Treatment Of Aboriginal People Research Articles

Seeking Poetic Justice: A Reading of Dylan Voller’s Prison Graffiti

When Four Corners aired the program ‘Australia’s Shame’ we entered into the prison cells of Darwin’s Don Dale Youth Detention Centre and witnessed through CCTV footage the torture of mostly Aboriginal inmates, enduring a colonial system of controlling and ‘settling’ them down. Images of Dylan Voller under a spit-hood and strapped to a restraint chair are horridly similar to the prison machine in Franz Kafka’s 1914 story: In the Penal Colony. In his story, Kafka’s prison machine is a ‘bed’ where the ‘condemned man is laid face-down naked’ and a marker carves script into the prisoner’s back that is “not easy to decipher with one’s eyes”, but the prisoner can “decipher the words “with his wounds” . One purpose of literary studies is to decipher the cultural markers responsible for humanity’s ‘wounds’ through the study of words or scripts known as texts. Kafka encourages us to read only the texts that wound us; books that allow us to reflect deeply, and with feeling, in order to inspire positive changes to the material world (Winston, 2016). Balla’s poem brings attention again to the treatment of Aboriginal children in Darwin’s Don Dale Youth Detention Centre. Her poem suggests there may be a poetic response to such atrocities if one reflects deeply. Recent texts that further expose Australia’s racist penal system and invite critical and creative reflection include, Kim Scott’s Taboo, Paul Collis’ Dancing Home and selected stories from Tony Birch’s Common People. These texts are published not long after the Four Corners exposé, and too inform writing about the treatment of Aboriginal people by white police and prison guards.

11. The Treatment of Aboriginal People in Canada during the 20th Century: Assimilation, Genocide and the Question of Intent

The United Nations definition for the term genocide requires that the accused party acts with “intent to destroy” another group. The question of intent provides the foundation for examining how assimilation and genocide are two possible difference elimination strategies that were employed by the Canadian government during the 20th Century against Native Canadians. Comparing the colonial setting that defines the Canadian case with the civil war setting that preoccupied the 1992 Bosnia genocide effectively highlights similarities between the two case studies. The similarities provide the opportunity to explore whether the condition of intent can be proven in such intricate environments, and whether or not the international community should give such heavy consideration to intent during the classification process for genocide.

Enlightenment or status defence? Education and social problem concerns from adolescence to midlife

This paper asks whether concerns about social problems decline with age. Unconditional growth models (without covariates) revealed a decline over 25 years (age 18 to 43) in concerns about racial discrimination, treatment of Aboriginal Peoples, female job discrimination, unemployment and environmental pollution. Educational attainment was not associated with these change trajectories in conditional control models, providing no support for enlightenment or social reproduction hypotheses. Higher household income (age 43) was associated with faster declines in concerns about racial discrimination, treatment of Aboriginal Peoples and unemployment. With household income as a predictor, downward trajectories in treatment of Aboriginal Peoples, female job discrimination and environmental pollution were no longer significant, and the racial discrimination trajectory was reversed direction. These results provide compelling evidence for status defence theory.

Improving the management of acute coronary syndrome for Aboriginal and non‐Aboriginal patients in a regional hospital

ObjectivesTo determine inequities in clinical adherence to national diagnostic and management guidelines for acute coronary syndrome (ACS) for Aboriginal and non‐Aboriginal ACS patients at a regional hospital. MethodsCovering two study periods (2011–12; 2013–14), records of Aboriginal (n=276) and a random selection of non‐Aboriginal patients (n=333) presenting to the Emergency Department with chest pain were retrospectively reviewed using an audit protocol. Groups were compared using logistic regression, controlling for age, sex and comorbidity. ResultsPathway utilisation improved overall, but risk stratification improved only for non‐Aboriginal patients (OR=3.34, 95%CI 1.88–5.94). Performance of two troponin measurements increased to 88% for both Aboriginal and non‐Aboriginal presentations. Although initially higher for non‐Aboriginal presentations, the likelihood of admission was found to be similar in the repeat audit (75.6% vs 78.6%; p=0.60), reflecting a rise in Aboriginal presentations being admitted (OR=2.30, 95%CI 1.27–4.15). There was no significant difference in proportions transferred, receiving angiograms or for ST Elevation Acute Coronary Syndrome (a severe form of Acute Coronary Syndrome) being thrombolysed. Discharge against medical advice remained higher among Aboriginal presentations (OR=4.22, 95%CI 0.88–20.29). Conclusions and implicationsAlthough there was a general improvement in adherence to the chest pain pathway and a reduction in inequity in the treatment of Aboriginal people, there is continuing need for improvement in adherence to guidelines to optimise the management of ACS in this regional setting.

Little England: nineteenth-century Tasmanian travel writing and settler colonialism

Tasmania was a distinctive location for nineteenth-century travellers, and a regular feature of the rich print culture that emerged from the British Empire. Regularly dubbed a “little England” because of its physical and environmental features, the island provided an early source of imperial ideas about Greater Britain and the spread of the Anglo-Saxon race. This paper traces the emergence of the “little England” trope in travel writing, emphasising the importance of this form for knowledge formation. It argues that the contested and violent history of Tasmania, especially the treatment of Aboriginal people, complicated the trope by making explicit the violence that underpinned British imperial expansion. Debates about the morality of colonisation both in the colonial period, and in recent scholarly publications, reveal the high visibility of Tasmania and the complex inheritances of its colonial past locally and in Britain.

Ted Binnema. “Enlightened Zeal”: The Hudson's Bay Company and Scientific Networks, 1670–1870.

The Hudson's Bay Company (HBC) held a royal charter to trade in the bay's watershed from 1670, and its territories expanded, after an 1821 merger with the North West Company, along the Arctic and Pacific coasts. Ted Binnema surveys the HBC's involvement with learned communities in Britain, Canada, and the United States from the HBC's founding until its monopoly was ended and its territories transferred to the Dominion of Canada in 1870. The HBC was involved in exploration, surveying, cartographic and observational sciences, astronomy, meteorology, natural history, and ethnology. Binnema's introduction promises a case study in the history of knowledge networks in the British Empire, but this ambition is limited by a narrow definition of “science.” Several thematic chapters on the period after 1821 are more successful in reconstructing the networks to which the HBC contributed during the heyday of natural history. Binnema's central argument is that after a century of secrecy, the HBC became a “generous patron of science” (p. 7) as the result of networks linking HBC directors and officers in the field, metropolitan savants and institutions, and aboriginal trading partners. These networks were held together by rewards and recognition. The main motive for the HBC's support of scientific endeavors was to burnish its reputation. Binnema catalogs every printed acknowledgment of HBC assistance as a public “tribute,” and claims that these expressions of thanks redefined the HBC “brand” as enlightened, disinterested, and benevolent (pp. 11, 13). Tributes countered criticism of its commercial monopoly or its treatment of aboriginal peoples. Many HBC officers had time on their hands in the field and natural history provided intangible benefits such as male companionship, self-improvement, or a sense of meaning.

Bullets, Teeth and Photographs: Recognising Indigenous Australians between the Wars

In 1927, an inquiry into what has come to be known as the Forrest River massacre sent shockwaves across Australia and overseas, playing an important part in the shift toward better treatment of Aboriginal people. The evidence tendered to the inquiry was narrowly forensic, focused upon dates, places and human remains, alongside three photographs of the outback crime scenes: how were these grainy, scratched, inscrutable images seen at the time? How should we look at them now? The horrified public preferred to look at more eloquent, familiar images of Indigenous suffering. In this paper I review these parallel, sometimes intersecting, ways of seeing Aboriginal people, and consider the role photography has played in arguing for Indigenous rights.

The Ethos of Canadian Aboriginal Law and the Potential Relevance of Federal Loyalty in a Reconfigured Relationship between Aboriginal and Non-Aboriginal Governments: A Thought Experiment

This paper does not seek to provide a comprehensive analysis of the fiduciary obligation or of the standard of the honour of the Crown, nor does it purport to thoroughly examine the particular normative implications flowing from of each of these juridical concepts. It seeks instead to build on the ethos that has arguably influenced, in the past three decades or so, the evolution of the legal treatment of Aboriginal peoples in Canada, and then to figure out whether it would be possible to push further the normative consequences of this ethos in a reconfigured relationship between Aboriginal peoples and non-Aboriginal governments. The paper’s main hypothesis is that the doctrine of federal loyalty may help us reflect on the possible normative consequences flowing from the establishment of a more egalitarian relationship between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal governments. This particular focus on federal loyalty stems from the Supreme Court of Canada’s own insistence on loyalty and trust in its case law pertaining to Aboriginal peoples. After mapping the role of trust and loyalty in that field of law (section I), this paper argues that there are some dimensions of federal loyalty that are already recognized to some extent in Canadian law (section II), and that examining the strong interpretation given to this principle in other federations such as Germany might shed light on its normative potential, in addition to highlighting the family resemblances between its ethos and that underlying contemporary Canadian Aboriginal law (section III).

From edinburgh university to the ngarrindjeri nation, south australia

European institutions collected indigenous Australian human remains from the late eighteenth century onwards, forming part of collections that contained the physical remains of people from all around the world, including Europe. Obtained for the purposes of studying so‐called ‘racial’ difference, their removal was deeply embedded within a racist scientific paradigm that has long been abandoned but which played a large part in the oppressive treatment of Aboriginal people by the colonizing state. Evidence that remains were taken without consent, and against the wishes of the indigenous population, permeates the historical literature. Since the 1980s many indigenous groups have campaigned for the return of their remains from institutions around the world so that they can be reburied. This article considers the case of Edinburgh University, which amassed a large collection of human remains from around the world in the nineteenth century and, following campaigning from Aboriginal people, adopted a pro‐repatriation policy in 1991.

A Movable Feast: Ten Millennia of Food Globalization (review)

Reviewed by: A Movable Feast: Ten Millennia of Food Globalization Coll Thrush A Movable Feast: Ten Millennia of Food Globalization. By Kenneth F. Kiple. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007. 384 pp. $27.00 (cloth). Is it possible to write a world history of food without simply reinforcing master narratives of “civilization”? Many recent works (e.g., Tom Standage’s popular The History of the World in Six Glasses [2005]) suggest that teleological just-so stories of progress and Western hegemony are difficult to avoid. Kenneth F. Kiple’s A Movable Feast: Ten Millennia of Food Globalization makes a valiant, if imperfect, attempt to escape such traps. The book arises in part from Kiple’s mammoth undertaking as editor of The Cambridge World History of Food, and unlike Standage, Kiple brings erudition and (literally) encyclopedic knowledge to his study. His central argument, while simple, is provocative. “Until now,” he argues, “we have looked at the Neolithic Revolution as if it were something that happened a long time ago. From another angle, however, it is still ongoing—a process of agricultural evolution” (p. 296). For Kiple, globalization begins with the invention of agriculture, predating by several millennia more familiar transformations such as the Columbian Exchange. This longue durée approach runs throughout A Movable Feast; Kiple even challenges the idea that “fast food” is new, gesturing toward venerable traditions of street food in places such as Edo and Damascus. Kiple’s study is replete with interesting anecdotes (although this is also one of A Movable Feast’s weaknesses: at times, it reads as little more than a list, albeit a fascinating one). He also makes a concerted effort to escape the Eurocentrism that mars so many global food histories. Asia and Africa play central roles in his story, and not just as [End Page 235] outliers: the Silk Road, for example, was a two-way street between the Yellow Sea and the Mediterranean, with winemaking traveling in one direction and noodles migrating in the other. However, in all too many cases his interpretive allegiances often seem to lie with the centers of “civilization.” The kumiss (fermented mare’s milk) of the Asian steppes was, in Kiple’s view, a “notorious Mongol libation,” and the fat-tailed sheep bred by Genghis Khan’s ancestors were “grotesque-looking” (p. 93). The Toltec empire collapsed because of “hoards [sic] of desperate Chicmec refugees” and “waves of wild desert folk” (p. 112), and the Aztec polity that followed is described as “an era of marching armies, war gods, and screaming captives sacrificed” to a “predatory empire” (p. 125). Even China falls prey to unnecessary bias; eggs buried with saltpeter and tea—a great delicacy—are characterized as “abominations in the eyes (and nostrils) of Westerners” (p. 23). Whether it is China or the Aztecs in the eyes of Europe, or the Mongols in the eyes of the Chinese and the Chicmecs in the eyes of the Toltecs, Kiple’s tendency is to write from the perspective of the more “civilized” society, reinforcing both hoary stereotypes and longstanding normative paradigms. These biases and interpretive slips are especially apparent in A Movable Feast’s treatment of aboriginal peoples and societies based on hunting and gathering. Kiple notes that hunter-gatherers fared better in terms of physical well-being and equitable resource distribution than many sedentary agriculturalists; indeed, it was the latter whose lives were nasty, brutish, and short. Arguing such a claim is “blatantly heretical in light of the Western teleological spin given to the history of human progress” (p. 3), Kiple then succumbs to that same spin—indeed, his central argument about “agricultural evolution” is built upon it. Comparing indigenous North Americans to societies elsewhere, Kiple notes that aboriginal people “maintained their health . . . by not completing the transition from hunting and gathering—and such incompletion characterized most North American Native societies” (p. 122). This notion of indigenous societies as “incomplete” is both incorrect (many aboriginal North American peoples practiced agriculture) and reminiscent of outdated hierarchies. At times, Kiple even seems to blame indigenous peoples for their own “incompleteness” or for the dietary misfortunes of others: aboriginal South Americans “passed up a good source of protein” by not...

Secession and Constitutional Principles: Working with the Supreme Court's Statement of Principles

In the 1990s the Canadian Supreme Court was presented with the daunting challenge of assessing the legality of unilateral secession. It produced a ruling with the well-known conclusion that in the event of a clear expression of democratic will to secede, there was a duty on the part of all concerned to negotiate. There has been much debate about the idea of a duty to negotiate. Another aspect of the judicial decision that merits attention was the court's reliance on four principles (federalism, democracy, legitimacy and the rule of law, and respect for minorities) and their depiction of these principles. This essay reviews how the judiciary framed these principles and analyses the strengths and weaknesses of their conceptualisation. While the court's decision was a landmark in constitutional debates, the conceptual treatment of individual principles merits renewed attention, and various issues (such as the treatment of aboriginal peoples) warrant further reflection.

Donald Thomson and the Freedom of ExclusionDonald Thomson: The Man and Scholar. Edited by Bruce Rigsby and Nicolas Peterson. Canberra: Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia, 2005.

Donald Thomson and the Freedom of Exclusion<i>Donald Thomson: The Man and Scholar</i>. Edited by Bruce Rigsby and Nicolas Peterson. Canberra: Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia, 2005.

Aboriginal Self-Determination in Canada : Protections Afforded by the Judiciary and Government

RésuméOn présume en général que les arrêts décisifs de la Cour suprême canadienne représentent une tendance vers une protection croissante des droits des Autochtones en droit canadien. Cet article prend la position inverse. En dépit des décisions judiciaires concernant des droits autochtones sous 35(1), les droits des peuples autochtones du Canada ne sont pas mieux protégés. Les juges ont plutôt développé différents tests juridiques qui ont freiné l'élargissement de droits autochtones. On découvre ainsi que la reconnaissance politique et gouvernementale des peuples autochtones et de leurs droits, incluant le droit à l'autodétermination, fut plus grande que celle par la Cour suprême du Canada, et ceci malgré le traitement destructeur des peuples autochtones par l'État canadien. Le gouvernement du Canada a été prêt à reconnaître leur droit inhérent à l'autodétermination. Ceci est dû au statut légal modifié de qui constitue un «peuple» en droit international et au rôle du gouvernement canadien en tant que signataire de plusieurs conventions et déclarations internationales, tout autant qu'à des déclarations politiques plus récentes et des développements dans les négociations territoriales et d'autonomie plus globales.

Canadian Aboriginal Law: Creating Certainty in Resource Development

This paper discusses legal developments relating to the relationship between Canadian governments and Canada's Aboriginal peoples regarding certainty of access to natural resources. Canadian Aboriginal law has undergone a complete evolution in the 23 years since Canada's Constitution was amended to recognise the then vague concept of ‘existing Aboriginal and treaty rights’. What is notable is the influence of the common law and Canadian administrative law in developing the new doctrines of the Crown's duty to consult and, where appropriate, accommodate Aboriginal peoples. The honour of the Crown and reconciliation have moved Canadian Aboriginal law from a comfortless uncertainty to a legal certainty in which Canadian governments continue to manage natural resources, but do so subject to fair treatment of Aboriginal peoples.

Social Justice from the Confessional?

Social Justice from the Confessional?

The evolution of the end-stage renal disease program in Australia.

Australia was an early pioneer of national integrated programs for the management of end-stage renal disease (ESRD). From being a leader in numbers of patients per population treated, it is now in the top 15. The Australian program has a high proportion of living patients with functioning transplants and a high proportion of out-of-hospital dialysis. The proportion of elderly patients is increasing but lower than expected. A particular problem is the treatment of Aboriginal people. The ANZ Data surveys give accurate complete data for the national program. Unique features of the Australian patients are the high incidence of analgesic nephropathy and the low incidence of primary hypertension as a cause of renal failure. Surveys show that it is possible to improve transplantation rates 2 to 3 times. Analysis of Australian data raises the question of whether dialysis and transplantation should be offered to all potential patients regardless of comorbidity or quality of life when health resources are inevitably finite.