Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Aboriginal Australians New South Wales'

"22nd November, 2006".
Thesis (PhD)--Macquarie University, Division of Society, Culture, Media & Philosophy, Dept. of Anthropology, 2007.
Bibliography: leaves 301-330.
Introduction -- Between ourselves -- Two (or three) for the price of one -- Community -- Bits and pieces -- Space painting or painting space -- Talkin' the talk. Bunda bunya miumba (Thundering kangaroos): dancing up a storm -- Welcome to Country: talkin' the talk -- Messing with ceremony -- 'Ethnogenesis' and the emergence of 'darug custodians' -- Conclusion.
The thesis concerns an Aboriginal community, members of which inhabit the western suburbs of Sydney at the beginning of the twenty-first century. This particular group of people has emerged as a cultural group over the last twenty-five years. In other words, the community did not exist before the advent of Aboriginal land rights in Australia. It might be right to suggest that without land rights, native title and state celebrations and inclusions of Aboriginal peoples as multicufturalism, this particular urban community would not and could not exist at all. That, however, would be a simplistic analysis of a complex phenomenon. Land rights and native title provide the beginning of this story. It becomes much more interesting when the people concerned take it up themselves. -- The main foci in the thesis are the cultural forms that this particular community overtly and intentionally produce as articulations of their identity, namely public speaking, dancing, painting and ceremony. I argue that it is only through these yery deliberate collective practices of identity-making that community identity can be produced. This is because the place that the group claims as its own - Sydney - is always already inhabited by 'us' (the dominant society). Analysis of these cultural forms reveals that even if the existence of the group depends on land rights and, attempts to attract the ultimate 'authenticity' bestowed by native title, members of this group are not conforming to native title rules pertinent to what constitutes 'genuine' 'Aboriginality' for the purposes of winning land claims. Their revived traditions are pot what the state prescribes as representative of 'authentic' urban Aboriginal culture. -- The thesis analyses the ways in which urban Aboriginal peoples are makipg themselves in the era and context of native title. It considers the consequences of being themselves.
Mode of access: World Wide Web.
xii, 330, [8] leaves ill., maps

Thesis (PhD)--Macquarie University, Division of Society, Culture, Media & Philosophy, Department of Anthropology, 2006.
Bibliography: p. 257-276.
Introduction: coming to Wilcannia -- Wilcannia: plenty of Aborigines, but no culture -- Who you is? -- Cultural values: ambivalences and ambiguities -- Praise, success and opportunity -- "Art an' culture: the two main things, right?" -- Big Murray Butcher: "We still doin' it" -- Granny Moisey's baby: the art of Badger Bates -- Epilogue.
Dominant society discourses and images have long depicted the Aboriginal people of the town of Wilcannia in far Western New South Wales as having no 'culture'. In asking what this means and how this situation might have come about, the thesis seeks to respond through an ethnographic exploration of these discourses and images. The work explores problematic and polemic dominant society assumptions regarding 'culture' and 'Aboriginal culture', their synonyms and their effects. The work offers Aboriginal counter-discourses to the claim of most white locals and dominant culture that the Aboriginal people of Wilcannia have no culture. In so doing the work presents reflexive notions about 'culture' as verbalised and practiced, as well as providing an ethnography of how culture is more tacitly lived. -- Broadly, the thesis looks at what it is to be Aboriginal in Wilcannia from both white and black perspectives. The overarching concern of this thesis is a desire to unpack what it means to be black in Wilcannia. The thesis is primarily about the competing values and points of view within and between cultures, the ways in which Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal people tacitly and reflexively express and interpret difference, and the ambivalence and ambiguity that come to bear in these interactions and experiences. This thesis demonstrates how ideas and actions pertaining to 'race' and 'culture' operate in tandem through an exploration of values and practices relating to 'work', 'productivity', 'success', 'opportunity' and the domain of 'art'. These themes are used as vehicles to understanding the 'on the ground' effects and affects of cultural perceptions and difference. They serve also to demonstrate the ambiguity and ambivalence that is experienced as well as being brought to bear upon relationships which implicitly and explicitly are concerned with, and concern themselves with difference.
Mode of access: World Wide Web.
xii, 276 p. ill

Thesis (PhD)--Macquarie University, Division of Environmental & Life Sciences, Graduate School of the Environment, 2002.
Includes bibliographical references: p. 228-232.
Geomorphology, archaeology and geoarchaeology: introduction and background -- Surface stone artefact scatters: why can we see them? -- Geomorphic controls on spatial patterning of the surface stone artefact record -- A temporal framework for interpreting surface artefact scatters in Western NSW -- Synthesis: stone artefact scatters in a dynamic landscape.
Surface scatters of stone artefacts are the most ubiquitous feature of the Australian Aboriginal archaeological record, yet the most underutilized by archaeologists in developing models of Aboriginal prehistory. Among the many reasons for this are the lack of understanding of geomorphic processes that have exposed them, and the lack of a suitable chronological framework for investigating Aboriginal 'use of place'. This thesis addresses both of these issues. -- In arid western NSW, erosion and deposition accelerated as a result of the introduction of sheep grazing in the mid 1800s has resulted in exposure of artefact scatters in some areas, burial in others, and complete removal in those parts of the landscape subject to concentrated flood flows. The result is a patchwork of artefact scatters exhibiting various degrees of preservation, exposure and visibility. My research at Stud Creek, in Sturt National Park in far western NSW, develops artefact and landscape survey protocols to accommodate this dynamic geomorphic setting. A sampling strategy stratified on the basis of landscape morphodynamics is presented that allows archaeologists to target areas of maximum artefact exposure and minimum post-discard disturbance. Differential artefact visibility at the time of the survey is accommodated by incorporating measures of surface cover which quantify the effects of various ephemeral environmental processes, such as deposition of sediments, vegetation growth, and bioturbation, on artefact count. -- While surface stone artefact scatters lack the stratigraphy usually considered necessary for establishing the timing of Aboriginal occupation, a combination of radiocarbon determinations on associated heat-retainer ovens, and stratigraphic analysis and dating of the valley fills which underlie the scatters, allows a two-stage chronology for huntergatherer activity to be developed. In the Stud Creek study area, dating of the valley fill by OSL established a maximum age of 2,040±100 y for surface artefact scatters. The heatretainer ovens ranged in age from 1630±30 y BP to 220±55 y BP. Bayesian statistical analysis of the sample of 28 radiocarbon determinations supported the notion, already established from analysis of the artefacts, that the Stud Creek valley was occupied intermittently for short durations over a relatively long period of time, rather than intensively occupied at any one time. Furthermore, a gap in oven building between about 800 and 1100 years ago was evident. Environmental explanations for this gap are explored, but the paiaeoenvironmental record for this part of the Australian arid zone is too sparse and too coarse to provide explanations of human behaviour on time scales of just a few hundred years. -- Having established a model for Stud Creek of episodic landscape change throughout the late Pleistocene and Holocene, right up to European contact, its veracity was evaluated in a pilot study at another location within the region. The length of the archaeological record preserved in three geomorphically distinct locations at Fowlers Gap, 250 km south of Stud Creek, is a function of geomorphic dynamics, with a record of a few hundred years from sites located on channel margins and low terraces, and the longest record thus far of around 5,000 years from high terrace surfaces more remote from active channel incision. But even here, the record is not continuous, and like Stud Creek, the gaps are interpreted to indicate that Aboriginal people moved into and out of these places intermittently throughout the mid to late Holocene. -- I conclude that episodic nonequilibrium characterizes the geomorphic history of these arid landscapes, with impacts on the preservation of the archaeological record. Dating of both archaeological and landform features shows that the landscape, and the archaeological record it preserves, are both spatially and temporally disjointed. Models of Aboriginal hunter-gatherer behaviour and settlement patterns must take account of these discontinuities in an archaeological record that is controlled by geomorphic activity. -- I propose a new geoarchaeological framework for landscape-based studies of surface artefact scatters that incorporates geomorphic analysis and dating of landscapes, as well as tool typology, into the interpretation of spatial and temporal patterns of Aboriginal huntergatherer 'use of place'.
Mode of access: World Wide Web.
vii, 232 p. ill., maps

Thesis (MA)--Macquarie University (Division of Society, Culture, Media & Philosophy. Warawara - Dept. of Indigenous Studies), 2005.
Bibliography: p. 327-333.
Introduction -- Sources and literature -- The notebooks -- Manuscripts and databases -- Neighbouring languages -- Phonology -- Pronouns -- Verbs -- Nouns -- Other word classes -- Retrospect and prospect.
'Wara wara!" - 'go away' - the first indigenous words heard by Europeans at the time of the social upheaval that began in 1788, were part of the language spoken by the inhabitants around the shores of Port Jackson from time immemorial. Traces of this language, funtionally lost in two generations, remain in words such as 'dingo' and 'woomera' that entered the English language, and in placenames such as 'Cammeray' and 'Parramatta'. Various First Fleeters, and others, compiled limited wordlists in the vicinity of the harbour and further afield, and in the early 1900s the surveyor R.H. Mathews documented the remnants of the Dharug language. Only as recently as 1972 were the language notebooks of William Dawes, who was noted by Watkin Tench as having advanced his studies 'beyond the reach of competition', uncovered in a London university library. The jottings made by Dawes, who was learning as he went along, are incomplete and parts defy analysis. Nevertheless much of his work has been confirmed, clarified and corrected by reference to records of the surrounding languages, which have similar grammatical forms and substantial cognate vocabulary, and his verbatim sentences and model verbs have permitted a limited attempt at reconstructing the grammar.
Mode of access: World Wide Web.
xxi, 333 p. ill. (some col.), maps (some col.), ports

"November 2003".
Thesis (PhD)--Macquarie University, Australian Centre for Educational Studies, School of Education, 2004.
Bibliography: leaves 243-267.
Introduction -- Literature review -- Meanings and perspectives of Reconciliation in the Australian socio-political context -- An explanation of the research method -- Meanings of Reconciliation in the school context -- Survey results -- The role of education in the Reconciliation process -- Obstacles and barriers to Reconciliation -- Teaching for Reconciliation: best practice in teaching resources -- Conclusion.
The research detailed in this thesis investigated how schools in NSW responded to the social and political project of Reconciliation at the end of the 1990s. -- The research used a multi-method research approach which included a survey instrument, focus group interviews and key informants interviews with Aboriginal and non Aboriginal teachers, elders and educators, to gather qualitative as well as quantitative data. Differing research methodologies, including Indigenous research paradigms, are presented and discussed within the context of this research. From the initial research questions a number of sub-questions emerged which included: -The exploration of meanings and perspectives of Reconciliation evident in both the school and wider communities contexts and the extent to which these meanings and perspectives were transposed from the community to the school sector. -The perceived level of support for Reconciliation in school communities and what factors impacted on this level of support. -Responses of school communities to Reconciliation in terms of school programs and teaching strategies including factors which enhanced the teaching of Reconciliation issues in the classroom and factors which acted as barriers. -- Firstly in order to provide the context for the research study, the thesis provides a brief historical overview of the creation of the Council for Aboriginal Reconciliation. It then builds a framework through which the discourses of Reconciliation are presented and deconstructed. These various meanings and perspectives of Reconciliation are placed within a linear spectrum of typologies, from 'hard', 'genuine' or 'substantive' Reconciliation advocated by the Left, comprising a strong social justice agenda, first nation rights and compensation for past injustices, to the assimiliationist typologies desired by members of the Right which suggest that Reconciliation is best achieved through the total integration of Aboriginal people into the mainstream community, with Aboriginal people accepting the reality of their dispossession. -- In between these two extremes lie degrees of interpretations of what constitutes Reconciliation, including John Howard's current Federal Government interpretation of 'practical' Reconciliation. In this context "Left" and "Right" are defined less by political ideological lines of the Labor and Liberal parties than by attitudes to human rights and social justice. Secondly, and within the socio-political context presented above, the thesis reports on research conducted with Indigenous and non Indigenous educators, students and elders in the context of the NSW school system to decipher meanings and perspectives on Reconciliation as reflected in that sector. It then makes comparisons with research conducted on behalf of the Council for Aboriginal Reconciliation during the 1990s on attitudes to Reconciliation in the community. Perceived differences are analysed and discussed.
The research further explores how schools approached the teaching of Reconciliation through a series of survey questions designed to document the types of activities undertaken by the schools with Reconciliation as the main aim. -- Research findings indicated that while both the community at large and the education community are overwhelmingly supportive of Reconciliation, both as a concept and as a government policy, when questioned further as to the depth and details of this commitment to Reconciliation and the extent to which they may be supportive of the 'hard' issues of Reconciliation, their views and level of support were more wide ranging and deflective. -- Findings indicated that, in general, educators have a more multi-layered understanding of the issues related to Reconciliation than the general community, and a proportion of them do articulate more clearly those harder, more controversial aspects of the Reconciliation process (eg just compensation, land and sea rights, customary laws). However, they are in the main, unsure of its meaning beyond the 'soft' symbolic acts and gatherings which occur in schools. In the late 1990s, when Reconciliation was at the forefront of the national agenda, research findings indicate that while schools were organising cultural and curriculum activities in their teaching of Indigenous history or Aboriginal studies - they did not specifically focus on Reconciliation in their teaching programs as an issue in the community. Teachers did not have a clearly defined view of what Reconciliation entailed and schools were not teaching about Reconciliation directly within their curriculum programs. -- The research also sought to identify facotrs which acted as enhancers of a Reconciliation program in schools and factors which were seen as barriers. Research findings clearly pointed to community and parental attitudes as important barriers with time and an overcrowded curriculum as further barriers to the implementation of teaching programs. Factors which promoted Reconciliation in schools often related to human agency and human relationships such as supportive executive leadership, the work of committed teachers and a responsive staff and community.
Mode of access: World Wide Web.
xvi, 286 leaves ill

Doctor of Philosophy
This thesis examines the material correlates of religious behaviour. Religion is an important part of every culture, but the impact religion has on structuring material culture is not well understood. Archaeologists are hampered in their reconstructions of the past because they lack comparative methods and universal conventions for identifying religious behaviour. The principal aim of this thesis is to construct an indicator model which can archaeologically identify religious behaviour. The basis for the proposed model stems directly from recurrent religious phenomena. Such phenomena, according to anthropological and cognitive research, relate to a series of spatio-temporally recurrent religious features which relate to a universal foundation for religious concepts. Patterns in material culture which strongly correlate with these recurrent phenomena indicate likely concentrations of religious behaviour. The variations between sacred and mundane places can be expected to yield information regarding the way people organise themselves in relation to how they perceive their cosmos. Using cognitive religious theory, stemming from research in neurophysiology and psychology, it is argued that recurrent religious phenomena owe their replication to the fact that certain physical stimuli and spatial concepts are most easily interpreted by humans in religious ideas. Humans live in a world governed by natural law, and it is logical that the concepts generated by humans will at least partially be similarly governed. Understanding the connection between concept and cause results in a model of behaviour applicable to cross-cultural analysis and strengthens the model’s assumption base. In order to test the model of religious behaviour developed in this thesis it is applied to a regional archaeological matrix from the Blue Mountains National Park in New South Wales, Australia. Archaeological research in the Blue Mountains has tentatively identified ceremonial sites based on untested generalised associations between select artefact types and distinctive geographic features. The method of analysis in this thesis creates a holistic matrix of archaeological and geographic data, encompassing both qualitative and quantitative measures, which generates a statistical norm for the region. Significant liminal deviations from this norm, which are characteristic indicators of religious behaviour are then identified. Confidence in these indicators’ ability to identify ceremonial sites is obtained by using a distance matrix and algorithms to examine the spatial patterns of association between significant variables. This thesis systematically tests the associations between objects and geography and finds that a selective array and formulaic spatiality of material correlates characteristic of religious behaviour does exist at special places within the Blue Mountains. The findings indicate a wide spread if more pocketed distribution of ceremonial sites than is suggested in previous models. The spatial/material relationships for identified religious sites indicates that these places represent specialised extensions of an interdependent socio-economic system where ceremonial activity and subsistence activity operated in balance and were not isolated entities.

This is an exploratory study that tries to isolate those factors that specifically relate to the poor attendance levels of Aboriginal primary age children. The study took place in the North-West Region of the NSW Department of Education. It was conducted by a member of the Home/School Liaison Team which had been set up to address the problem of non-attendance in NSW schools. After considering both overseas and Australian studies relating to non-attendance at school individual, family and school-based factors were looked at. One school was targeted as a case study and students from other schools in the North-West Region were randomly chosen to participate to attempt to broaden the results. The student and a care provider were interviewed individually and each student's teacher completed a questionnaire and student profile sheet. Where possible, interviewing was performed by an Aboriginal person to allow the interviewee to feel more comfortable. To get further details of school-based factors, all Public Schools in the North-West Region with Aboriginal enrolments were sent questionnaires to be filled in by a staff member in a promotions position and classroom teachers within that school. The major finding of the study was the significance of the previous attendance history of the student, thus indicating the necessity for early intervention if prevention of poor attendance patterns is to occur. The targeting of the beginning years of schooling and the introduction of parent education programs about the importance of these early years are recommended. Other areas found in this study to be related significantly to poor attendance were a competitive class climate, the socio-economic background of parents, parent employment history, parent educational background, single parent families, overcrowding and peer group influences. The study confirmed what many researchers had found: that school absenteeism is a problem with many contributory factors and each student needs to be looked at individually. Each case needs to be dealt with on its own merits.

When the Human Rights and Equal Opportunities Commission tabled Bringing them home, its report into the separation of indigenous children from their families, it was criticised for failing to consider Indigenous child welfare within the context of contemporary standards. Non-Indigenous people who had experienced out-of-home care also questioned why their stories were not recognised. This thesis addresses those concerns, examining the origins and history of the welfare systems of NSW and Tasmania between 1880 and 1940. Tasmania, which had no specific policies on race or Indigenous children, provides fruitful ground for comparison with NSW, which had separate welfare systems for children defined as Indigenous and non-Indigenous. This thesis draws on the records of these systems to examine the gaps between ideology and policy and practice. The development of welfare systems was uneven, but there are clear trends. In the years 1880 to 1940 non-Indigenous welfare systems placed their faith in boarding-out (fostering) as the most humane method of caring for neglected and destitute children, although institutions and juvenile apprenticeship were never supplanted by fostering. Concepts of child welfare shifted from charity to welfare; that is, from simple removal to social interventions that would assist children's reform. These included education, and techniques to enlist the support of the child's family in its reform. The numbers of non-Indigenous children taken into care were reduced by economic and environmental measures, such as payments to single mothers. The NSW Aborigines Protection Board dismissed boarding-out as an option for Indigenous children and applied older methods, of institutionalisation and apprenticeship, to children it removed from reserves. As non-Indigenous welfare systems in both states were refined, the Protection Board clung to its original methods. It focussed on older children, whilst allowing reserves to deteriorate, and reducing the rights of Aboriginal people. This cannot simply be explained by race, for Tasmania did not adopt the same response. This study shows that the policies of the Aborigines Protection Board were not consonant with wider standards in child welfare of the time. However, the common thread between Indigenous and non-Indigenous child removal was the longing of children and their families for each other.

The recent years have witnessed an increase in revisiting language descriptions of the ‘sleeping’ traditional languages of south-east Australia from available historic material. The languages of south-east New South Wales have thus far been largely neglected and this thesis fills a gap in the contemporary language work that has and still is being undertaken on traditional New South Wales languages. This research study investigates the traditional Aboriginal languages of the New South Wales South Coast. The languages presented here are Dharrawal, Dharumba, Dhurga and Djirringanj, which were spoken from the southern parts of Sydney and Botany Bay down along the coast, close to the Victorian border. The language material used for the analysis consists entirely of archival material that was collected by various people between ca. 1834 and 1902. Although previous work on the New South Wales South Coast languages (see Capell (n.d.) and Eades’ (1976)) offered insight into the structure of the languages, the available archival material has not been exhaustively utilised until now. Part B of this thesis presents the seventeen previously unanalysed texts transcribed by Andrew Mackenzie and Robert Hamilton Mathews during the latter half of the 19th Century. These texts supply a significant amount of additional morphological and syntactical information, and insights into narrative and discourse features; as well as mythologies of the South Coast people. Throughout the thesis, issues of working from archival material are appropriately discussed to clarify interpretation of the material and to introduce the reader to the stages and processes involved in working from historic material. This work is ultimately produced as a tool for local Aboriginal communities and community members to assist in current and future language reclamation and revitalisation projects, and to allow for projects to aim for higher language proficiency than has previously been possible.

Thesis (PhD)-- Macquarie University, Division of Environmental and Life Sciences, Dept. of Chemistry and Biomolecular Science. 2006.
Bibliography: p. 229-249.
Ch. 1. Introduction -- ch. 2. An ethnobotanical study with the Kamilaroi and Muruwari Aboriginal communities and relationship building -- ch. 3. Biological assay methods and optimisation -- ch. 4. Ethnopharmacological study of Eremophila sturtii -- ch. 5. Ethnopharmacological study of Exocarpos aphyllus -- ch. 6. General conclusions -- Appendices.
This study covered the documentation of first-hand medicinal plant knowledge of Aboriginal communities in northern New South Wales through the isolation and characterisation of bioactive compounds from Aboriginal medicinal plants.
Mode of access: World Wide Web.
xx, 249 p. col. ill., maps, ports

The Upper Nepean River catchment in the Sydney Basin has a rich repertoire of visual imagery - rock-art, and a variety of other types of marks on stone. This thesis examines the diversity and spatial distribution across the land of these rock markings and change over time. The theoretical focus is on materiality, practice and performance. In previous research conducted in the Sydney Basin, rock-art located in shelters has been considered, at least implicitly, to be functionally equivalent across both space and time. The research in this thesis, by comparison, has been developed to explore both synchronic and diachronic variability in sheltered rock-art and to give consideration to the occupational and contextual diversity this represents. The rock-art corpus is analysed in accordance with its material diversity in order to explore the qualitatively different forms of behavioural expression that this variation may embody. A fundamental distinction is made between graphically structured, imposed form on the one hand, and gestural marks on the other. The material relationship between the rock-art and the rock on and within which it is set, is also examined. The different data sets are explored dialectically and in accordance with their geographic and environmental location in order to gain an appreciation of the experience and engagement between Aboriginal people and the land in this part of the Sydney Basin. The analysis employs both quantitative and explicitly narrative approaches to examine the spatial and temporal dimensions of occupation. While this research has been conducted without the support of any direct dating or archaeological context, the methodology has, nevertheless allowed for the discrimination of temporal diversity in spatial patterns, and concomitantly, the manner in which the land has been occupied and created as landscape, over time. In order to achieve this, it has been crucial to analyse the rock markings not only in respect of their behaviour correlates, but also their material locations within geographic, environmental and micro-topographic space. The analysis of the Upper Nepean rock-art reveals a pattern of diachronic change in which the marking of the land with imagery became increasingly diverse in a number of formal and material ways, and geographically and environmentally common and widespread. The results suggests that regional bodies of rock-art are likely to have been produced in accordance with a diversity of motivations and functional purposes and that significant temporal change in the impetus to mark the land, and the choice of how and where to do so, can occur over relatively short time frames. It is argued that the practice of marking the land in the Upper Nepean was a dynamic dialectic, both constitutive and transformative, of being and place. Over time, people drew the land into an object world which became, with ever increasing inscription and embellishment, a marked and painted landscape, both productive of and reflecting, a complex history.

Aside from notable exceptions, the nature and variety of Indigenous participation in Australian settler economies has been largely neglected in the anthropological and historical literature. In the Eurobodalla region of the New South Wales south coast, there has been a significant disjuncture in the regional literature between anglocentric local histories, and research that acknowledges Aboriginal people through historical investigations or through the collection of oral histories. There is also a significant gap in the anthropological literature between the early ethnographies, specific studies on Aboriginal labour and social conditions that were biased by ideological presuppositions, and recent work undertaken in relation to judicial processes. This thesis combines theorising of intercultural domains with a utili sation of notions of economic hybridity to examine the history of settler-Indigenous relations in the Eurobodalla and the character of emergent complexes of transactions that entailed a highly plural range of intercultural interactions, which transformed both Indigenous and settler subjectivities. The thesis is grounded in historical and local specificity while it places 'the local' within a broader geopolitical context. Drawing on both anthropological and historical approaches, the thesis argues that present socioeconomic conditions in south coast Aboriginal communities can only be understood through the broader historical context. The thesis examines the highly localised character of the changes brought about by European colonisation and the gradual expansion of the settler economy in the Eurobodalla during the early-mid 19th century. Aboriginal people were drawn into the emerging settler economy through reciprocal relationships of labour, while the presence of settlers was also incorporated into pre-existing, dynamic patterns of economy and sociality. The evidence suggests that semi-nomadic patterns of mobility persisted well into the 20th century, despite the efforts of the Aborigines Protection Board to curtail this movement. The period between the 1940s and 1970s is remembered as a relatively bounded era in which Aboriginal families were both on the run from ' the welfare', and following patterns of seasonal movement (or 'beats'). Aboriginal people were broadly employed in forestry work and seasonal vegetable picking until both industries collapsed in the late 1970s. Through a range of factors, including industry decline, increases in Indigenous political agency, the provision of town housing, welfare and citizenship entitlements and generational change, Aboriginal people in the Eurobodalla have experienced a fraught transition to the era of so-called 'self determination'. The thesis also seeks to 'muddy the waters' of some widespread, but erroneous, generalisations about settler-Indigenous relations and the manifestation of government policies. It identities several historical moments (or processes) that are comparable to trajectories of settler-Indigenous relations elsewhere in Australia. In doing so, this thesis makes a contribution to knowledge by providing a localised and historically situated case study o f settler-Indigenous relations. Research of this type has the potential to mediate the extreme positions generated by the ' history wars'.

Research Doctorate - Doctor of Philosophy (Phd)
Globally, there is a wide range of culture-based frameworks used to reduce health disparities. While this has resulted in a diverse research environment, empirical measures of the effectiveness of many of these approaches are scarce. Increasingly, public health policies are incorporating cultural safety approaches to reorientate health systems towards providing more equitable care to people from marginalised communities. However, the conceptual ambiguity of the term ‘cultural safety’ requires a more systematic examination of its meaning. Further, the complexity and lack of empirical measures of cultural safety necessitate the development of valid and reliable measures based on patient perspectives. The study presented in this thesis involved a mixed-methods approach using semi-structured interviews and a survey subject to exploratory factor analysis to inform the development of a cultural safety framework. Interviews were conducted at two Australian hospitals located in New South Wales (NSW). A total of 50 staff were interviewed over a two-month period. Participants included health workers from a diverse range of roles, including chief executive officers, executive board members, specialist physicians, nurses, medical students, social workers and administrative and service support staff. During the interviews, participants were asked to describe their understanding and practice of cultural safety. Transcripts were analysed using applied thematic analysis in which several key themes were identified. Overall, interviewees had a modest understanding of cultural safety and provided a range of examples of how they incorporated cultural safety in practice. Some staff appeared unwilling to be culturally responsive or had observed practices resulting in the provision of culturally unsafe care. Aboriginal workers experienced distinct challenges with respect to their own and their patients’ cultural safety, with many interviewees reporting experiencing racism in the workplace. The implementation of cultural safety appeared to be compromised by what clinicians could do within the structural restrictions of the system. The conflict between governance structures and the agency of individual staff members was identified as a significant barrier impeding the implementation of health policies that seek to enhance patient cultural safety. For the quantitative arm of the study, Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander patients attending NSW hospitals were invited to participate in a survey designed to measure cultural safety from the patient perspective. Using targeted recruitment strategies, participants were selected from two tertiary hospitals. Opportunistic recruitment was also undertaken to enlist patients attending NSW hospitals outside of the target sites. In total, 316 surveys were analysed using exploratory factor analysis, which showed adequate internal and external consistency of domains. Overall, it was found that the survey provides a robust measurement of cultural safety. In addition to exploratory analysis, a cultural safety score was produced for each hospital site. Results from the qualitative survey questions reveal that the support of family and Aboriginal staff is important in determining culturally safe experiences. Both the qualitative and quantitative findings were used in the development of a cultural safety framework for NSW hospitals. This framework may be a valuable tool for measuring and guiding cultural safety initiatives in Australian hospitals.

Research Doctorate - Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
This interdisciplinary study investigates the Aboriginal intellectual heritage of the Mid North Coast of New South Wales, through a combination of family history, oral tradition, and audio-recorded songs, stories, interviews, discussions, and linguistic material. This research has uncovered an unsuspected wealth of cultural knowledge, cultural memory, and language heritage that has been kept alive and passed down within Aboriginal families and communities, despite the disruptions and dislocations endured over the past seven generations. This study's findings are presented in three interrelated forms: a dance performance that incorporates traditional and contemporary songs, stories, and lived experiences of an Aboriginal extended family; an oral presentation within the framework of Aboriginal oral transmission of knowledge and this written exegesis, which is itself an experiment in finding pathways for the expression and progression of Aboriginal knowledge within the context of academic discourse. The theoretical framework of this work is grounded in my personal experience of Aboriginal traditions of knowledge production and transmission, maintained through everyday cultural activities, family memories of traditional education, and our traditional and present-day language forms and communicative practices. The performance, oral and written components connect this intellectual and cultural heritage with historical and photographic documentation, linguistic analyses, and audio recordings from my grandfathers' and great-grandfathers' generations. The written component establishes the background to the study, and reviews relevant literature with a prioritisation of Aboriginal voices and sources of knowledge, both oral and written. It explores aspects of my family history from the early 1800s to the present, including my childhood and early educational experiences and leads on to a detailed look at the work of my late father, Raymond Shoonkley Kelly in documenting and maintaining out intellectual and cultural heritage through the NSW Survey of Aboriginal Sites. The final part of this study focuses on language, which is central to all of the preceding investigation. This work demonstrates how operating from an Aboriginal knowledge base allows us to see beyond surface differences in spelling and pronunciation, to reach a deeper understanding of the cultural meanings and ways of speaking that have allowed us to preserve and maintain out cultural integrity. This knowledge base also enables the linguistic unpacking of previously unanalysable song material from the audio recordings. Indigenous people in New South Wales are continuing to engage in a cultural and political struggle to maintain and protect our identity in the face of an ever-present threat of assimilation by the mainstream Australian society. The success of our struggle will depend significantly on our ability to keep our language and our intellectual heritage alive.

The National Inquiry into the Separation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Children from their Families emerged from a 30-year history of articulation and publication of autobiographical accounts of separation in a variety of discursive contexts. I explore a small fragment of this history through a case study of individual and community-initiated autobiographical projects that bear witness to separation in New South Wales. Three of the texts centre on individuals: Jimmie Barker, The Two Worlds of Jimmie Barker (1977), Margaret Tucker, If Everyone Cared (1977) and Monica Clare, Karobran (1978). Two of the texts, the Lost Children (1989) and In the Best Interest of the Child? (1997), are collections that emerged from Link-Up (NSW) community, a grass-roots organisation dedicated to reuniting separated people with their families, communities and Aboriginal heritage. The five texts negotiate a range of discursive and generic contexts including anthropology, autobiography, fiction, oral history and judicial testimony. The thesis explores separation discourse, paying particular attention to the contexts in which the narratives were enunciated and to the engagement of the authors with non-Aboriginal interlocutors and editors. The last chapter includes personal reflections on my own participation as an editor in the production of In the Best Interest of the Child?

Research Doctorate - Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
In contrast to the large amount of research published on the Aboriginal history of early Sydney, the Aboriginal history of the Central Coast just to the north has received little scholarly attention. Possible perceptions that the region is and was of little importance, or that relevant documentation is lacking, are not supported by the evidence. Examination of a wide variety of recent botanical, geological and archaeological findings reveals that the Central Coast held a significant place in the Aboriginal world, possibly eclipsing that of Sydney, and that it provided an environment with abundant resources in which Aboriginal people flourished. Further, analysis of the large number of newspaper reports, government documents and settler reminiscences from the colonial period which make reference to the traditional Aboriginal owners of the region, now known as the Central Coast Darkinjung, allows a well-informed account of their recent history. These various sources show that the initially numerous Darkinjung people were almost certainly decimated by the waves of disease which followed the arrival of the British in 1788, and that the spirit of those who survived was then all but broken by the capture, trial and incarceration of key leaders in a unique, allegedly humanitarian experiment overseen by Governor Sir Richard Bourke in the 1830s. Although a few of those imprisoned eventually returned home, disease, exposure and despair led to the supposed extinction of the Aboriginal people of the Central Coast in 1874. However, several women had survived and produced children so that the Central Coast Darkinjung continue to the present day. This thesis fills a gap in the story of the colonisation of Australia, acknowledges the role of the Central Coast as pivotal in Aboriginal economy and spirituality, and creates a much-needed narrative framework for further, more specific research on the region’s Aboriginal history.

Despite extensive academic focus on Indigenous Australian art, sustained engagement, particularly in the discipline of anthropology, has largely focused on artists and artworks from the central, northern and western regions of Australia. Academic works examining art-making in the south east of Australia, particularly New South Wales (NSW), are relatively few, despite news articles, exhibition catalogues and monographs penned by artists and curators providing evidence of vibrant communities of Aboriginal artists and solo practitioners working across NSW. In light of this, this thesis addresses the relative academic silence around Aboriginal art-making in NSW. It asks, broadly, what kind of art is being made in NSW and why? Drawing on fieldwork undertaken across NSW – including interviews with 65 artists, curators, arts workers and others – and on primary analysis of several data sets – including material from the Australian Art Sales Digest and Parliament of NSW Aboriginal Art Prize catalogues – this thesis seeks to pay attention to Aboriginal artists working across NSW in order to document the work they make, the technical, creative and social processes through which they create art, their experiences of the art-world, particularly the art market, and their motivations for making. As a result of this attention, this thesis focuses on various themes, issues and topics. The history of intellectual and commercial engagement with Aboriginal art produced in NSW since British colonisation is canvassed in order to contextualise and make sense of the concerns and creative interests of research participants. Participant use of art to represent, affirm and constitute diverse personal, cultural and professional identities is explored and it is demonstrated that identity-focused works reveal that Aboriginality is conceptualised, by artists, in overwhelmingly non-essentialist ways, although the nature of this non-essentialism is varied. Diverse art practices undertaken by Aboriginal artists in NSW are described, including detailed analysis of two visual forms (south eastern designs and dots) and two styles or genres (urban art and contemporary art) which are commonly created, or are felt to be significant, by participants. These forms/genres are positioned by artists and others as traditional and non-traditional to NSW, sometimes simultaneously. Analysis of engagement with these forms reveals the ways participants conceive of culture especially as it pertains to tradition, authenticity, change and continuity. Finally, consideration of the sale of art in various art market spheres illustrates that selling work is significant for artists, and confers meaning upon artworks offered for sale.