, 1969b:Chapter 8). This assumption forms the basis of the attempts by Leach (1961:68-72), Berndt (1955), and others