Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Aboriginal Australians. Politics and government'
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1
Davis, Edward R. "Ethnicity and diversity : politics and the Aboriginal community /." Title page, table of contents and abstract only, 1991. http://web4.library.adelaide.edu.au/theses/09PH/09phd2613.pdf.
2
Vincent, Eve Mary. "Forces of destruction, acts of creation : aboriginality, identity and native title, on the far west coast of South Australia." Thesis, The University of Sydney, 2013. http://hdl.handle.net/2123/13502.
3
Aldrich, Rosemary Public Health & Community Medicine Faculty of Medicine UNSW. "Flesh-coloured bandaids: politics, discourse, policy and the health of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples 1972-2001." Awarded by:University of New South Wales. School of Public Health and Community Medicine, 2006. http://handle.unsw.edu.au/1959.4/27276.
Abstract:
This thesis concerns the relationship between ideology, values, beliefs, politics, language, discourses, public policy and health outcomes. By examining the origins of federal health policy concerning Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples 1972-2001 I have explored the idea that the way a problem is constructed through language determines solutions enacted to solve that problem, and subsequent outcomes. Despite three decades of federal policy activity Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children born at the start of the 21st Century could expect to live almost 20 years less than non-Indigenous Australians. Explanations for the gap include that the colonial legacy of dispossession and disease continues to wreak social havoc and that both health policy and structures for health services have been fundamentally flawed. The research described in this thesis focuses on the role of senior Federal politicians in the health policy process. The research is grounded in theory which suggests that the values and beliefs of decision makers are perpetuated through language. Using critical discourse analysis the following hypotheses were tested: 1. That an examination of the language of Federal politicians responsible for the health of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples over three decades would reveal their beliefs, values and discourses concerning Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples and their health 2. That the discourses of the Federal politicians contributed to policy discourses and frames in the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health policy environment, and 3. That there is a relationship between the policy discourses of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health policy environment and health outcomes for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples. The hypotheses were proven. I concluded that there was a relationship between the publicly-expressed values and beliefs of politicians responsible for health, subsequent health policy and resulting health outcomes. However, a model in which theories of discourse, social constructions of people and problems, policy development and organisational decision-making were integrated did not adequately explain the findings. I developed the concept of "policy imagination" to explain the discrete mechanism by which ideology, politics, policy and health were related. My research suggests that the ideology and values which drove decision-making by Federal politicians responsible for the health of all Australians contributed to the lack of population-wide improvement in health outcomes for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples in the late 20th Century.
4
Ingelbrecht, Suzanne. "Sorry : a play in two acts ; Shame and apology in the nation-state : reflections and remembrance ; We're ready (short story)." Thesis, Edith Cowan University, Research Online, Perth, Western Australia, 2012. https://ro.ecu.edu.au/theses/491.
Abstract:
"Sorry" is a play in two acts, exploring how collective memory of the past, including traumatic memory of being taken from one's family, affects the present in complex and surprising ways. The Stolen Generations' episode of Australian history, when mixed heritage Aboriginal Australians were taken from their families as a result of governmental policy, casts its shadow over four generations of Almadi Paice Aboriginal-Afghan-Anglo mixed heritage family members. Against a thematic backdrop of shame, apology and (hoped for) forgiveness, the 'living' family members struggle for empowerment and agency against the forces of government bureaucracy, the Law and their own emotional demons.
"Shame and Apology in the Nation-State: Reflections and Remembrance" is an exegesis which explores theoretical concepts related to collective memory, shame, performative apology and forgiveness, interlinked with Jan Patočka's notion of individual responsibility towards action. Using reciprocal interview material with a number of Aboriginal-Afghan-Anglo mixed heritage participants, who have either had direct experience of being "stolen" or who are related to "stolen" family members, this exegesis explores alternative modes of remembering their past and present in creative art works. In addition, I theorise that in our contemporary "age of apology" political apology to particular wronged groups of national communities may be problematic not only for their ubiquity and their tendency to alibi but because they do not address other important issues such as reparation and guarantees against repetition; nor do they deny the sovereignty of the nation-state apparatus to ‘do’ apology in a manner and at a time of its own choosing. The exegesis explores the importance of national commemoration, such as ANZAC Day, in promoting national collective memory, and theorises that a collective annual commemoration on behalf of the nation’s "stolen" people would be a much more compelling reconciliatory act than a single apology by a particular prime minister. My short story, "We’re Ready", which immediately follows the exegesis is my creative attempt to demonstrate the towards action and towards national reconciliation gestured by annual commemorative performance.
5
Macoun, Alissa. "Aboriginality and the Northern Territory intervention." Thesis, University of Queensland, 2012. https://eprints.qut.edu.au/65357/1/Macoun_phd_finalthesis.pdf.
Abstract:
This thesis examines the construction of Aboriginality in recent public policy reasoning through identifying representations deployed by architects and supporters of the Commonwealth’s 2007 Northern Territory Emergency Response (the intervention).
Debate about the Northern Territory intervention was explicitly situated in relation to a range of ideas about appropriate Government policy towards Indigenous people, and particularly about the nature, role, status, value and future of Aboriginality and of Aboriginal people and Torres Strait Islanders. This project involves analysis of constructions of Aboriginality deployed in texts created and circulated to explain and justify the policy program. The aim of the project is to identify the ideas about Aboriginality deployed by the intervention’s architects and supporters, and to examine the effects and implications of these discourses for political relationships between Indigenous people and settlers in Australia.
This thesis will argue that advocates of the Northern Territory intervention construct Aboriginality in a range of important ways that reassert and reinforce the legitimacy of the settler colonial order and the project of Australian nationhood, and operate to limit Aboriginal claims.
Specifically, it is argued that in linking Aboriginality to the abuse of Aboriginal children, the intervention’s advocates and supporters establish a political debate about the nature and future of Aboriginality within a discursive terrain in which the authority and perspectives of Indigenous people are problematised. Aboriginality is constructed in this process as both temporally and spatially separated from settler society, and in need of coercive integration into mainstream economic and political arrangements.
Aboriginality is depicted by settler advocates of intervention as an anachronism, with Aboriginal people and cultures understood as primitive and/or savage precursors to settlers who are represented as modern and civilised. As such, the communities seen as the authentic home or location of Aboriginality represent a threat to Aboriginal children as well as to settlers. These constructions function to obscure the violence of the settler order, provide justification or moral rehabilitation for the colonising project, and reassert the sovereignty of the settler state. The resolution offered by the intervention’s advocates is a performance or enactment of settler sovereignty, representing a claim over and through both the territory of Aboriginal people and the discursive terrain of nationhood.
6
Jones, Jennifer A. "Aboriginal women's autobiographical narratives and the politics of collaboration /." Title page, contents and abstract only, 2001. http://web4.library.adelaide.edu.au/theses/09PH/09phj7761.pdf.
7
Western, Melissa. "Reconciliation on stage : the politics of indigenous representation in Brisbane theatre's 1999 'reconciliation plays' /." [St. Lucia, Qld.], 2006. http://www.library.uq.edu.au/pdfserve.php?image=thesisabs/absthe19809.pdf.
8
Worthy, Mary, and n/a. "An historical examination of the negotiation processes for a treaty between Aboriginal people and the Australian government set within the political context." University of Canberra. Administrative Studies, 1988. http://erl.canberra.edu.au./public/adt-AUC20061110.170642.
9
Lapham, Angela. "From Papua to Western Australia : Middleton's implementation of Social Assimilation Policy, 1948-1962." Thesis, Edith Cowan University, Research Online, Perth, Western Australia, 2007. https://ro.ecu.edu.au/theses/270.
Abstract:
In 1948, after twenty years in the Papuan administration, Stanley Middleton became the Western Australian Commissioner of Native Affairs. State and Federal governments at that time had a policy of social assimilation towards Aboriginal people, who were expected to live in the same manner as other Australians, accepting the same responsibilties, observing the same customs and influenced by the same beliefs, hopes and loyalties. European civilization was seen as the pinnacle of development. Thus both giving Aboriginal people the opportunity to reach this pinnacle and believing they were equally capable of reaching this pinnacle was viewed as a progessive and humanitarian act. Aboriginal cultural beliefs and loyalties were not considered important, if they were recognized at all, because they were seen as primitive or as having being abandoned in favour of a Western lifestyle.
10
Darling, Elaine Elizabeth. "The OPAL conspiracy : the influence of politics and gender on the development of the Brisbane Aboriginal rights movement, 1958-1962." Thesis, Queensland University of Technology, 1996.
Abstract:
It has been commonly believed that the Aboriginal rights movement which developed in Australia in the 1960s gained its greatest momentum from activities initiated in the southern states - New South Wales, Victoria and South Australia. This thesis argues that such a depiction is incorrect. Based on oral interviews and unpublished personal documents and substantiated by official reports, published commentary and parliamentary debates as well as internal records from Department of Native Affairs, I maintain that between the years of 1958 and 1962 a minor revolution occurred in Brisbane which influenced the direction of Black rights - both locally and nationally - into the following decade. This thesis traces the development of this uprising, and its aftermath. It explores the motivations of a White society which paid lip service to tolerance and social equity while accepting a system which denied Black basic human rights; and identifies the individuals and organisations which overcame obstacles to blaze a trail of resistance which dramatically changed White attitudes and Black lifestyles. The effects of this attack on the status quo were observable on three fronts: in the political arena, in the Brisbane media and in the wider community. The movement for change peaked between May 1961 and February 1962, when representatives of the Queensland government, Department of Native Affairs (DNA), Queensland Labor Party (QLP) and Queensland Police Special Branch conspired to transfer power from a left-wing Black rights organization perceived as a political threat, to one created to perpetuate DNA policy. This study identifies the pivotal role of women - particularly Murri women - as the catalyst which transformed the Brisbane movement from a gaggle of factions divided by antithetical ideologies into a cohesive grouping capable of taking on the forces of oppression in Queensland. I argue that without their leadership, the movement may never have taken off to the extent required to persuade a conservative Queensland public to deliver the affirmative vote to carriage of the 1967 referendum proposal on Black rights.
11
Brady, Wendy. "Indigenous Australians and non-indigenous education in New South Wales, 1788-1968." Thesis, The University of Sydney, 1996. http://hdl.handle.net/2123/12822.
12
Limerick, Michael. "What Makes an Aboriginal Council Successful? Case Studies of Aboriginal Community Government Performance in Far North Queensland." Thesis, Griffith University, 2009. http://hdl.handle.net/10072/367186.
Abstract:
Improving Aboriginal community governance is increasingly recognised as pivotal to closing the gap in social and economic outcomes between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal Australians. The past decade has seen a shift in Indigenous policy from a preoccupation with national governance structures and a broader human rights agenda to a focus on governments engaging directly with local Indigenous communities to address the specific manifestations of Indigenous disadvantage. In discrete Aboriginal settlements, community governments are central to this new strategy, both as advocates for community needs and as agencies for program and service delivery. Yet Aboriginal Councils have had a chequered history, leading to persistent misgivings about their capacity to achieve desired outcomes. There is a dearth of empirical evidence about ‘what works and what doesn’t’ in the unique and challenging context of Aboriginal community governance. The current study was motivated by the desire to discover what is required for an Aboriginal Council to be successful in achieving the outcomes desired by its constituents. Specifically, what governance attributes contribute to successful Aboriginal community government performance? Moreover, the research sought to delve deeper, to seek answers to the more fundamental question concerning the contextual, historical or cultural factors that shape a particular Aboriginal community’s approach to governance, whether successful or unsuccessful. The research involved three case studies of Aboriginal Councils, in the far north Queensland communities of Yarrabah, Hope Vale and Lockhart River. Unlike previous studies of Indigenous community governance, the research design included a detailed assessment of the level of performance achieved by each Council, revealing one high-performing Council and two Councils whose performance was generally poor. An assessment of performance covering each Council outcome area is essential in order to make valid causal inferences about the specific determinants of Council performance. The study adopted a holistic conception of performance, focusing on the extent to which the Councils were achieving the particular set of outcomes desired by their constituents. Such an approach recognises that different communities seek different outcomes from their community governments and that desired outcomes will include not only deliverables such as programs and services but also preferences about governance processes, which will reflect cultural values. The study’s focus on Council performance recognises that, regardless of underlying questions about the appropriateness of imported Western governance structures, in practice residents of Indigenous communities express strong expectations that their elected Councils will deliver services and programs that meet their needs and aspirations and improve their quality of life. Within the constraints of prevailing legislative and policy frameworks, Indigenous communities exhibit considerable pragmatism in their efforts to optimise opportunities for self-determination through developing their community governments. The case study data canvassed a wide range of governance attributes, institutions and practices suggested by the literature as important to governmental performance, in both indigenous and other contexts. The analysis found that a particular configuration of ‘orthodox’ governance principles and practices was necessary for successful Aboriginal Council performance, comprising: a strategic orientation based on a shared vision, a clear separation of powers, institutionalising the rule of law, positive and strategic engagement with government, targeted community engagement and an effective and efficient administration featuring a commitment to sound financial management, a stable workforce and human resource management practices that value, support and develop staff. The research further identified the key contextual factors that had shaped the distinct approaches to governance in the three communities. These are significant in explaining why some Aboriginal Councils adopt the particular mix of governance attributes that are necessary to improve their performance, while others do not. Key contextual factors include: a resource base of education and skills within the community that matches the needs of the community government; a pool of community members who have had a significant degree of exposure to the outside world; strongly egalitarian political norms underpinning a ‘whole of community’ orientation to governance; and a commitment to overcoming the historical legacy of dependency through a willingness to take responsibility for community government outcomes. These findings provide an indication about the strategies that need to be pursued for Aboriginal community governments to effectively meet the needs and aspirations of their constituents and realise their promise as instruments of self-determination.Thesis (PhD Doctorate)
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
Department of Politics and Public Policy
Griffith Business School
Full Text
13
Paul, David. "Casting shadows and struggling for control : silence, resistance and negotiation in Australian Aboriginal health." University of Western Australia. School of Primary, Aboriginal and Rural Health Care, 2007. http://theses.library.uwa.edu.au/adt-WU2008.0015.
Abstract:
Self determination has been recognised as a basic human right both internationally and, to an extent, locally, but it is yet to be fully realised for Aboriginal Peoples in Australia. The assertion of Aboriginal community control in Aboriginal health has been at the forefront of Aboriginal peoples' advocacy for self determination for more than thirty years. Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Services and their representative organisations have been the site of considerable resistance and contestation in the struggles involved in trying to improve Aboriginal health experiences. Drawing on some of these experiences I explore the apparent inability of policy and decision makers to listen to systematic voices calling for change from the Aboriginal Community Controlled Health sector. It is government inability to act more fully on clear and repeated messages that is a source of much disquiet within representative Aboriginal organisations. Such disquiet is grounded in a belief that colonial notions continue to influence decision making at policy, practice and research levels resulting in a significant impediment to the realisation of self determination and associated human rights in Aboriginal health matters and Aboriginal Affairs more broadly.
14
Muldoon, Paul (Paul Alexander) 1966. "Under the eye of the master : the colonisation of aboriginality, 1770-1870." Monash University, Dept. of Politics, 1998. http://arrow.monash.edu.au/hdl/1959.1/8552.
15
Lea, Teresa Sue. "Between the pen and the paperwork : a native ethnography of learning to govern indigenous health in the Northern Territory." Thesis, University of Sydney, 2002. http://hdl.handle.net/2123/1891.
16
Turner, Dale A. (Dale Antony) 1960. ""This is not a peace pipe" : towards an understanding of aboriginal sovereignty." Thesis, McGill University, 1997. http://digitool.Library.McGill.CA:80/R/?func=dbin-jump-full&object_id=35637.
Abstract:
This dissertation attempts to show that Aboriginal peoples' ways of thinking have not been recognized by early colonial European political thinkers. I begin with an examination of Kymlicka's political theory of minority rights and show that, although Kymlicka is a strong advocate of the right of Aboriginal self-government in Canada, he fails to consider Aboriginal ways of thinking within his own political system. From an Aboriginal perspective this is not surprising. However, I claim that Kymlicka opens the conceptual space for the inclusion of Aboriginal voices. The notion of "incorporation" means that Aboriginal peoples became included in the Canadian state and in this process their Aboriginal sovereignty was extinguished. Aboriginal peoples question the legitimacy of such a claim. A consequence of the Canadian government unilaterally asserting its sovereignty over Aboriginal peoples is that Aboriginal ways of thinking are not recognized as valuable within the legal and political discourse of sovereignty. In chapters two through five, respectively, I examine the Valladolid debate of 1550 between the Spanish monk Bartolome de Las Casas and Juan Sepulveda, The Great Law of Peace of the Iroquois Confederacy, Thomas Hobbes's distinction between the state of nature and a civil society, and Alexis de Tocqueville's account of democracy in America. Each of the examples, except for The Great Law of Peace, generate a philosophical dialogue that includes judgments about Aboriginal peoples. However, none of these European thinkers considers the possibility that Aboriginal voices could play a valuable role in shaping their political thought. To show the value of an Aboriginal exemplar of political thinking I consider the Iroquois Great Law of Peace. The Iroquois view of political sovereignty respects the diversity of voices found within a political relationship. This was put into practice and enforced in early colonial northeast America until the power dynamic shifted betwe
17
au, alan charlton@audit wa gov, and Alan David Charlton. "A.O. Neville, the 'destiny of the race', and race thinking in the 1930s." Murdoch University, 2002. http://wwwlib.murdoch.edu.au/adt/browse/view/adt-MU20090903.85539.
Abstract:
The notion of 'race' was central to the thinking about and administration of Aboriginal affairs in the 1930s, but its meaning was fluid. In many respects Auber Octavius Neville, senior bureaucrat in Western Australia from 1915-1940 and a national figure in Aboriginal affairs during that period, was emblematic of the race thinking of the period. This study looks at the Western Australian Moseley Royal Commission of 1934, the Western Australian Parliamentary debates and legislation of 1929 and 1936, the Canberra Conference of Commonwealth and State Aboriginal Authorities in 1937, and Neville's 1947 book, Australia's Coloured Minority - for their exemplification of race thinking. Basic incompatibilities and inconsistencies, as evidenced in Neville's thinking and action across his career, were common in the period. Neville's central administrative desire was to force biological absorption to its ultimate conclusion - the 'Destiny' of Aborigines of the part descent was to be absorbed biologically into the white community. He used scientific support to 'prove' the 'safety' of this strategy. The central premise of Neville's race thinking, however, was that some form of racial essentialism would always negatively impact upon the 'absorption' of Aborigines into white Australia. Other major figures differed with Neville over the suitability of absorption, notably Queensland Chief Protector, J. W. Bleakley, but still believed in some essential 'Aboriginal-ness'. The thesis also traces Neville's attempts to dominate Aboriginal affairs both in the construction of the 'problem' and in proclaiming solutions. Neville was absolutely certain that his solution was the only way forward. This certainty, when added to the inconsistent notions of race that informed his conceptualisation of the 'problem', produced policies and practices of insurmountable internal contradictions that have profoundly affected generations of Aborigines.
18
Doohan, Kim. "One family, different country : the development and persistence of an Aboriginal community at Finke, Northern Territory." Master's thesis, University of Western Australia, 1989. http://hdl.handle.net/1885/274429.
19
Ramos, Howard. "Divergent paths : aboriginal mobilization in Canada, 1951-2000." Thesis, McGill University, 2004. http://digitool.Library.McGill.CA:80/R/?func=dbin-jump-full&object_id=84541.
Abstract:
My dissertation focuses on the rise and spread of Aboriginal mobilization in Canada between 1951 and 2000. Using social movement and social-political theories, it questions the relationship between contentious actions and formal organizational growth comparing among social movement and political sociological perspectives. In most accounts, contentious action is assumed to be influenced by organization, political opportunity and identity. Few scholars, however, have examined the reverse relationships, namely the effect of contentious action on each of these. Drawing upon time-series data and qualitative interviews with Aboriginal leaders and representatives of organizations, I found that critical events surrounding moments of federal state building prompted contentious action, which then sparked mobilization among Aboriginal communities. I argue that three events: the 1969 White paper, the 1982 patriation of the Constitution, and the 1990 'Indian Summer' led to mass mobilization and the semblance of an emerging PanAboriginal identity. This finding returns to older collective behaviour perspectives, which note that organizations, opportunities, and identities are driven by triggering actions and shared experiences that produce emerging norms. Nevertheless, in the case of Canadian Aboriginal mobilization, unlike that of Indigenous movements in other countries, building a movement on triggering actions led to mass mobilization but was not sustainable because of a saturation of efficacy. As a result, Aboriginal mobilization in Canada has been characterized by divergent interests and unsustained contention.
20
Burridge, Nina. "The implementation of the policy of Reconciliation in NSW schools." Phd thesis, Australia : Macquarie University, 2004. http://hdl.handle.net/1959.14/25954.
Abstract:
"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
21
De, Costa Ravindra Noel John, and decosta@mcmaster ca. "New relationships, old certainties : Australia's reconciliation and treaty-making in British Colombia." Swinburne University of Technology, 2002. http://adt.lib.swin.edu.au./public/adt-VSWT20050627.092937.
Abstract:
This thesis investigates the search for new relationships between indigenous and settler peoples in Australia and Canada. Both reconciliation and the treaty-making process in British Columbia are understood as attempts to build such relationships. Yetthese are policies that have arisen in response to the persistence of indigenous claims for recognition of rights and respect for identity. Consequently, I consider what the purpose of new relationships might be: is the creation of new relationships to be the means by which settlers recognise and respect indigenous rights and identities, or is
there some other goal? To answer this, I analyse the two policies as the opening of negotiations over indigenous claims for recognition. That is, the opening of new political spaces in which indigenous people�s voices and claims may be heard. Reconciliation opened a space to rethink Australian attitudes to history and culture, to renegotiate Australian identity. Treaties in British Columbia primarily seek to renegotiate ownership and control of lands and resources. Both policies attempt to relegitimise the polities in which they operate, by making new relationships that provide for mutual recognition. However, the thesis establishes that these new spaces are not nearly as expansive or inclusive as they are made out to be. They are in fact defined by the internal struggles of settler society to make life more certain: to resume identities that are secure and satisfying, and to restore territorial control and economic security. This takes place with little regard for the legitimate claims of indigenous peoples to be recognised as people and to enjoy dynamic, flourishing identities of their own. Building new relationships becomes the path to entrenching old certainties.
22
Prout, Sarah. "Security and belonging reconceptualising Aboriginal spatial mobilities in Yamatji country, Western Australia /." Phd thesis, Australia : Macquarie University, 2007. http://hdl.handle.net/1959.14/23030.
Abstract:
"December 2006".Thesis (PhD) -- Macquarie University, Division of Environmental and Life Sciences, Department of Human Geography, 2007.
Bibliography: p. 284-307.
Introduction -- Case-study area profile and methodology -- A walkabout race?: contemporary Aboriginal mobilities in Yamatji country -- State service provision and Aboriginal mobilities -- Security and belonging: re-conceptualising Aboriginal mobilities -- Security and belonging and the mainstream economy -- The ties that bind: negotiating security and belonging through family -- Conclusion.
This dissertation explores contemporary Aboriginal spatial practices in Yamatji country, Western Australia, within the context of rural service provision by the State government. The central themes with which it engages are a) historical and contemporary conceptualisations of Aboriginal spatialities; b) the lived experiences of Aboriginal mobilities in the region; and c) the dialectical, and often contentious, relationship between Aboriginal spatial practices and public health, housing, and education services. Drawing primarily on a range of field interviews, the thesis opens up a discursive space for examining the cultural content and hidden assumptions in constructions of 'appropriate' models of spatial mobility. In taking a policy-oriented focus, it argues that the appropriate provision of basic government services requires a shift away from overly simplistic assumptions and discourses of Aboriginal mobility. Until the often subtle practices of rendering particular Aboriginal mobilities as irrational, deviant, and/or mysterious are challenged and replaced, deep-colonising practices in rural and remote Australia will persist. --The thesis reconceptualises contemporary Aboriginal spatial practices in Yamatji country based upon an examination of dynamics and circumstances that undergird Aboriginal mobilities in the region. With this empirical focus, it argues that Aboriginal spatial practices are fashioned by the processes of procuring, cultivating and contesting a sense of security and belonging. Case study material presented suggests that two primary considerations inform these processes. A post-settlement history of contested alienation from family and country (both sources from which belonging and security were traditionally derived), and a changing engagement with mainstream social and economic institutions, have produced a context in which security and belonging are iteratively derived from a number of sources. Contemporary Aboriginal spatial practices therefore take a complex variety of forms. The thesis concludes that adopting the framework of security and belonging for interpreting contemporary Aboriginal mobilities provides a starting point for engaging more effectively and intentionally with dynamic Aboriginal spatial practices in service delivery policy and practice.
Mode of access: World Wide Web.
x, 320 p. ill., maps
23
McGregor, Russell Edward. "Answering the native question: the dispossession of the Aborigines of the Fitzroy District, West Kimberley, 1880-1905." Thesis, University of North Queensland, 1985. http://hdl.handle.net/1885/268851.
24
Doohan, Kim Elizabeth. ""Making things come good" Aborigines and miners at Argyle /." Doctoral thesis, Australia : Macquarie University, 2007. http://hdl.handle.net/1959.14/145.
Abstract:
Thesis (PhD) -- Macquarie University, Division of Environmental and Life Sciences, Department of Human Geography, 2007."November 2006".
Bibliography: p. 352-398.
Mode of access: World Wide Web.
xvi, 399 p. ill., maps
25
Malbon, Justin Law Faculty of Law UNSW. "Indigenous rights under the Australian constitution : a reconciliation perspective." Awarded by:University of New South Wales. School of Law, 2002. http://handle.unsw.edu.au/1959.4/19044.
Abstract:
This thesis examines the possibilities for building a reconciliatory jurisprudence for the protection of indigenous rights under the Australian Constitution. The thesis first examines what could be meant by the term ???reconciliation??? in a legal context and argues that it requires (1) acknowledgement of and atonement for past wrongdoing, (2) the provision of recompense, and (3) the establishment of legal and constitutional structures designed to ensure that similar wrongs are not repeated in the future. The thesis focuses on the last of these three requirements. It is further argued that developing a reconciliatory jurisprudence first requires the courts to free themselves from the dominant paradigm of strict positivism so that they are liberated to pay due regard to questions of morality. Given this framework, the thesis then sets out to examine the purpose and scope of the race power (section 51(xxvi)) of the Australian Constitution, with particular regard to the case of Kartinyeri v Commonwealth in which the High Court directly considered the power. The thesis concludes that the majority of the Court had not, for various reasons, properly considered the nature of the power. An appropriate ruling, it is argued, should find that the power does not enable Parliament to discriminate adversely against racial minorities. The thesis then proceeds to consider whether there are implied terms under the Constitution that protect fundamental rights. It is argued that these rights are indeed protected because the Constitution is based upon the rule of law. In addition constitutional provisions are to be interpreted subject to the presumption that its terms are not to be understood as undermining fundamental rights unless a constitutional provision expressly states otherwise. The thesis also considers whether there is an implied right to equality under the Constitution. The conclusion drawn is that such a right exists and that it is both procedural and substantive in nature.
26
Lavoie, Manon 1975. "The need fo a principled framework to effectively negotiate and implement the aboriginal right to self-government in Canada /." Thesis, McGill University, 2002. http://digitool.Library.McGill.CA:80/R/?func=dbin-jump-full&object_id=78221.
Abstract:
The aim of this thesis is to reveal the need for a principled framework that would establish an effective implementation of the aboriginal peoples' right to self-government in Canada. In recent decades, many agreements instituting the right to self-government of First Nations have been concluded between the federal and provincial governments and aboriginal peoples. It then becomes important to evaluate the attempts of the two existing orders of government and the courts of Canada as regards the right to self-government and assess the potential usefulness of the two's efforts at defining and implementing the right. Firstly, the importance and legitimacy of the right to self-government is recognized through its beginnings in the human right norm of self-determination in international law to the establishment of the right in Canadian domestic law. Secondly, an evaluation of the principal attempts, on behalf of the governments and the courts, to give meaning and scope to the aboriginal right to self-government, which culminate in the conclusion of modern agreements, reveals their many inefficiencies and the need for a workable and concrete alternative. Lastly, the main lacunae of the negotiation process, the main process by which the right is concluded and implemented, and the use of the courts to determine the scope and protection of the right to self-government, are revealed. An analysis of European initiatives to entrench the right to self-government, mainly the European Charter of Self-Government and its established set of principles that guide the creation of self-government agreements, are also used in order to propose a viable option for the establishment of a principled framework for the aboriginal right to self-government in Canada.
27
Truscott, Keith. "Research problem: What are the differences between Wadjela and Nyungar criteria when assessing organisational effectiveness of non-government human service organisations?" Thesis, Edith Cowan University, Research Online, Perth, Western Australia, 2000. https://ro.ecu.edu.au/theses/1368.
Abstract:
Wadjela and Nyungar experts (of managerial, administrative, service staff), from the same South-West city location in Western Australia were randomly chosen from the non-government human service field for separate workshops and asked the question “what makes a non-government human service organisation effective?" The purpose was to compare the group consensus answer between the two separate workshop groups. The Nyungars are the Indigenous people in the South-West of Western Australia and the Wadjelas are the Non-Indigenous people living in the same area. The results listed five criteria, in order of priority that made non-government human service organisations effective. For the Wadjela community these were: I. A clear and shared vision of its task 2. Clear organisational structure which promotes strategic thinking and practice 3. Experienced and dedicated staff 4. Clear and client-based focus and strategies 5, Clarity of and relevant mission or goals. For the Nyungar community the results were: 1. A vision shared of Aboriginal culture and values 2. Appropriate management and finance incorporating Aboriginal culture and values 3. Recognition and identification of need 4. Diverse representation on Committee 5. Community involvement. Analysis and discussion of the findings were attempted from an Australian Indigenous perspective of people, place and parable. The conclusion is that the difference between Wadjela and Nyungar criteria in assessing organisational effectiveness in non-government organisations is that the former utilise a mechanical efficiency model and the latter a commitment to the whole community model. These differences were seen to be a contest between two world-views, that of a continuity of pragmatic relationships versus that of continuity of stewardship relationships.
28
Walker, Roz. "Transformative strategies in indigenous education : a study of decolonisation and positive social change : the Indigenous Community Management Program, Curtin University." Thesis, Click here for electronic access, 2004. http://handle.uws.edu.au:8081/1959.7/678.
Abstract:
This thesis is located within the social and political context of Indigenous education within Australia. Indigenous people continue to experience unacceptable levels of disadvantage and social marginalisation. The struggle for indigenous students individually and collectively lies in being able to determine a direction which is productive and non-assimilationist – which offers possibilities of social and economic transformation, equal opportunities and cultural integrity and self-determination. The challenge for teachers within the constraints of the academy is to develop strategies that are genuinely transformative, empowering and contribute to decolonisation and positive social change. This thesis explores how the construction of two theoretical propositions – the Indigenous Community Management and Development (ICMD) practitioner and the Indigenous/non-Indigenous Interface – are decolonising and transformative strategies. It investigates how these theoretical constructs and associated discourses are incorporated into the Centre’s policy processes, curriculum and pedagogy to influence and interact with the everyday lives of students in their work and communities and the wider social institutions. It charts how a group of Indigenous and non-Indigenous staff interact with these propositions and different ideas and discourses interrupting, re-visioning, reformulating and integrating these to form the basis for both Indigenous and non-Indigenous futures in Australia.
29
Taffe, Sue (Sue Elizabeth) 1945. "The Federal Council for the Advancement of Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders : the politics of inter-racial coalition in Australia, 1958-1973." Monash University, School of Historical Studies, 2001. http://arrow.monash.edu.au/hdl/1959.1/8964.
30
Cozzetto, Donald Arthur. "Governance in Nunavut." Diss., This resource online, 1990. http://scholar.lib.vt.edu/theses/available/etd-09162005-115027/.
31
Walker, Roz. "Transformative strategies in Indigenous education a study of decolonisation and positive social change." Click here for electronic access, 2004. http://adt.caul.edu.au/homesearch/get/?mode=advanced&format=summary&nratt=2&combiner0=and&op0=ss&att1=DC.Identifier&combiner1=and&op1=-sw&prevquery=OR%28REL%28SS%3BDC.Identifier%3Buws.edu.au%29%2CREL%28WD%3BDC.Relation%3BNUWS%29%29&att0=DC.Title&val0=Transformative+strategies+in+indigenous+education+&val1=NBD%3A.
Abstract:
Thesis (Ph.D.) -- University of Western Sydney, 2004.Title from electronic document (viewed 15/6/10) Presented for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, University of Western Sydney, 2004. Includes bibliography.
32
Babidge, Sally. "Family affairs an historical anthropology of state practice and Aboriginal agency in a rural town, North Queensland /." Click here for electronic access to document: http://eprints.jcu.edu.au/942, 2004. http://eprints.jcu.edu.au/942.
Abstract:
Thesis (Ph.D.) - James Cook University, 2004.Thesis submitted by Sally Marie Babidge, BA (Hons) UWA June 2004, for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the School of Anthropology, Archaeology and Sociology, James Cook University. Bibliography: leaves 283-303.
33
Luker, Trish, and LukerT@law anu edu au. "THE RHETORIC OF RECONCILIATION: EVIDENCE AND JUDICIAL SUBJECTIVITY IN CUBILLO v COMMONWEALTH." La Trobe University. School of Law, 2006. http://www.lib.latrobe.edu.au./thesis/public/adt-LTU20080305.105209.
Abstract:
In August 2000, Justice O�Loughlin of the Federal Court of Australia handed down the decision in Cubillo v Commonwealth in which Lorna Cubillo and Peter Gunner took action against the Commonwealth Government, arguing that it was vicariously liable for their removal from their families and communities as children and subsequent detentions in the Northern Territory during the 1940s and 1950s. The case is the landmark decision in relation to legal action taken by members of the Stolen Generations.
Using the decision in Cubillo as a key site of contestation, my thesis provides a critique of legal positivism as the dominant jurisprudential discourse operating within the Anglo-Australian legal system. I argue that the function of legal positivism as the principal paradigm and source of authority for the decision serves to ensure that the debate concerning reconciliation in Australia operates rhetorically to maintain whiteness at the centre of political and discursive power. Specifically concerned with the performative function of legal discourse, the thesis is an interrogation of the interface of law and language, of rhetoric, and the semiotics of legal discourse.
The dominant theory of evidence law is a rationalist and empiricist epistemology in which oral testimony and documentary evidence are regarded as mediating the relationship between proof and truth. I argue that by attributing primacy to principles of rationality, objectivity and narrative coherence, and by privileging that which is visually represented, the decision serves an ideological purpose which diminishes the significance of race in the construction of knowledge.
Legal positivism identifies the knowing subject and the object of knowledge as discrete entities. However, I argue that in Cubillo, Justice O�Loughlin inscribes himself into the text of the judgment and in doing so, reveals the way in which textual and corporeal specificities undermine the pretence of objective judgment and therefore the source of judicial authority.
34
Vidal, Anne. "Representing Australian identity in the years 2000-2001 : the Sydney Olympic Games and the Centenary of Federation (selling Australia to the world or commemorating a flawless past?)." Thesis, The University of Sydney, 2004. https://hdl.handle.net/2123/27914.
Abstract:
In his book, Inventing Australia: Images and Identity 1688-1980,
Richard White argues that:
There is no 'real' Australia waiting to be uncovered. A national
identity is an invention [. ..]. When we look at ideas about national
identity, we need to ask, not whether they are true or false, but
what their function is, whose creation they are, and what interests
they serve.
White's argument is a useful starting point when considering the
“obsession” Australian intellectuals have always felt to uncover their
national identity, which goes back to the very birth of Australia as a settler-colony.
Australia’s beginning as a colony not only implied a complete
dependence in terms of economy, defence and culture towards Great
Britain but also the dispossession of the indigenous population under the
legal doctrine of Terra Nullius. All settler-colonies in search for a national
identity follow the same initiatory path. The settlers at first feel isolated and
in exile, far away from any familiar landmark and find it difficult to
measure up with the mother country. After having, not without difficulty,
defined itself through the invention and the appropriation of myths
originating from the dominant Anglo Celtic society, Australia now seems to
suffer from a national identity crisis. The last three decades saw the
challenging and eroding of the mainstream white Australia identity by
minority groups such as women, non Anglo-Celtic migrants and indigenous
Australians. While those groups have made their voices heard throughout
the last thirty years, we can easily identify a dominant decade for each
group. Women saw most of their claims settled in the 1970s,
multiculturalism became a reality in the 1980s while indigenous
Australians stamped on the 1990s with native title laws, the reconciliation
movement and the growing acceptance and adoption of Aboriginality as a
desirable component of the Australian national identity.
35
Corrigan, Brendan. "Different stories about the same place : interpreting narrative, practice and tradition in the East Kimberley of northern Australia and the Aru Island of Eastern Indonesia." University of Western Australia. School of Social and Cultural Studies, 2007. http://theses.library.uwa.edu.au/adt-WU2007.0083.
Abstract:
This thesis interrogates the relationship of archaeological models and indigenous understandings of origins in the East Kimberley region of Northern Australia and the Aru Islands of Eastern Indonesia. Archaeological models of prehistoric migration construct these places as part of the same landmass in the recent human period and at times of lower sea levels. Yet, the indigenous groups who currently inhabit these places assert and rely upon their localised understandings of autochthony and mythological creationism. The existence of these competing models has led me to examine the degree to which the practice of archaeology in these locations constructs human prehistory in a way that necessarily disempowers the indigenous cosmology there. Below I examine the construction and content of these different stories about the same place to show how it is that they are essentially competing, conflicting and contradictory claims to truth. I show how each of these asserted cosmological positions emerge from the various cultural systems that sponsor and perpetuate them and I pay special attention to the role of institutionally authorised experts within each of the cosmological positions described. I also seek to demonstrate the ways in which the distribution of expert knowledge plays a core role in a naturalised social order and the ongoing construction of cultural identity in their respective communities. I then interrogate the relationships that these differing forms of knowledge have with each other - paying close attention to the specifics of context in which they are evoked. I conclude that the examination of how these competing claims to truth are distributed in space reveals their influence in the ongoing construction of identity in their respective communities.
36
Garcia, Maria E. "Governing Gambling in the United States." Scholarship @ Claremont, 2010. http://scholarship.claremont.edu/cmc_theses/3.
Abstract:
The role risk taking has played in American history has helped shape current legislation concerning gambling. This thesis attempts to explain the discrepancies in legislation regarding distinct forms of gambling. While casinos are heavily regulated by state and federal laws, most statutes dealing with lotteries strive to regulate the activities of other parties instead of those of the lottery institutions. Incidentally, lotteries are the only form of gambling completely managed by the government. It can be inferred that the United States government is more concerned with people exploiting gambling than with the actual practice of wagering.
In an effort to more fully understand the gambling debate, whether it should be allowed or banned, I examined different types of sources. Historical sources demonstrate how ingrained in American culture risk taking, the core of gambling, has been since the formation of this nation. Sources dealing with the economic implications of gambling were also studied. Additionally, sources dealings with the political and legal aspects of gambling were essential for this thesis. Legislature has tried to reconcile distinct problems associated with gambling, including corruption. For this reason sports gambling scandals and Mafia connections to gambling have also been examined.
The American government has created much needed legislature to address different concerns relating to gambling. It is apparent that statutes will continue to be passed to help regulate the gambling industry. A possible consideration is the legalization of sports wagering to better regulate that sector of the industry.
37
Kinuthia, Wanyee. "“Accumulation by Dispossession” by the Global Extractive Industry: The Case of Canada." Thèse, Université d'Ottawa / University of Ottawa, 2013. http://hdl.handle.net/10393/30170.
Abstract:
This thesis draws on David Harvey’s concept of “accumulation by dispossession” and an international political economy (IPE) approach centred on the institutional arrangements and power structures that privilege certain actors and values, in order to critique current capitalist practices of primitive accumulation by the global corporate extractive industry. The thesis examines how accumulation by dispossession by the global extractive industry is facilitated by the “free entry” or “free mining” principle. It does so by focusing on Canada as a leader in the global extractive industry and the spread of this country’s mining laws to other countries – in other words, the transnationalisation of norms in the global extractive industry – so as to maintain a consistent and familiar operating environment for Canadian extractive companies. The transnationalisation of norms is further promoted by key international institutions such as the World Bank, which is also the world’s largest development lender and also plays a key role in shaping the regulations that govern natural resource extraction. The thesis briefly investigates some Canadian examples of resource extraction projects, in order to demonstrate the weaknesses of Canadian mining laws, particularly the lack of protection of landowners’ rights under the free entry system and the subsequent need for “free, prior and informed consent” (FPIC). The thesis also considers some of the challenges to the adoption and implementation of the right to FPIC. These challenges include embedded institutional structures like the free entry mining system, international political economy (IPE) as shaped by international institutions and powerful corporations, as well as concerns regarding ‘local’ power structures or the legitimacy of representatives of communities affected by extractive projects. The thesis concludes that in order for Canada to be truly recognized as a leader in the global extractive industry, it must establish legal norms domestically to ensure that Canadian mining companies and residents can be held accountable when there is evidence of environmental and/or human rights violations associated with the activities of Canadian mining companies abroad. The thesis also concludes that Canada needs to address underlying structural issues such as the free entry mining system and implement FPIC, in order to curb “accumulation by dispossession” by the extractive industry, both domestically and abroad.
38
Jenkins, Stephen (Stephen William). "Australia's Commonwealth Self-determination Policy 1972-1998 : the imagined nation and the continuing control of indigenous existence." 2002. http://web4.library.adelaide.edu.au/theses/09PH/09phj522.pdf.
Abstract:
"September 2002." Includes bibliographical references (leaves 336-366) Argues that the Australian nation is the primary obstacle to the granting of self-determination to indigenous people because it is imagined and constituted as a monocultural entity, one that resists any divisions within the national space on the basis of culture or 'race'.
39
Jenkins, Stephen (Stephen William). "Australia's Commonwealth Self-determination Policy 1972-1998 : the imagined nation and the continuing control of indigenous existence / Stephen Jenkins." Thesis, 2002. http://hdl.handle.net/2440/21932.
Abstract:
"September 2002."Includes bibliographical references (leaves 336-366)
vii, 366 leaves ; 30 cm.
Argues that the Australian nation is the primary obstacle to the granting of self-determination to indigenous people because it is imagined and constituted as a monocultural entity, one that resists any divisions within the national space on the basis of culture or 'race'.
Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Adelaide, Dept. of Politics, 2002
40
Davis, Edward R. "Ethnicity and diversity : politics and the Aboriginal community / Edward R. Davis." Thesis, 1991. http://hdl.handle.net/2440/19654.
41
Lambert, Jacqueline Ann. "A history of the Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies 1959 -1989 : an analysis of how Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people achieved control of a national research institute." Phd thesis, 2011. http://hdl.handle.net/1885/151396.
Abstract:
The Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies (AlAS) was set up to record Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultures before they disappeared forever. Proposed by Liberal parliamentarian WC Wentworth in 1959, the Commonwealth Government established it in 1961 and made it permanent through an Act of Parliament in 1964. This history focuses on its first thirty years, ending in 1989, the year the Institute came under a new Act, which introduced changes to its character and governance.
In the 1960s, the Institute's focus was on 'traditional' Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultures and most research took place in remote Australia. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people had no input into the Institute's activities other than as 'informants'. By 1989, they were involved in all facets of the Institute's operations including its governance. Informed by the work of Michel Foucault on power/knowledge and truth and on governmentality, and in the context of the broader political and social environment, this thesis will explore the history of AlAS to identify the factors, both internal and external, that led to the changes. It will address the Institute's relationship with the Academy (including the conflict between academic disciplines within AlAS), and the ideological battles for its control between academics; Aboriginal people and the Academy; and Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal scholars and the government. It will seek to explain how a relatively powerless group of Aboriginal people (with the help of their non-Aboriginal supporters) managed, over time and in the face of the power of the Academy, to control the Institute.
42
Lovell, Melissa Ellen. "Liberalism, settler colonialism, and the Northern Territory intervention." Phd thesis, 2012. http://hdl.handle.net/1885/110388.
Abstract:
In June 2007 the Australian government assumed greater authority over the government of remote Aboriginal communities in the Northern Territory. The Northern Territory Intervention (NTI), also known as the Northern Territory Emergency Response (NTER), was framed as a response to the Little Children Are Sacred report which documented high levels of child abuse and neglect in Aboriginal communities, and which called on the Northern Territory and Australian governments to make the protection of children a priority. The Northern Territory Intervention was controversial because many of the rights, liberties, and processes typically understood as essential elements of liberal government were waived in favour of coercive, disciplinary, and authoritarian strategies of government. In this dissertation I analyse the content of parliamentary debates, political speeches and government reports to develop an understanding of the discursive and rhetorical context in which these interventionist and authoritarian strategies came to be seen as essential to the protection of Aboriginal children's safety and wellbeing. I draw on two analytical perspectives - settler colonialism and liberal governmentality - to argue that both colonial and neoliberal politics contributed to a view of Aboriginal people as dysfunctional and incapable of self-discipline and self-government. I argue that this perception of Aboriginal people played an important role in the justification of authoritarian and coercive policies in remote Aboriginal communities. Whereas conventional perspectives on liberal politics focus on the liberal commitment to securing liberty and human dignity, my analysis of the NTI illustrates the intimate relationship between liberal and authoritarian politics. Previous scholarship on the NTI describes the policy as a return to a colonial form of politics and understand the normalising and authoritarian aspects of the Intervention as the product of an ideological shift toward neoliberal forms of government. From this perspective, colonial and neoliberal forms of politics compromise the ability of a liberal democratic society to secure the liberty, rights and wellbeing of its Aboriginal citizens. Using my analysis of the NTI, I proffer an alternative argument about the significance of the NTI for our understanding of liberal and colonial politics. First, I argue that the NTI demonstrates the tendency of liberal government to use authoritarian and coercive strategies to govern those who are deemed incapable of self-government and the exercise of liberal economic freedoms. This concept of authoritarian liberal government is found in the scholarship on liberal governmentality and contradicts the purely emancipatory view of liberal politics. Second, I argue that the NTI case study enables an examination of the process by which this liberal tendency to authoritarian government can be reinforced in the settler colonial context. An understanding of this process is important because it demonstrates some of the challenges facing attempts to decolonise settler colonial societies.
43
Jagger, David Stewart. "The capacity for community development to improve conditions in Australian Aboriginal communities : an anthropological analysis." Master's thesis, 2011. http://hdl.handle.net/1885/109231.
Abstract:
For 35 years, Aboriginal self-determination policy privileged local autonomy in the autonomy-relatedness dynamic central to Aboriginal sociality. This privileging brought a major change to Aboriginal sociality and collective identity. The self in self-determination policy had a strongly local focus through which it was thought community development would thrive. Key connected factors in the privileging of local autonomy are socio-cultural reification, juridification and entification. The reification is with respect to identity associated with land-based tradition. All three of these factors are contrary to the profound processes of relatedness in the Australian Aboriginal domain. The so-called intervention by the Commonwealth into Northern Territory Aboriginal affairs in 2007 dramatically changed the policy settings in the NT at least. But local autonomy remains privileged over relatedness. As such, this thesis argues, the foundation for an Aboriginal civil society able to negotiate the now very fluid policy environment and make the most of the opportunities presented in community development projects like the thesis case studies in fact remains generally weak. The thesis argues that recognition of relatedness is the basis of civil society in the Aboriginal domain and a key to improvements in Australian Aboriginal communities, without dismissing local autonomy. The common good inherent in community development is limited without this recognition. So is cultural match, said to be important in development project governance in the Indigenous domain. The thesis examines these matters through three case studies, community development projects that use moneys paid to Aboriginal people from the use of Aboriginal land for mining and a national park. An important finding is that autonomy-relatedness balance reflected in the governance arrangements of community development projects is needed for Aboriginal people to properly identify with the projects and thus participate meaningfully in them in order to realise tangible and sustainable community benefits from them. Meanwhile, commercial development like mining continues to favour the certainty afforded in the localising factors of reification, juridification and entification. Aboriginal self-determination has been characterised as a policy of disengagement of wider society from Aboriginal people. Consistent with this, and again contrary to relatedness, an underlying theme in the thesis is that of separation. As well as the disengagement of the policy, this separation includes the separation of some Aboriginal people from other Aboriginal people arising from locally emplaced identity, tradition from modernity and community development from economic development and the market economy. At this level, the thesis points to the importance of an intercultural approach to development entertaining the notion of hybridity including that of the hybrid economy. This is not to deny the benefits of self-determination policy over its policy predecessors, much less to suggest a return to assimilation policy in particular, but to suggest some ways to help resolve the serious problems still facing remote Aboriginal communities as well as to flag the limitations of community development in this context.
44
Cooms, Valerie. "Free the blacks and smash the Act! : Aboriginal policy and resistance in Queensland between 1965 and 1975." Phd thesis, 2012. http://hdl.handle.net/1885/155752.
Abstract:
This thesis focuses on both the State and Commonwealth Governments' involvement in Aboriginal affairs in Queensland from 1965 to 1975. It also examines the way in which the world anti-racism and decolonisation process was heavily influential not only upon the Australian Government's policy but also upon Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal people's responses and methods of protest as well. Because Australia is a settler colony with an Aboriginal population estimated as only 1% between 1965 and 1975, this thesis observes how the United Nations remained particularly watchful over Australia. This occurred at a time when Australia was attempting to convince the international community that it was condemning racism and treating Aboriginal minority populations properly within a post-colonial climate of expectation. However, whatever label either Commonwealth or State Governments placed on newly formed Aboriginal policies, this thesis argues that they were merely more acceptable up-to-date methods of colonisation aimed predominantly at averting criticism. Given the overwhelming outcome of the 1967 referendum, the Commonwealth had to address Aboriginal affairs in Australian States, especially Queensland. Initially the Commonwealth provided much needed funding to the Queensland Government to provide health, education and housing on reserves. In the late 1960s, the Commonwealth had started to provide funding to the State Government for housing outside of reserves for Aboriginal families. By the early 1970s, the Commonwealth was funding Aboriginal community-based organisations direct (despite Queensland Government's objections), set up a national elected representative Aboriginal organisation, committed to remove discriminatory legislation from Australian statutes and introduced legislation to outlaw discrimination, attempted to address economic development and committed to the provision of Aboriginal land rights. Using mostly primary resources including speech notes, annual reports and cabinet submissions and other related papers and files from AIATSIS, National Australian and Queensland State archives, the State and Commonwealth Governments' tactics are examined. The examination of activism and resistance provides not only an overview of the workings of organisations in relation to challenging both the State and Commonwealth Governments, but more importantly, the use of the enhanced Australian public opinion together with the UN and international community as effective leverage at a time when the Australian Government was attempting to convince the world that it was committed to protecting the rights of Australia's Aboriginal peoples. The influx of vast numbers of Aboriginal people into Queensland towns and cities facilitated the politicisation of many and led to the emergence of more radical organisations like the Black Community Centre, Act Confrontation Committee, Black Panther Party, Aboriginal Legal Service and Black Community Housing Serves to name a few. Most of these organisations played a role notifying the world about the Queensland Government's tactics and embarrassed the Commonwealth. Aboriginal organisations used Australia's need to avert UN criticism as effective leverage in Queensland particularly between 1965 and 1975.
45
Kaplan-Myrth, Nili. "Hard Yakka : a study of the community-government relations that shape Australian Aboriginal health policy and politics /." 2003. http://proquest.umi.com/pqdlink?did=765029031&Fmt=7&clientId%20=43258&RQT=309&VName=PQD.
Abstract:
Thesis (Ph.D.)--Yale University, 2004.Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of Yale University in candidacy for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. Includes bibliography. Preview available online at: http://proquest.umi.com/pqdlink?did=765029031&Fmt=7&clientId%20=43258&RQT=309&VName=PQD.
46
Ward, Charlie R. "Gurindji people and Aboriginal self-determination policy, 1973-1986." Thesis, 2017. http://hdl.handle.net/1959.7/uws:47353.
Abstract:
In 1973, a newly-elected Australian Labor Party government led by Gough Whitlam described its new Aboriginal Affairs policy as one of Aboriginal self-determination. The policy proclaimed its intention to assist Aboriginal groups to achieve their own goals, and used the Northern Territory (over which the Commonwealth then had full control) as a proving ground for its implementation. Subsequently renamed self-management by the Fraser Government (1975–83), the policy was adapted in small but significant ways by every federal and Northern Territory Government in the period of this study (1973–86). The thinking of those who had formulated self-determination policy had been influenced by the situation and ambitions of the Gurindji people. The group had come to public attention following their Wave Hill Walk-off protest action of 1966, led by Vincent Lingiari. In the years afterwards, Lingiari and other Gurindji leaders articulated a number of goals, the achievement of which they saw as fundamental to their society’s wellbeing and viability. Those goals were: official recognition of their traditional rights to land; their operation of a cattle enterprise on that land; their establishment of an independent community there also; and the operation in that community of a ‘two-way’ school. This thesis recognises an apparent confluence of shared intentions among Gurindji leaders and government agencies in the self-determination era, and describes a zone of parallel Gurindji and government activity: ‘Gurindji self-determination’. Finding that three of Gurindji self-determination’s four goals were not or only fleetingly achieved, the task of this thesis is to identify the causes of this broad failure and singular success. To do this, the thesis draws on detailed empirical data, the policy history of the preceding decades, anthropological and ethnographic studies, and political theory. This thesis finds that Gurindji self-determination’s failure was caused by inchoate and emergent differences between the aims and methods of government agencies and the Gurindji. Equally, young Gurindji people’s social reform agendas were an important and unanticipated contributor to the failure of Gurindji self-determination. Increased cash incomes and broader policy shifts associated with ‘equal rights’ enabled younger Gurindji to conduct this reformation.
47
Strelein, Lisa Mary. "Indigenous self-determination claims and the common law in Australia." Phd thesis, 1998. http://hdl.handle.net/1885/109314.
Abstract:
With the decision in Mabo v Queensland [No. 2] in 1992, the courts cemented their
role in the self-determination strategies of Indigenous peoples in Australia. More
than merely recognising a form of title to traditional lands, the tenor of the
judgements in Mabo's case respected Indigenous peoples and offered the protection
of the common law. However, the expectations of many Indigenous people for
change have not since been met. This thesis examines the usefulness of the courts
and the common law in particular for the self-determination claims of Indigenous
peoples. I examine the theoretical and institutional limitations on the courts that have
resulted in a doctrinal history which has generally excluded Indigenous peoples. I
also analyse the potential for the common law to accommodate self-determination
claims. I argue that the courts require familiar concepts upon which to base their
decisions. I identify the notion of equality of peoples as a proper foundation for the
courts to structure the relationship between Indigenous peoples and the state.
Equality of peoples has roots in the fundamental principles of the common law and
maintains the integrity of Indigenous peoples’ claims.
48
Maclean, Kirsten Marion Eileen. "Creating spaces for negotiation at the environmental management and community development interface in Australia." Phd thesis, 2007. http://hdl.handle.net/1885/149730.
49
Devitt, Rebecca. "'Sweat and tears' : stolen generations activism and the National Inquiry into the separation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children from their families." Phd thesis, 2008. http://hdl.handle.net/1885/149903.
50
Saunders, Jane E. "Between surfaces a psychodynamic approach to cultural identity, cultural difference and reconciliation in Australia /." 2006. http://wallaby.vu.edu.au/adt-VVUT/public/adt-VVUT20071129.092250/index.html.