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Australian Aboriginal Studies
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ISSN (Print) 0729-4352
Published by RMIT Publishing

[400 journals]

Issue 2 - How kinship structures have been adapted to allow continued
descent of rights and interests in north-western Victoria
- Abstract: O'Kane, Michael P
  With colonisation, Aboriginal kinship structures in the central Murray riverine have been adapted from their precolonial form in order to function in the contemporary context. Where once meta-structural realities such as moieties and sections regulated many aspects of regional Aboriginal society, contemporary people in the region are commonly organised into surname groups or groups associated with particular ancestors that provide the arenas within which the politics of identity are negotiated. This paper seeks to compare the information available concerning social organisation in the ethno-historical record with contemporary forms of social organisation in order to highlight the functional continuities of Aboriginal kinship in the region from the precolonial era to the present. Ultimately, I argue for the persistence of a cultural bloc along the central Murray riverine, which, while structurally adapted through colonisation, is functionally extant and stable.
  
  PubDate: Wed, 6 Dec 2017 12:07:07 GMT
Issue 2 - Editorial
- Abstract: Bamblett, Lawrence
  PubDate: Wed, 6 Dec 2017 12:07:07 GMT
Issue 2 - Brokers and boundaries: Colonial exploration in indigenous
territory [Book Review]
- Abstract: Singley, Blake
  Review(s) of: Brokers and boundaries: colonial exploration in Indigenous territory, by Tiffany Shellam, Maria Nugent, Shino Konishi and Allison Cadzow (eds) 2016, ANU Press, The Australian National University, Acton, 212pp, ills, maps, 24cm, ISBN 9781760460112 (pbk).
  
  PubDate: Wed, 6 Dec 2017 12:07:07 GMT
Issue 2 - Aboriginal community education officers' fight for agency and
equality: A historical overview
- Abstract: MacGill, Belinda
  Aboriginal Community Education Officers (ACEOs) play a critical role in the lives of Indigenous students. They provide support in the classroom and liaise between Indigenous communities and schools. Despite the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody recommendation to recognise the value of ACEOs in schools, they continue to be marginalised in the literature and the workplace. Arguably, the presence of ACEOs on education boards and committees has informed a political body of knowledge that has shaped Indigenous education policy. The South Australian Aboriginal Education Consultative Committee included many ACEOs and was one of the first political bodies to focus on the working conditions of ACEOs. Oral histories of ACEOs, coupled with a review of the literature concerning ACEOs, highlight their significant commitment to Indigenous education and foreground their work within the context of educational policy and workplace change. The significance of these oral accounts cannot be underestimated and offers a counter narrative to the dearth of literature on ACEOs in shaping educational reform.
  
  PubDate: Wed, 6 Dec 2017 12:07:07 GMT
Issue 2 - Indigenous sporting pasts: Resuscitating aboriginal swimming
history
- Abstract: Osmond, Gary
  This paper explores swimming as an area of sport and physical culture in which Aboriginal involvement historically is little understood. Although colonial reports and contemporary historiography comment on Aboriginal swimming practices, detailed evidence is fragmentary and much has been forgotten. Through three case studies - of stroke development in mid-nineteenth century Sydney; a swimmer in Wagga Wagga, New South Wales, who swam on equal terms with white competitors; and a commended surf life-saver on the Gold Coast, Queensland - this paper offers a partial redress of this forgotten past and recognises the unknown overlap of Aboriginal swimming with the development of 'modern' swimming cultures in Australia. The value of investigating these pasts extends beyond broadening historical knowledge to the potential use in eliciting memories and generating storytelling within communities.
  
  PubDate: Wed, 6 Dec 2017 12:07:07 GMT
Issue 2 - Access to sustainable employment and productive training:
Workplace participation strategies for indigenous employees
- Abstract: Ewing, Bronwyn; Sarra, Grace; Price, Robin; O'Brien, Grace; Priddle, Chelsey
  Access to sustainable and viable employment is crucial to an individual's potential to achieve a reasonable quality of life. Policies introduced to promote Indigenous employment in Australia, such as Community Development Employment Projects (CDEP), have had minimal impact on long-term employment outcomes and the percentage of Indigenous people in employment has barely moved in 35 years. According to statistics in the Prime Minister's Closing the Gap report, there has been no improvement in Indigenous employment targets since 2008 and the 'Indigenous employment rate fell from 53.8 per cent in 2008 to 47.5 per cent in 2012-13' (Australian Government 2016:27). National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Survey (NATSISS) 2014-15 data indicate that only 46 per cent of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people aged 15 years and older were employed (ABS 2016). The purpose of this paper is to report on an investigation into employment and workplace participation strategies for Indigenous employees in one government organisation in Queensland. The study adopted a mixed methods approach, predominantly qualitative, and focused on descriptive similarities and differences in terms of Indigenous employment strategies to develop in-depth comparable case studies. It used thematic and discourse analysis to bring together theoretical understandings of communities of practice to theorise employees as participants in workplace employment and practice. The findings indicate that employees want careers, not just jobs. They enjoy working in culturally safe environments with other Indigenous employees onsite and want to improve their life opportunities.
  
  PubDate: Wed, 6 Dec 2017 12:07:07 GMT
Issue 2 - Revisiting the mount William greenstone quarry: Employment
specialisation and a market economy in an early contact hunter-gatherer
society
- Abstract: Roberts, Phillip
  This paper revisits the distribution of greenstone from the quarry at Mount William near Lancefield, Victoria, to investigate traditional exchange mechanisms associated with the stone. The research finds that the value of the stone appears to be driven to a substantial degree by systems associated with a market economy, a system that was a socio-economic benefit to both the managers of the quarry itself and to the Wurundjeri more generally. Historical ethnographic sources indicate that a permanent presence was maintained at the quarry site by specific Wurundjeri-willam community members. This suggests that employment specialisation was associated with the production of this non-food resource, an observation not usually associated with hunter-gatherer populations.
  
  These observations do not fit with many existing models of Aboriginal socio-economic systems. Their presence in this setting alludes to complex commercial organisation and asset management for at least some high-value resources in south-east Australia prior to the colonial period.
  
  PubDate: Wed, 6 Dec 2017 12:07:07 GMT
Issue 2 - Gularabulu: Stories from the west Kimberley [Book Review]
- Abstract: Blechynden, Ashleigh
  Review(s) of: Gularabulu: Stories from the West Kimberley, by Paddy Roe, 2016, UWAP, Crawley, WA, 152pp, ill., 20 cm, ISBN 9781742589275 (pbk).
  
  PubDate: Wed, 6 Dec 2017 12:07:07 GMT
Issue 2 - Remote avant-garde: Aboriginal art under occupation [Book
Review]
- Abstract: Brand, Sally
  Review(s) of: Remote avant-garde: Aboriginal art under occupation, by Jennifer Loureide Biddle 2016, Duke University Press, London, 302pp, ills, ISBN 9780822360711 (pbk).
  
  PubDate: Wed, 6 Dec 2017 12:07:07 GMT
Issue 2 - Australian indigenous studies: Research and practice [Book
Review]
- Abstract: Carey, Michelle
  Review(s) of: Australian Indigenous studies: Research and practice, by Terry Moore, Carol Pybus, Mitchell Rolls and David Moltow 2016, Peter Lang AG, Bern, Switzerland, 286pp, ISBN 9783034322454 (pbk)
  
  PubDate: Wed, 6 Dec 2017 12:07:07 GMT
Issue 2 - Aboriginal inmate experiences of Parramatta girls home
- Abstract: Sullivan, Corrinne
  The treatment of Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal inmates of Parramatta Girls Home highlights a powerful convergence of a shared history. The recollections of both groups of inmates tell a similar story of shame, abuse, violence and neglect. Both groups have had to fight hard to get their stories heard, known and acknowledged. The Bringing them home report (HREOC 1997), the Forgotten Australians report (Australian Senate 2004) and the 2014 Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse have brought the experiences of former inmates of Parramatta Girls Home to the fore of public acknowledgment. It is estimated that more than 30,000 girls were incarcerated in the Home between 1887 and 1974. At any given time the Home held between 160 and 200 inmates. The girls were generally incarcerated for between six months and three years, and were eligible for release when they were 18 years of age (Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse 2014c).
  
  PubDate: Wed, 6 Dec 2017 12:07:07 GMT
Issue 2 - Bulldust, flat tyres and roadkill: A disorderly decolonising
fieldwork journey through remote aboriginal and Torres strait islander
Australia
- Abstract: Plater, Suzanne; Mooney-Somers, Julie; Lander, Jo; Barclay, Lesley
  The purpose of this paper is to discuss the iterations and outcomes of a doctoral fieldwork experience where the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander participants challenged me to radically adapt my constructivist grounded theory methodology and commence decolonising data gathering and analysis while in the field. The starting point for the research was a discourse of defeatism in the literature around mature-age Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander university graduates and students, which the participants, my doctoral supervisors and I perceived as unjust and unjustifiable. The aim of the ongoing research, therefore, is to explore and explicate an alternative discourse, beginning with the emic perspectives of mature-age Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander university graduates. In the context of the remote Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander field, I detail the early and some what disorderly enactment of decolonising methodology - disorderly because I was unprepared for the extent to which the participants would take control of both the research agenda and methods. Disorder also partly characterised our collaborative methodological adaptation, in that it was initially more intuitive than deliberate. I discuss how the participants shifted the post-graduation narrative from one of personal and professional uplift to one they dubbed 'the blessings and burdens of being an educated black'. This narrative unequivocally challenges the notion of Australia as a postcolonial society and positions the participants as activists in the fight for indigenous self-determination. I reflect on mistakes made and lessons learned, and articulate pragmatic and achievable fieldwork research methods that privilege participants as knowledge producers and custodians. The paper concludes by discussing the next stages of the decolonising constructivist grounded theory project, which necessitated a return to the field to test and refine the emerging conceptual categories with the participants, most of whom have remained active partners in the research.
  
  PubDate: Wed, 6 Dec 2017 12:07:07 GMT
Issue 2 - Books received for review
- PubDate: Wed, 6 Dec 2017 12:07:07 GMT
Issue 2 - Treaty and statehood: Aboriginal self-determination [Book
Review]
- Abstract: Bamblett, Laurie
  Review(s) of: Treaty and statehood: Aboriginal self-determination, by Michael Mansell, 2016, The Federation Press, Leichhardt, NSW, 301pp, ISBN 9781760020835 (pbk).
  
  PubDate: Wed, 6 Dec 2017 12:07:07 GMT
Issue 2 - Geontologies: A requiem to late liberalism [Book Review]
- Abstract: Vincent, Eve
  Review(s) of: Geontologies: A requiem to late liberalism, by Elizabeth Povinelli 2016, Duke University Press, Durham and London, 218pp, ISBN 9780822362333 (pbk).
  
  PubDate: Wed, 6 Dec 2017 12:07:07 GMT
Issue 1 - Just relations: the story of Mary Bennett's crusade for
Aboriginal rights [Book Review]
- Abstract: Singley, Blake
  Review(s) of: Just relations: the story of Mary Bennett's crusade for Aboriginal rights, by Alison Holland 2015, UWA Publishing, Perth, WA, 480pp, ISBN 9781742586878 (pbk).
  
  PubDate: Thu, 2 Nov 2017 11:47:32 GMT
Issue 1 - Traditional healers of Central Australia: Ngangkari [Book
Review]
- Abstract: Burbidge, Belinda
  Review(s) of: Traditional healers of Central Australia: Ngangkari, by Ngaanyatjarra Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara Women's Council Aboriginal Corporation 2013, Magabala Books, Broome, WA, 272pp, ISBN 9781921248825 (pbk).
  
  PubDate: Thu, 2 Nov 2017 11:47:32 GMT
Issue 1 - Engaging Indigenous economy: Debating diverse approaches [Book
Review]
- Abstract: Tran, Tran; Barcham, Clare
  Review(s) of: Engaging Indigenous economy: Debating diverse approaches, by Will Sanders (ed.) 2016, ANU Press, The Australian National University, Acton, 328 pp, ill., map, 23cm, ISBN 9781760460037 (pbk).
  
  PubDate: Thu, 2 Nov 2017 11:47:32 GMT
Issue 1 - Books received for review
- PubDate: Thu, 2 Nov 2017 11:47:32 GMT
Issue 1 - Recent releases
- PubDate: Thu, 2 Nov 2017 11:47:32 GMT
Issue 1 - Call for papers
- Abstract: Bamblett, Lawrence
  PubDate: Thu, 2 Nov 2017 11:47:32 GMT
Issue 1 - Critical race theory and the orthodoxy of race neutrality:
Examining the denigration of Adam Goodes
- Abstract: Coram, Stella; Hallinan, Chris
  This study draws on critical race theory to examine common sense assumptions of race and racism so as to identify the distortions in logic in the justification that the booing of Indigenous athlete Adam Goodes was not 'racist'. It is claimed that the central assumption of race neutrality relies on the assertion that non-Indigenous athletes are booed and that the booing of an individual such as Adam Goodes does not constitute racism since, for this to be the case, it must apply to all Indigenous athletes. Moreover, race is not targeted, only the athlete, nor is booing explicit of race. This study highlights the historical context within which Indigenous athletes are racially discriminated against. We contend that booing represents a covert reworking of the racial vilification of Indigenous athletes and that their vilification is but one form of racism. A theoretical piece, this paper follows in-depth examination of the content of booing (Coram 2016).
  
  PubDate: Thu, 2 Nov 2017 11:47:32 GMT
Issue 1 - Pictures from my memory: My story as a Ngaatjatjarra woman [Book
Review]
- Abstract: Little, Stacey
  Review(s) of: Pictures from my memory: My story as a Ngaatjatjarra woman, by Lizzie Marrkilyi Ellis 2016, Aboriginal Studies Press, Canberra, 153pp, ill., 23cm, ISBN 9780855750350 (pbk).
  
  PubDate: Thu, 2 Nov 2017 11:47:32 GMT
Issue 1 - The narratives of Albert Namatjira
- Abstract: Aitken, Wendy; Wareham, Christopher
  Albert Namatjira gained public acclaim for his art at a time when Aboriginal people were excluded from full citizenship in Australia. His narrative provides a context to analyse the human impact of the assimilation policy and the official control exercised over Aboriginal lives, and how these were rationalised within the institutional bureaucracy. This paper examines the reasons for his popular success and analyses the discourse to reveal the racist assumptions that underpinned much of the artistic criticism Namatjira's work received. This paper demonstrates that the legacy of control and exploitation over Aboriginal artists from the Hermannsburg School is not confined to the past, and concludes that Namatjira's own legacy is profoundly important for the identity of modern Australia.
  
  PubDate: Thu, 2 Nov 2017 11:47:32 GMT
Issue 1 - 'Say to yourself: do I want to be a doormat'': Ageing
Indigenous Australian women's reflections on gender roles and agency
- Abstract: Dune, Tinashe; Firdaus, Rubab; Mapedzahama, Virginia; Lee, Vanessa; Stewart, Jo; Tronc, Wendy; Mekonnen, Tensae
  Little is known about the restorative outcomes of Indigenous resilience borne through personal and community agency among Indigenous Australian women. This is particularly true of the agency of Indigenous women who often overcome the trap of colonial and postcolonial gender roles that ensnare women in limiting constructions of femininity - a situation that often becomes more restrictive as women age. This paper addresses this gap in the literature by presenting findings on how ageing Indigenous Australian women talk about their own agency and gender role performance. The main themes relating to the women's gender roles included their roles as mothers, wives, cultural custodians, grandmothers, carers of self, community workers and income earners. Agency included a number of themes: for oneself, changes over time, for others, barriers, facilitators and catalysts. The data generated from the focus groups give an insight of indigeneity and indicate a deep sense of community engagement, resilience and agency in the lives of Indigenous women and how these roles adapted over time to contemporary circumstances.
  
  PubDate: Thu, 2 Nov 2017 11:47:32 GMT
Issue 1 - A regional governance structure for the Kimberley'
Twenty-five years on from Crocodile Hole
- Abstract: Thorburn, Kathryn
  In 1991 a large bush meeting was held at Rugan in the East Kimberley, organised by the Kimberley Land Council and attended by more than 500 Aboriginal people from across the Kimberley. This meeting is looked upon as one of the most significant expressions of pan-Kimberley identity in the post-settlement era and generated considerable discussion at a regional level. This event, which has since become known as 'Crocodile Hole', occurred in the shadow of the failure of land rights to be passed in Western Australia in the mid-1980s, and the impending Mabo decision. This paper attempts to track the idea of a regional governance structure in the Kimberley since the time of Crocodile Hole and how this idea has articulated with wider political and policy trends in the region and beyond. It notes that principles identified by the Crocodile Hole meeting remain as core ideals for Aboriginal leadership within the Kimberley, yet the form and structure by which regional governance is being attempted has altered significantly over time. In a contemporary context, it concludes that such a structure would require particular characteristics to be deemed acceptable by Aboriginal groups across the Kimberley and to be engaged with by government.
  
  PubDate: Thu, 2 Nov 2017 11:47:32 GMT
Issue 1 - Collaborative ethnomusicology: New approaches to music research
between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians [Book Review]
- Abstract: Koch, Grace
  Review(s) of: Collaborative ethnomusicology: New approaches to music research between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians, by Katelyn Barney (ed.) 2014, Lyrebird Press, Melbourne Conservatorium of Music, Faculty of VCA and MCM, The University of Melbourne, 202pp., ill., portraits,
  ISSN 1325 5266, ISBN 9780734037770 (pbk).
  
  PubDate: Thu, 2 Nov 2017 11:47:32 GMT
Issue 1 - Photoyarn: Aboriginal and Maori girls' researching contemporary
boarding school experiences
- Abstract: Rogers, Jessa
  Few studies have primarily addressed Indigenous girls' experiences in contemporary boarding schools in Australia or Aotearoa New Zealand. In response, this research was developed in conjunction with Indigenous students attending boarding schools to look at their school experiences. Fifteen Aboriginal girls attending two non-Indigenous Australian boarding schools and ten girls from one Maori boarding school were involved in this research. An Indigenous research method termed 'photoyarn' was developed as a method students could use to drive and control their own research, on their own experiences, using student photo-graphy, yarning and yarning circles. Underpinned and viewed through the lens of Martin's (2008) relatedness theory, this research also drew on Indigenous methodologies centred on connectedness and relatedness, such as storywork. Photoyarn allowed participants to lead their own research in ways that many other methods could not, through participant-led data collection, analysis and dissemination.
  
  PubDate: Thu, 2 Nov 2017 11:47:32 GMT
Issue 1 - Drawings about Djang: Drawings on paper by Jimmy Bireyula, 1983
- Abstract: Taylor, Luke
  Interest in the drawings made by Aboriginal1 people and collected by anthropologists as a feature of their research of graphic representation is increasing. Of particular concern is the status of these collections as intercultural artefacts commissioned by the anthropologist and produced by the Aboriginal artists in order to teach about their cultural life. At issue is the appropriate manner of characterising the relation of this new activity in respect to older, and more local, cultural tropes. This study addresses a set of drawings made by Jimmy Bireyula, a Kuninjku language speaker, for the author in 1983. The works are intercultural in terms of the context of their production and the new uses of the materials supplied by the anthropologist and yet also develop established aesthetic and representational forms that are distinct to Kuninjku understanding of the powers of the Ancestral2 realm.
  
  PubDate: Thu, 2 Nov 2017 11:47:32 GMT
Issue 1 - Australian Indigenous paediatric sleep: A descriptive snapshot
- Abstract: Attard, Kelly; Clarkson, Larissa; Blunden, Sarah
  Sleep has a substantial impact on a number of health facets for individu als; however, there is a paucity of literature reporting the state of sleep health and frequency of sleep problems in Australian Indigenous children. This paper aims to describe the sleep patterns in 1671 Australian Indigenous children who are part of the Longitudinal Study of Indigenous Children. Waves 1-5, where the majority of sleep health data came from, had 1257 participants.
  
  PubDate: Thu, 2 Nov 2017 11:47:32 GMT
Issue 1 - Koolark koort koorliny: Reconciliation, art and storytelling in
an Australian Aboriginal community
- Abstract: Forrest, Simon; Johnston, Michelle
  In Nyungar Country, in the south-west corner of Western Australia, reconciliation has taken a significant step forward as the whole community experiences the healing effect of the Carrolup artworks - a collection of 122 drawings and paintings created in the late 1940s by Aboriginal children who had been forcibly removed from their families and housed in harsh conditions at the Carrolup Native Settlement in the south-west of Western Australia. The artworks were lost for many years and then discovered and returned to Western Australia in 2013. With a Nyungar language title, koolark koort koorliny, which means 'heart coming home', the collection has commenced a series of tours and exhibitions throughout Nyungar Country. It has become evident that people are eager to engage with the exhibitions and that they provide the means by which the stories of the children, known as the Stolen Generations, can be shared with the wider community. They demonstrate the healing effect of that storytelling and are a source of pride for the Aboriginal community. The paintings celebrate traditional Nyungar culture and a unique Nyungar style of art. This paper discusses the artworks' healing impact on the individuals who have experienced the trauma of removal from their families, and their power to bring black and white communities together in the spirit of reconciliation.
  
  PubDate: Thu, 2 Nov 2017 11:47:32 GMT
Issue 1 - Editorial
- Abstract: Bamblett, Laurie
  PubDate: Thu, 2 Nov 2017 11:47:32 GMT
Issue 2 - Editorial
- Abstract: Bamblett, Lawrence; Strelein, Lisa
  PubDate: Thu, 2 Nov 2017 11:47:32 GMT
Issue 2 - 'When you sleep on a park bench, you sleep with your ears open
and one eye open': Australian Aboriginal peoples' experiences of
homelessness in an urban setting
- Abstract: Browne-Yung, Kathryn; Ziersch, Anna; Baum, Fran; Gallaher, Gilbert
  Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people are ten times more likely than non-Indigenous people to be homeless, which is an indicator of the level of health and social disparity that exists between the two groups. This paper presents the experiences of homelessness for a group of ten Aboriginal people located in Adelaide. Using Bourdieu's theoretical approach, we explore how these individuals interact with their environment, notably in the context of historical institutional disadvantage, and explore how this affects health and wellbeing. We highlight the subjective nature of homelessness, which is influenced by factors such as culture, age, and poor mental and physical health. We demonstrate the complex, diverse needs and heterogeneous nature of homelessness for Aboriginal people, which occur in the context of an enduring, specific historical experience of disadvantage, where the pathways into homelessness may vary and where homelessness may not always be perceived as negative. All participants experienced racism and reported resultant ill effects. Our study indicates the need for effective responses to homelessness to take account of the historical context of dispossession in developing culturally sensitive responses that reflect the nuances and diversity among homeless Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.
  
  PubDate: Thu, 2 Nov 2017 11:47:32 GMT
Issue 2 - A third space social enterprise: Closing the gap through
cross-cultural learning
- Abstract: Brueckner, Martin; Spencer, Rochelle; Wise, Gareth; Marika, Banduk
  Australian government policy envisages that pervasive socio-economic disadvantage experienced by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians be overcome by economic mainstreaming. Critics, however, consider the political attempt at 'Closing the Gap' between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians to be ineffective in the absence of material improvements in Indigenous welfare statistics. At issue also are the colonial mindsets and structures that have given rise to Indigenous disadvantage in the first place and the fact that economic mainstreaming largely occurs on the terms of the colonisers to enable the participation of Aboriginal people in the formal economy, which is itself a construct of the privileged. It is in this context that this paper employs a Bhabhaian perspective, exploring the work of an Indigenous social enterprise operating in north-east Arnhem Land, an organisation that is understood here as a 'third space' for cross-cultural learning. The third space enterprise is presented as an alternative pathway for Indigenous economic participation, one that is without the assimilation pressures commonly associated with the Closing the Gap policy approach.
  
  PubDate: Thu, 2 Nov 2017 11:47:32 GMT
Issue 2 - 'Listen to my drum': Notes on historical and contemporary uses
of Torres Strait Islander warup/buruburu drums in Australia
- Abstract: Neuenfeldt, Karl
  This paper illustrates two main points: (1) warup/buruburu drums have long been a key component of Torres Strait Islander (henceforth Islander) music and dance but as they migrate with diasporic Islanders they also carry with them profound sociocultural and multicultural meanings and engender innovative artistry in decoration, performance and maintenance; (2) Islander drums are the key musical marker of Islander identity, the sonic component of their identity narrative. After providing some pertinent historical, social, cultural, geopolitical and regulatory background, this paper explores via interviews, description and analysis how Islander drums were and are currently sourced, decorated and repaired as they are incorporated into the sociocultural life of Islander families and individuals in the Torres Strait region and also on the Australian mainland.
  
  PubDate: Thu, 2 Nov 2017 11:47:32 GMT
Issue 2 - The 'Aboriginal flag' as art
- Abstract: Gallois, Mathieu
  Is the Aboriginal flag art' And, if it is, what end does that argument serve' Art is not a helpful noun; certainly it is a risky one on which to base an argument. Yet, to fail to read the Aboriginal flag as art or, more precisely, to fail to read it as Indigenous activist art, is to fail to understand the Aboriginal flag and, more broadly, the role of culture in Indigenous activism post colonisation. This reading of the flag, through my research, appeared in every direction, far on the horizon, until I spoke to Indigenous historian Victoria Grieves. Grieves helped me recognise the value and intent of this argument from an Indigenous perspective. The Aboriginal flag is art. The Aboriginal flag's Indigenous and Western art epistemologies are instrumental in shaping its form and semantics. As Aboriginal art, the flag represents a continuum with traditional Aboriginal themes and aesthetic values. In a Western context it is read as a flag and it exists as a mass-produced object. In all its guises the Aboriginal flag has melded itself into many aspects of popular imagination and become one of Australia's significant symbols.
  
  PubDate: Thu, 2 Nov 2017 11:47:32 GMT
Issue 2 - The gift and the ethics of representing Aboriginality in
Australian children's literature
- Abstract: Xu, Daozhi
  This paper draws on theories of the gift to address the ethics of representing Aboriginality in Australian children's literature, which is a contentious debate that centres on who is eligible to tell Aboriginal stories and how the stories can be told. Considering the historical indebtedness in Australian racial relations, the paper suggests that children's books that incorporate reference to Aboriginal cultural elements constitute a metaphorical 'gift' exchange between Aboriginal custodians as the givers and writers as the recipients who are expected to 'return' such an intellectual gift through their books in an appropriate manner. In this view, the paper specifies the ethical issues confronted by non-Aboriginal writers for children, including Patricia Wrightson, Phillip Gwynne and Kate Constable, and examines the way in which the gift relationship sheds light on the question of how to avoid infringement of Aboriginal protocols without submitting to self-censorship. A caring gesture, underlining the relationship between self and others in gift exchanges, is identified to negotiate the writer's interests in Aboriginal stories with cultural sensitivity against unauthorised appropriation. The paper therefore argues that the morality of gift exchanges, which demands a balanced consideration of disparate interests in obligatory reciprocation, offers a possible solution to the dilemma of non-Aboriginal writers in the treatment of Aboriginal subject matter.
  
  PubDate: Thu, 2 Nov 2017 11:47:32 GMT
Issue 2 - Standing up to be counted: Data quality challenges in Aboriginal
and Torres Strait Islander higher education statistics
- Abstract: Drew, Neil; Wilks, Judith; Wilson, Katie; Kennedy, Gillian
  Data quality and availability in relation to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students' higher education participation and pathways remains a persistent challenge. In this paper we identify that, to date, there has been no systematic attempt to conceptualise and summarise many important aspects of data quality. The research reported in this paper, enabled through funding from an Office for Learning and Teaching seed grant, redresses this and proposes a conceptual framework for identifying and understanding the impacts of matters of data quality. We argue that the pursuit of a shared statistical literacy is best viewed through the dual lens of whiteness and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander terms of reference. Borrowing from the health sector, we conceptualise data quality issues as upstream, midstream and downstream. This framework identifies the locus of responsibility and intervention as a catalyst for purposeful action to address data quality challenges at the national, sectoral and institutional levels. The benefits of applying the proposed framework include a conceptual lens through which cultural issues may be unmasked; enhanced sector-wide critical statistical literacy; and a systematic accountability framework for assessing efforts to improve data quality. Finally, it is proposed that key elements from this framework might be usefully applied to the development of sector-wide guidelines for the collection, interpretation, use and storage of quality data and statistics to enhance the transition, participation and retention experiences of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander higher education students.
  
  PubDate: Thu, 2 Nov 2017 11:47:32 GMT
Issue 2 - Cultural precedents for the repatriation of legacy song records
to communities of origin
- Abstract: Treloyn, Sally; Martin, Matthew Dembal; Charles, Rona Googninda
  Repatriation of song recordings from archives and private collections to communities of origin is both a common research method and the subject of critical discourse. In Australia it is a priority of many individual researchers and collecting institutions to enable families and cultural heritage communities to access recorded collections. Anecdotal and documented accounts describe benefits of this access. However, digital heritage items and the metadata that guide their discovery and use circulate in complex milieus of use and guardianship that evolve over time in relation to social, personal, economic and technological contexts. Ethnomusicologists, digital humanists and anthropologists have asked, what is the potential for digital items, and the content management systems through which they are often disseminated, to complicate the benefits of repatriation' How do the 'returns' from archives address or further complicate colonial assumptions about the value of research' This paper lays the groundwork for consideration of these questions in terms of cultural precedents for repatriation of song records in the Kimberley. Drawing primarily on dialogues between ethnomusicologist Sally Treloyn and senior Ngarinyin and Wunambal elder and singer Matthew Dembal Martin, the interplay of archival discovery, repatriation and dissemination, on the one hand, and song conception, song transmission, and the Law and ethos of Wurnan sharing, on the other, is examined. The paper provides a case for support for repatriation initiatives and for consideration of the critical perspectives of cultural heritage stakeholders on research transactions of the past and in the present.
  
  PubDate: Thu, 2 Nov 2017 11:47:32 GMT
Issue 2 - From boardroom to kitchen table: Shifting the power seat of
Indigenous governance in protected area management
- Abstract: Lee, Emma; Tran, Tran
  Indigenous governance in Australia is determined by connections to country and enacted through family structures. Often unrecognised and/or inappropriately treated through non-Indigenous policy structures that govern protected areas and Indigenous-owned lands, Indigenous peoples on representative boards, councils and committees find themselves in opposition to Western governance systems. This often results in perceptions of governance dysfunction and conflicts of interest, while delegitimising kinship and family structures. This paper discusses the growing questions surrounding how Indigenous governance is framed by interrogating the formal mechanisms where Indigenous and non-Indigenous governance is discussed and influenced. We reflect on critical information gaps that are required to be filled to ensure equity among actors in land and sea management.
  
  PubDate: Thu, 2 Nov 2017 11:47:32 GMT
Issue 2 - Giving back: Report on the 'Collaborative research in Indigenous
geographies' workshop, AIATSIS, Canberra, 30 June 2015
- Abstract: McLean, Jessica; Howitt, Richard; Colyer, Claire; Raven, Margaret; Woodward, Emma
  Collaborative research in Indigenous geographies encompasses a wide range of approaches, practices and relationships in multiple contexts. Working collaboratively on creating and applying knowledges presents some very significant challenges - conceptually, methodologically, logistically and organisationally. Cognisant of these challenges, and the opportunities that collaborative research brings, the Institute of Australian Geographers (IAG) Indigenous Peoples' Knowledges and Rights Study Group held a workshop, 'Giving back: collaborative research in Indigenous geographies'. The workshop was held at, and co-sponsored by, AIATSIS in Canberra as part of the lead-up to the 2015 IAG conference. The workshop was attended by 30 Indigenous and non-Indigenous researchers.
  
  PubDate: Thu, 2 Nov 2017 11:47:32 GMT
Issue 2 - Books received for review
- PubDate: Thu, 2 Nov 2017 11:47:32 GMT
Issue 2 - Invisible country: Southwest Australia: Understanding a
landscape [Book Review]
- Abstract: O'Connor, Michael
  Review(s) of: Invisible country: Southwest Australia: Understanding a landscape, by Bill Bunbury,2015, UWA Publishing, Crawley, WA, 256pp, ill., ISBN 9781742586250 (pbk).
  
  PubDate: Thu, 2 Nov 2017 11:47:32 GMT
Issue 2 - Beyond communal and individual ownership: Indigenous land reform
in Australia [Book Review]
- Abstract: Lea, Tess
  Review(s) of: Beyond communal and individual ownership: Indigenous land reform in Australia, by Leon Terrill,2016, Routledge Complex Real Property Series, Milton Park and New York, 303pp, ill., maps, ISBN 9781138853911 (hbk), ISBN 9781315722474 (ebk).
  
  PubDate: Thu, 2 Nov 2017 11:47:32 GMT
Issue 2 - Desert dreamers: With the Warlpiri people of Australia [Book
Review]
- Abstract: Laughren, Mary
  Review(s) of: Desert dreamers: With the Warlpiri people of Australia, by Barbara Glowczewski, 2016, Univocal, Minneapolis, MN, 322pp., ISBN 9781937561963 (pbk).
  
  PubDate: Thu, 2 Nov 2017 11:47:32 GMT
Issue 2 - Beyond communal and individual ownership: Indigenous land reform
in Australia [Book Review]
- Abstract: Godden, Lee
  Review(s) of: Beyond communal and individual ownership: Indigenous land reform in Australia, by Leon Terrill,2016, Routledge Complex Real Property Series, Milton Park and New York, 303pp, ill., maps, ISBN 9781138853911 (hbk), ISBN 9781315722474 (ebk).
  
  PubDate: Thu, 2 Nov 2017 11:47:32 GMT
Issue 2 - Country women and the colour bar: Gassroots activism and the
Country Women' Association [Book Review]
- Abstract: Alcorso, Simonne
  Review(s) of: Country women and the colour bar: Gassroots activism and the Country Women' Association, by Jennifer Jones,2015, Aboriginal Studies Press, Canberra, 248 pp, ill., map, portraits, ISBN 9781925302967 (pbk), ISBN 9781925302912 (ebk).
  
  PubDate: Thu, 2 Nov 2017 11:47:32 GMT
Issue 2 - Australian Aboriginal Studies
- Abstract: Bamblett, Lawrence
  PubDate: Thu, 2 Nov 2017 11:47:32 GMT
Issue 2 - Recent releases
- PubDate: Thu, 2 Nov 2017 11:47:32 GMT
Issue 1 - Homelessness, homelands, human rights
- Abstract: Heiss, Anita
  I am a Wiradjuri woman. I'm from central New South Wales. I'm a Williams from Cowra, Brungle Mission, Griffith and Tumut. I was born and bred in Gadigal Country - most of you will know that as the City of Sydney - but I spent most of my life until two weeks ago, when I moved to Jaggera Country, living on the land of the Dharawal, near La Perouse. My heart - and my urban homeland - is strategically placed between the Long Bay jail, Malabar sewerage and Orica industrial estate. It is the perfect setting for creative inspiration and I've written some books there.
  
  PubDate: Thu, 2 Nov 2017 11:47:32 GMT
Issue 1 - Editorial
- Abstract: Bamblett, Laurie
  PubDate: Thu, 2 Nov 2017 11:47:32 GMT
Issue 1 - Finding Aboriginal lives in United Kingdom museum collections:
Artefacts from the 1868 Aboriginal cricket tour of England
- Abstract: Sculthorpe, Gaye
  The history and exhibition of ethnographic collections in museums are rich topics for debate and research. Yet despite an explosion of theorising and publications over the past 20 years, it remains the case that museum collections in Australia and over seas contain thousands of individual Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander objects that are surprisingly little researched or published on. Some decades ago, Australian researchers such as Plomley (1961), with his work on Tasmanian collections, and McBryde (1977, 1978), with her work on collections from Port Phillip and the Richmond River regions, highlighted the significance of United Kingdom (UK) and European collections. Later surveys such as Cooper's (1989) report on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander collections in overseas museums and Coates' (1995) unpublished report on archival sources in the British Museum highlighted strengths of other collections in Britain. Philip Jones (2001:18) suggested that there are perhaps up to 40,000 Australian Aboriginal objects in museums in Europe and flagged the potential for integrated databases to digitally reconnect such collections. More recently, as a follow up to Ian Coates' work, the British Museum, the Australian National University and the National Museum of Australia jointly undertook more detailed work on the significant Australian collections in the British Museum.1 Research from this project was included in exhibitions and associated publications of both museums in 2015 (NMA 2015; Sculthorpe et al. 2015).
  
  PubDate: Thu, 2 Nov 2017 11:47:32 GMT
Issue 1 - Performing indigeneity: Global histories and contemporary
experiences [Book Review]
- Abstract: Craw, Charlotte
  Review(s) of: Performing indigeneity: Global histories and contemporary experiences, by Laura R Graham and H Glenn Penny (eds), 2014, University of Nebraska Press, Lincoln and London, 444 pp, ISBN 9780803271951.
  
  PubDate: Thu, 2 Nov 2017 11:47:32 GMT
Issue 1 - Gender, internet and computer access in remote central
Australian Aboriginal contexts
- Abstract: Hogan, Eleanor
  Young Aboriginal women account for the largest and most enthusiastic group of users in the Home Internet Project, which trialled household internet and computer technology access for the first time in three very remote Central Australian communities. Over a twoandahalf year period researchers regularly employed a life events survey to examine the impacts that internet access might have on community members' everyday lives. Women, especially younger ones, emerged as the main users, managing access to the computers within individual households and performing activities online for other family members. These findings counter trends that gender digital divide researchers originally observed of men and boys as 'early adopters' and greater users of digital technology. They are also the reverse of those from a study of Papunya's shared computing facility that found young men predominated as users. This paper explores the implications of gender identification with particular social spaces - the household in the small communities and the shared facility at Papunya - for digital inclusion in remote Aboriginal contexts. A further dimension of this research is how the association not only of space but of human resources, roles and activities, with different social groups, may impact the equity of internet and computer access and usage within remote Aboriginal communities.
  
  PubDate: Thu, 2 Nov 2017 11:47:32 GMT
Issue 1 - Stones and grinding: Wagiman ethnogeology
- Abstract: Harvey, Mark
  An extensive research literature focuses on stone as an instrument in, and output of, manufacturing processes, including substantial literature in ethnoarchaeology which reports and analyses manufacturing processes from the perspective of people with knowledge of these processes. By contrast, there is a dearth of literature on either stone as an input to manufacturing or on stone in other contexts. There has been no examination to determine if there are systematic subclass oppositions within stone terminologies and, if so, which parameters these oppositions reflect. Developing an overall understanding of stone terminology - ethnogeology - will advance analysis of the conceptualisation of both raw materials and manufacturing in hunter-gatherer economies. Wagiman stone terminology is presented as a detailed example.
  
  PubDate: Thu, 2 Nov 2017 11:47:32 GMT
Issue 1 - Beyond equality: The place of Aboriginal culture in the
Australian game of football
- Abstract: Judd, Barry; Butcher, Tim
  This paper provides an overview of Aboriginal interventions in the sport of Australian (Rules) Football in the period since the formation of the Australian Football League (AFL) in 1990. Recalling several pivotal events that have defined and redefined the relationship between Aboriginal people and the Australian game of football, this paper finds that the struggle to end on-field racial vilification in the 1990s attracted widespread support from the overwhelmingly non-Aboriginal public because these actions were consistent with the political principle of equality. The key actions of Nicky Winmar and Michael Long gained general appeal because they demanded that Aboriginal people be treated as though they were Anglo-Australians. In this regard, the 1990s fight against on-field racism in the AFL was a continuation of the Aboriginal struggle for rights associated with Australian citizenship. As the 1967 Commonwealth referenda on Aborigines demonstrated, most Anglo-Australians understood and supported the political principle of equality even though the promise of citizenship in substantive improvements to social and economic outcomes almost 50 years later remains largely unfulfilled.
  
  Nevertheless, in the recently concluded 2015 AFL season, Adam Goodes, the most highly decorated Aboriginal man to play the sport at the highest level, was effectively booed into retirement. Goodes became a controversial and largely disliked figure in the sport when he used the public honour of being 2014 Australian of the Year to highlight the disadvantage and historical wrongs that continue to adversely impact Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and their communities. This paper argues that Goodes effectively sought to shift the paradigm of Aboriginal struggle beyond the sympathetic notions of racism and equal treatment to issues of historical fact that imply First Nations rights associated with cultural practice. Goodes' career initiates a new discussion about the place that Aboriginal cultures, traditions and understandings might have in the sport today. His decision to perform an Aboriginal war dance demonstrates that the new paradigm we propose is primarily about the political principle of difference, not equality.
  
  PubDate: Thu, 2 Nov 2017 11:47:32 GMT
Issue 1 - An investigation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander men's
learning through Men's Sheds in Australia
- Abstract: Cavanagh, Jillian; Shaw, Amie; Bartram, Timothy
  This study builds on understandings of how learning occurs for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander men in Men's Groups and Sheds across Australia. Wenger's (1998) model of mutual engagement, joint enterprise and shared repertoire provides the theoretical framework to underpin this study. Qualitative methods are presented and analysed; methods comprise yarning circles (focus groups) and semistructured interviews with 15 groups and 45 men. Findings reveal that Men's Groups and Sheds provide a safe and conducive environment for men to yarn and learn new skills about educational, employment and economic matters and enhance their social learning and ability to reconnect with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander traditions and culture. Men's Groups and Sheds are a unique and culturally sensitive way to provide Indigenous men with the skills that may lead to employment. The improvement of the social determinants of Indigenous men's lives is critical to enhancing their employability.
  
  PubDate: Thu, 2 Nov 2017 11:47:32 GMT
Issue 1 - Ngalak koora koora djinang (Looking back together): A Nyoongar
and scientific collaborative history of ancient Nyoongar boodja
- Abstract: Robertson, Francesca; Stasiuk, Glen; Nannup, Noel; Hopper, Stephen D
  The Synergies of Meaning Research Project, based at Kurongkurl Katitjin, Edith Cowan University, constructs a working relationship between traditional Aboriginal knowledge and Western natural and social scientific knowledge. The aim is to find ways of going forward together. One recently completed focus, Nyoongar Boodja, required the development of a collaborated timeline of the formation of Nyoongar land. Cooperative inquiry and research of narrative methods were used. Eleven eras are identified, with the focus of the first eight being land from (1) The Nyetting (The cold, dark time = Permian ice ages 350 million years ago) to (8) Wardanaak boodja (The Holocene flood, 7000 years ago). Astonishing resonances between the knowledge sets were discovered. This coincidence of Nyoongarinherited lore with Western scientific discoveries about the evolution of Nyoongar boodja highlights the value of walking together, cross-culturally, seeking synergies of meaning.
  
  PubDate: Thu, 2 Nov 2017 11:47:32 GMT
Issue 1 - Warrior: A legendary leader's dramatic life and violent death on
the colonial frontier Libby Connors 2015 [Book Review]
- Abstract: Singley, Blake
  Review(s) of: Warrior: A legendary leader's dramatic life and violent death on the colonial frontier, by Libby Connors 2015, email: Allen and Unwin, Crows Nest, NSW, 280pp, ISBN 9781760110482 (pbk).
  
  PubDate: Thu, 2 Nov 2017 11:47:32 GMT
Issue 1 - Recent releases
- PubDate: Thu, 2 Nov 2017 11:47:32 GMT
Issue 1 - Books received for review
- PubDate: Thu, 2 Nov 2017 11:47:32 GMT
Issue 1 - Policing Aboriginality in Aboriginal community policing:
Cultural labour and policing policy
- Abstract: Cefai, Sarah
  This paper examines the institutional, political and cultural conditions in which Aboriginal Community Police Officers work. The paper contends that as a result of these conditions and their interconnections, various kinds of work carried out by Aboriginal Community Police Officers are inadequately recognised locally within the Northern Territory Police Force, as well as more broadly in the policymaking discourse that constitutes the 'Aboriginal domain' (Rowse 1992). While policymaking has fashioned the emergence of modern Aboriginal communities, in particular through the deployment of 'Aboriginal culture' as a definitional property, the institutional imaginary in which Aboriginal policing is conceived remains remarkably bereft of any specific notion of cultural work. This paper seeks to address the institutional imaginary by connecting the failure to think of the cultural work involved in Aboriginal community policing to the failure to conceive bureaucratic work as culturally specific. Through the analysis of research and data gathered through focus group interviews with Aboriginal Community Police Officers in the Northern Territory, I demonstrate how the policing bureaucracy inhibits the potential of Aboriginal policing. This analysis calls for the development of Aboriginal career pathways, suggesting that this would ameliorate the pressure placed on Aboriginal Community Police Officers to assimilate to non-Aboriginal policing. By simultaneously recognising and acting on the reproduction of the cultural and normative values of whiteness in the administration of policing, the institutional advancement of Aboriginal policing could strengthen existing Aboriginal Community Policing work, as well as catalyse the means to resist institutional racism.
  
  PubDate: Thu, 2 Nov 2017 11:47:32 GMT
Issue 1 - Cultural strength: Restoring the place of indigenous knowledge
in practice and policy
- Abstract: Alfred, Taiaiake
  Indigenous traditions, cultures and identities are not historical artefacts or museum pieces; they are vital and contemporary, and they are critical to indigenous wellbeing and our shared understanding of how to live in the world. Importantly, approaches based on indigenous cultural strength must drive engagement with the environment, lead settlements between indigenous peoples and governments, drive new approaches to education and health care, and shape the direction of academic research and public policy. At a symposium held at AIATSIS in February this year, Professor Taiaiake Alfred spoke about indigenous resurgence in Canada, in particular the experiences of his Kahnawa:ke Mohawk community. This article is an edited version of Professor Alfred's address.
  
  PubDate: Thu, 2 Nov 2017 11:47:32 GMT
Issue 1 - Editorial
- Abstract: Bamblett, Lawrence; Strelein, Lisa
  PubDate: Thu, 2 Nov 2017 11:47:32 GMT
Issue 1 - Indifferent inclusion: Aboriginal people and the Australian
nation [Book Review]
- Abstract: Thomas, Martin
  Review(s) of: Indifferent inclusion: Aboriginal people and the Australian nation, by Russell McGregor, 2011, Aboriginal Studies Press, Canberra, 288pp, ISBN 9780855757793 (pbk).
  
  PubDate: Thu, 2 Nov 2017 11:47:32 GMT
Issue 1 - Continuing connections, animating collections and the exhibition
'Little paintings, big stories': Gossip songs of Western Arnhem Land
- Abstract: Chaloupka, Eve
  The Berndt Museum's exhibition Little paintings, big stories: gossip songs of Western Arnhem Land, researched and curated by the Berndt Museum's Archivist Eve Chaloupka and Associate Registrar Kelly Rowe, was held at The University of Western Australia from June through to December 2013. This memorable body of work, presented as an audiovisual experience to the public for the first time, would not have been possible without the support of the Warruwi community members - let alone the generosity, insight and foresight of their forebears, the Mawng and Kunwinjku storytellers, composers, performers and artists of South Goulburn Island (Warruwi) and the nearby mainland - who worked with Catherine and Ronald Berndt during their visits to the Methodist Overseas Mission settlement between 1947 and1964.
  
  PubDate: Thu, 2 Nov 2017 11:47:32 GMT
Issue 1 - Mobile media: Communicating with and by Indigenous youth about
alcohol
- Abstract: Trees, Kathryn
  This paper argues for the use of mobile media technology and youth engagement in creating health promotion messages aimed at young people. It also provides an account of researchers and Indigenous people and organisations working together to build skills beyond the specific research. It does this by drawing on an evaluation of an alcohol awareness campaign carried out by Goolarri Media via television and radio. The author and her collaborator carried out this evaluation with assistance from organisations and individuals in Broome, Western Australia, during the period May to August 2010. The three core objectives were to assess audience awareness of the campaign, to assess audience opinion of the campaign, and to gauge any change in audience behaviours and attitudes towards alcohol consumption. The target audience for the media campaign, and hence the main target population for data collection and analysis, was Indigenous youth in Broome and the wider Kimberley region (the broadcast area of Goolarri TV and Radio). This paper discusses the effectiveness of the television and radio advertisements and reports general findings, including that inclusion of local youth in the advertisements and in the design and production of the campaign was a positive factor, and that both Indigenous and non-Indigenous youth use telephones and other aspects of mobile media for social networking and entertainment, displacing television viewing and radio listening to a significant extent. The findings indicated that future advertising campaigns aimed at Indigenous youth in cities or regional centres should concentrate on mobile software technology and social media opportunities. The paper explores in detail two of the most interesting findings: disengagement of youth and the rise of mobile media use. Analysis of the synergistic qualitative and quantitative data from the study also leads to the conclusion that youth involvement in creating, accessing and sharing knowledge facilitates health promotion.
  
  PubDate: Thu, 2 Nov 2017 11:47:32 GMT
Issue 1 - Alyawarr women's song-poetry of Central Australia
- Abstract: Turpin, Myfany
  Central Australian songs are renowned for their association with tracts of land and for texts that are difficult to decipher. The Alyawarr women's songs of the Antarrengeny land-holding group are remarkable in that most verses can be parsed into speech equivalents with considerable consensus among the singers. The songs are thus revealing of how traditional Aboriginal verse is constructed. Drawing upon recordings from 1977-2011, this paper identifies 78 different verses, comprising 107 different lines of poetic-musical text. All 107 lines are set to one of 14 rhythmic patterns, which are arrangements of smaller 2-note and 3-note rhythmic patterns. Despite the transparency of the text, one question that arises concerns the role of the ubiquitous bar-initial consonant 'l', which appears to be the Alyawarr relativiser ='arl' ('where, which'), also common in placenames. Is this its meaning in the songs, or is it just a syllable inserted to achieve the preferred 10-syllable line structure' This paper suggests that ='arl' is both: it enables the preferred line structure to be met and alludes to a place through its structural resemblance to a proper name. In an area where songs, like places, are owned by family groups, this structural similarity expands the 'song-land relationship' (Moyle 1983).
  
  PubDate: Thu, 2 Nov 2017 11:47:32 GMT
Issue 1 - What does 'Jukurrpa' ('dreamtime', 'the dreaming') mean': A
semantic and conceptual journey of discovery
- Abstract: Wierzbicka, Anna; Goddard, Cliff
  This study presents and justifies a detailed explication for the Australian Aboriginal Jukurrpa concept ('Dreamtime', 'the Dreaming'), phrased exclusively in simple cross-translatable words. The explication, which is partitioned into multiple sections, depicts a highly ramified and multi-faceted concept, albeit one with great internal coherence. After a short introduction, our paper is organised about successive stages in the evolution of the current explication. We present and discuss four semantic explications, each built on - and, hopefully, improving upon - its predecessor as our understanding of the Jukurrpa concept expanded and came into sharper definition. We focus primarily on Central Australian languages such as Warlpiri, Arrernte and the Western Desert Language (Pitjantjatjara, Yankunytjatjara, Ngaanyatjarra etc.). We do not claim to have necessarily arrived at a full, perfect or correct lexical-semantic analysis, although in principle this is the goal of semantic analysis. Rather our purpose is to share a hermeneutic process and its results. The guiding framework for our process is the Natural Semantic Metalanguage approach to meaning analysis.
  
  PubDate: Thu, 2 Nov 2017 11:47:32 GMT
Issue 1 - What constitutes benefit from health care interventions for
Indigenous Australians'
- Abstract: Otim, Michael E; Asante, Augustine D; Kelaher, Margaret; Doran, Chris M; Anderson, Ian P
  The health of Indigenous Australians is poor compared to that of their counterpart Australians. Further, their health is worse by international standards. The Australian Government recently made a commitment to improving the health status of Indigenous Australians through the 'closing the health gap' initiative. Achieving this requires an improvement in the priority setting process through the use of evidence. Central to this is the need for a concept of 'benefit' from services that reflects the needs and aspirations of Indigenous Australians. The purpose of this paper is to develop an Indigenous-specific health metric that captures individual and community benefits for improving the priority setting process.
  
  A workshop-based approach identified four dimensions of benefit in Indigenous health: individual health gain, community health gain, equity and cultural security. The individual health gain dimension accounted for 42 per cent of the total perceived benefit from health care interventions, while the remaining three dimensions each weighted between 19 per cent and 21 per cent. The individual health gain had two sub-dimensions: a DALY consistent attribute and a non-DALY attribute. The DALY attributes were by far the most influential, but while the DALY as a measure of health gain in economic evaluation is desirable, alone it grossly underestimates the overall benefit from interventions in Indigenous health.
  
  PubDate: Thu, 2 Nov 2017 11:47:32 GMT
Issue 1 - Edited volume on maintenance and revitalisation of ancestral
song traditions in Aboriginal Australia
- PubDate: Thu, 2 Nov 2017 11:47:32 GMT
Issue 1 - The heaven I swallowed [Book Review]
- Abstract: Leane, Jeanine
  Review(s) of: The heaven I swallowed, by Rachel Hennessy, 2013, Wakefield Press, 192pp, ISBN 9781862549487.
  
  PubDate: Thu, 2 Nov 2017 11:47:32 GMT
Issue 1 - Australian aboriginal studies (ISSN 0729-4352 (print))
- PubDate: Thu, 2 Nov 2017 11:47:32 GMT
Issue 1 - Coranderrk: We will show the country [Book Review]
- Abstract: Singley, Blake
  Review(s) of: Coranderrk: We will show the country, by Giordano Nanni and Andrea James 2013, Aboriginal Studies Press, Canberra, 176pp, ISBN 9781922059406.
  
  PubDate: Thu, 2 Nov 2017 11:47:32 GMT
Issue 1 - The invincibles: New Norcia's Aboriginal cricketers 1879-1906
[Book Review]
- Abstract: Judd, Barry
  Review(s) of: The invincibles: New Norcia's Aboriginal cricketers 1879-1906, by Bob Reece 2014, Historionics Publishing, Fremantle, WA, 161 pp, ISBN 9780646920375.
  
  PubDate: Thu, 2 Nov 2017 11:47:32 GMT
Issue 1 - My country, mine country: Indigenous people, mining and
development contestation in remote Australia [Book Review]
- Abstract: Edmunds, Mary
  Review(s) of: My country, mine country: Indigenous people, mining and development contestation in remote Australia, by Benedict Scambary, 2013, Centre for Aboriginal Economic Policy Research Monograph No. 33, ANU E Press, Canberra. 276pp, ISBN: 9781922144720 (paperback) 9781922144737 (ebook).
  
  PubDate: Thu, 2 Nov 2017 11:47:32 GMT
Issue 1 - Encounters with indigeneity: Writing about Aboriginal and Torres
Strait Islander peoples [Book Review]
- Abstract: Judd, Barry
  Review(s) of: Encounters with indigeneity: Writing about Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, by Jeremy Beckett, 2014, Aboriginal Studies Press, 288pp, ISBN 9781922059772 (pbk).
  
  PubDate: Thu, 2 Nov 2017 11:47:32 GMT
Issue 1 - Edward M Curr and the tide of history [Book Review]
- Abstract: Kenny, Robert
  Review(s) of: Edward M Curr and the tide of history, by Samuel Furphy 2013, ANU Press/Aboriginal History, ANU, 229pp, ISBN 9781922144706 (print version).
  
  PubDate: Thu, 2 Nov 2017 11:47:32 GMT
Issue 1 - Western Desert 'tjiwa'- and 'tjungari'- type grindstones and
their archaeological significance
- Abstract: Smith, Mike
  In the southern part of the Western Desert, the regional geology constrains the form of grinding slabs and their reduction. Grinding slabs in this area, locally called 'tjiwa', are rudimentary implements, which are not shaped prior to use, nor extensively reworked or resharpened during use, nor are they heavily worn. Yet even such basic grindstones can effectively process seeds, which are a seasonal food staple in this area, though 'tjiwa' are much less efficient than millstones for processing large volumes of grain. The question arises as to whether 'tjiwa' can be used as an archaeological marker for seed-grinding. The answer to this is no. 'Tjiwa' are general purpose grinders, used for a variety of materials, and even when used for seed exhibit few diagnostic traits of such use. I propose that any identification as seed-grinders will rely on associated evidence (residues, assemblage composition, use-wear and type of associated topstones). 'Tjiwa' should be distinguished from more elaborate grindstones, such as millstones. In this paper I formally describe 'tjiwa' and 'tjungari' (their associated topstones) to complement similar studies of millstones.
  
  PubDate: Thu, 2 Nov 2017 11:47:32 GMT
Issue 2 - Post-normal reconciliation - using science to reframe the
reconciliation agenda
- Abstract: Arabena, Kerry
  A new way of considering reconciliation is explored in this work. Converging wisdom from Indigenous peoples' philosophic traditions with Earth system, environmental, quantum and ecological sciences provides new opportunities for considering our human role and place in the living systems that give us life, context and meaning.
  
  PubDate: Thu, 2 Nov 2017 11:47:32 GMT
Issue 2 - Editorial
- Abstract: Bamblett, Laurie
  PubDate: Thu, 2 Nov 2017 11:47:32 GMT
Issue 2 - Tobacco use among Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander high
school students: Understanding 'the social' and the effects of indigeneity
- Abstract: Schofield, Toni; Sebastian, Tarunna; Donelly, Michelle; Anderson, Craig
  Australian tobacco use and its social acceptance have declined significantly (AIHW 2014). The rates of smoking among Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, however, disclose only a very small decrease, and mortality and morbidity rates attributed to tobacco use continue to be higher for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people than they are for other Australians. The lack of any significant reduction in smoking among Indigenous Australians is especially marked among young people, who are reported to smoke daily at more than double the rate of their non-Indigenous counterparts (AIHW 2014). This paper analyses prevailing approaches to 'the social' in causing smoking among Indigenous Australians and argues that such approaches provide a limited foundation for understanding tobacco use among Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in general, and among students of high school age in particular. The paper proposes a critical sociological approach that represents and understands tobacco use as an embodied, collective social practice that persists or ceases according to the opportunities arising in the lives of those engaged in the practice. Such opportunities, we propose, are not random but, rather, socially structured. In other words, they arise from the 'sediments of past collective practice' (Schofield 2015:31) and are identifiable as patterns over time. In the case of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, including those of high-school age, we propose that the dominant social structure or dynamic is that of indigeneity (Schofield and Gilroy 2015). We argue that smoking cessation programs for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students need to have a coherent conceptual foundation that includes the adoption of Indigenous research to inform policy development and implementation.
  
  PubDate: Thu, 2 Nov 2017 11:47:32 GMT
Issue 2 - It all comes down to ticking a box: Collecting Aboriginal
identification in a 30-year longitudinal health study
- Abstract: Hickey, Sophie
  This paper explores the collection of Aboriginal identification within a longitudinal health study that has continued though decades of socio-political change. The Mater - University of Queensland Study of Pregnancy is a birth cohort study that commenced in Brisbane in the early 1980s. Until 2014 it relied on mother-reported race-based categories at baseline to determine Indigenous status. Thirty study-children (now adults) who were originally identified as having a parent who was an 'Australian Aborigine' were followed up 30 years later. Only 15 of this group self-identified as Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander. Considering recent studies have shown Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people are increasingly more likely to self-identify as such, an archival investigation of the original questionnaires was undertaken to check for systematic miscodes. Handwritten markings on the original questionnaires showed that group affiliation cannot always be easily classified into imprecise race-based categories. To do so ignores the reality and complexities of a lived cultural identity, including multiple ethnicities or ancestries. This paper takes a sociological approach to explore some of the difficulties in attempting to capture ethnic identification in administrative datasets.
  
  PubDate: Thu, 2 Nov 2017 11:47:32 GMT
Issue 2 - Aboriginal task force: Australia's first national program
dedicated to transitioning Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people
into university education
- Abstract: Anderson, Sue
  In 1973 the Aboriginal Task Force was formed in the South Australian Institute of Technology to provide Indigenous South Australian welfare workers with qualifications commensurate with the duties they were already performing in the workforce. It was so successful that the program quickly expanded into a national Aboriginal-focused tertiary education facility that was the forerunner of the University of South Australia's David Unaipon College of Indigenous Education and Research (DUCIER) and the model for other Australian university Indigenous centres. To commemorate DUCIER's twenty-first anniversary and the fortieth anniversary of the Task Force, in 2013 a team of DUCIER academics began researching this history in order to showcase the outstanding achievements of the alumni and staff of the Task Force. Central to the research is the collection of oral histories from participants. These are being recorded through either (or both) audio and video media, with segments being used in an exhibition. Oral history is considered imperative to the project because a history taken solely from the scant archival records will not reflect the processes involved in the program's development, nor the impact of the Task Force on the lives of those who contributed to the program and benefited from it. These issues are discussed in relation to the first years of the Task Force program.
  
  PubDate: Thu, 2 Nov 2017 11:47:32 GMT
Issue 2 - Early encounters in Aboriginal place: The role of emotions in
French readings of Indigenous sites
- Abstract: Konishi, Shino
  This paper contributes to the burgeoning scholarship on the significance of emotions in the history of cross-cultural encounters. Rather than focusing on face-to-face interactions, it examines how emotions governed European engagements with Aboriginal cultural landscapes and shaped Europeans' imaginings of how places could be constituted as sacred. It looks specifically at the writings of Fran ois Peron, one of the scientific crew of the Baudin expedition, a French Revolutionary voyage that visited Australia and Timor between 1801 and 1803. During the exploration of Australia the French expedition discovered two Aboriginal places that were interpreted as religiously significant to the local people: a grove discovered at Geographe Bay in the south-west of Australia and two tombs found at Maria Island off the south-east of Tasmania. Peron's extended discussion of these Aboriginal sites highlights the significance of emotions in the construction of ethnographic accounts, as well as the role of emotions in transcultural perceptions of place.
  
  PubDate: Thu, 2 Nov 2017 11:47:32 GMT
Issue 2 - Protests, land rights and riots: Postcolonial struggles in
Australia in the 1980s; Fighting hard: The Victorian Aborigines
advancement league [Book Review]
- Abstract: Rowse, Tim
  Review(s) of: Protests, land rights and riots: Postcolonial struggles in Australia in the 1980s, by Barry Morris 2013, Aboriginal Studies Press, Canberra, 21 6pp, ISBN 9781922059345 (pbk); Fighting hard: The Victorian Aborigines advancement league, by Richard Broome 2015, Aboriginal Studies Press, Canberra, 27Spp, ISBN 9781922059864 (pbk).
  
  PubDate: Thu, 2 Nov 2017 11:47:32 GMT
Issue 2 - Bringing back the Ngunawal language
- Abstract: Marmion, Doug
  This paper reports on a project at AIATSIS to revive the Ngunawal language of the Canberra and nearby New South Wales region. This project is grounded in a close collaboration with a group of representatives from the Ngunawal community, who drive all aspects of the project. While still in its early days, the project has produced valuable outcomes both in terms of the language work carried out and the collaborative research process that has underpinned these outcomes.
  
  PubDate: Thu, 2 Nov 2017 11:47:32 GMT
Issue 2 - Aboriginal football and the Australian game
- Abstract: Judd, Barry; Butcher, Tim
  This paper introduces an Australian Research Council research project currently being undertaken at the remote Aboriginal community of Papunya in the Northern Territory. The project, led by Barry Judd and Tim Butcher from RMIT University, explores the role organised Australian Football plays in community wellbeing in a remote community. While mainstream narratives of sport view wellbeing as a natural outcome of participation in organised competition, this project critically interrogates the positive outcomes assumed in this relationship. The authors argue that the promise of Australian Football to transform the lives of remote community residents in positive ways is largely false and that participation in mainstream competition in Alice Springs may be socially and economically detrimental to the wellbeing of the people of Papunya. The paper questions the place that Aboriginal people occupy in Australian Football and suggests that cultural identity has only a tenuous place in the sport. It explores this theme in the context of the Northern Territory Emergency Response, or 'Intervention', which has positioned remote community residents as unwanted outsiders in Alice Springs and other 'white' spaces in the Northern Territory. It further argues that these issues are of national significance and that the treatment of Australian Football League star Adam Goodes underlines sport's limitations in delivering wellbeing to Aboriginal peoples and their communities.
  
  PubDate: Thu, 2 Nov 2017 11:47:32 GMT
Issue 2 - Teaching indigenous students: Cultural awareness and classroom
strategies for improving learning outcomes [Book Review]
- Abstract: Lowe, Shelly C
  Review(s) of: Teaching indigenous students: Cultural awareness and classroom strategies for improving learning outcomes, by Thelma Perso and Colleen Hayward 2015, Allen and Unwin, Crows Nest, NSW, 280pp, ISBN 9781743316061 (pbk).
  
  PubDate: Thu, 2 Nov 2017 11:47:32 GMT
Issue 2 - Melbourne dreaming: A guide to important places of the past and
present (2nd edn) [Book Review]
- Abstract: Eira, Christina
  Review(s) of: Melbourne dreaming: A guide to important places of the past and present (2nd edn), by Meyer Eidelson 2014, Aboriginal Studies Press, Canberra, 146pp, ill., maps, ISBN 9781922059710 (pbk), 9781922059727 (PDF ebook).
  
  PubDate: Thu, 2 Nov 2017 11:47:32 GMT
Issue 2 - Circulating cultures: Exchanges of Australian Indigenous music,
dance and media [Book Review]
- Abstract: Moyle, Richard
  Review(s) of: Circulating cultures: Exchanges of Australian Indigenous music, dance and media, by Amanda Harris (ed.) 2014, ANU Press, Canberra, 276pp, ISBN 9781925022193 (pbk).
  
  PubDate: Thu, 2 Nov 2017 11:47:32 GMT
Issue 1 - Attending the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada
national event in Vancouver, September 2013: A narrative report
- Abstract: Sutherland, Stewart; Russell, Lachlan; Adams, Michael; Baird, Rosie; Shearer, Heather; Watson, Sam
  The Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada (TRC) National Event in Vancouver, 18-21 September 2013, was a significant reconciliation event for First Nations peoples of Canada and the survivors of the Residential School system, which ran from the mid-to-late 1800s until 1996, when the last school was closed (Health Canada 2013). Overall, some 150,000 First Nations children passed through Residential Schools, resulting in seriously detrimental effects upon those children, as well as the subsequent generations (TRC n.d.a).
  
  PubDate: Thu, 2 Nov 2017 11:47:32 GMT
Issue 1 - Indigenous names for Indigenous support centres as part of the
Welcome to (University) Country
- Abstract: Starrs, DBruno
  The significance of naming Indigenous Support Centres (ISCs) with Indigenous language terminology - given that such reconciliatory acts may serve as symbolic means to improve the cultural efficacy of an Australian university's Welcome to Country on offer to Indigenous Australian students - is explored and discussed in this paper. A survey of all 39 Australian universities was conducted, and the results regarding the Indigenous naming of their ISCs were tabulated and compared.
  
  PubDate: Thu, 2 Nov 2017 11:47:32 GMT
Issue 1 - BlackWords: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander writers and
storytellers
- Abstract: Regan, Christine; Troy, Jakelin
  BlackWords: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Writers and Storytellers is a digital humanities, online literature resource devoted to the creative writing and oral storytelling of Aboriginal Australians. BlackWords was established by Aboriginal writers and scholars in 2007, and in 2013 AIATSIS began a major new project in BlackWords. An academically rigorous vehicle for the researching and teaching of Aboriginal literature and orature, the value of BlackWords lies in the great cultural and political importance of the literature emergent since the 1960s, and in the central role storytelling has for millennia played in traditionally oral Aboriginal cultures. AIATSIS' new BlackWords project, Aboriginal Literatures, Stories and Languages, combines academic and community research to develop education and research 'trails' about the stories and literatures of distinct language groups in a series of politico-historical contexts, and with particular reference to the aesthetic and political significance of the use of traditional Australian languages, pidgins, creoles and Aboriginal Englishes. The aims of the project include supporting the integration of the stories and literatures into the curriculum, and their role in language revival and the resilience of Aboriginal peoples, which is uniquely bound up with their connectedness to the languages.
  
  PubDate: Thu, 2 Nov 2017 11:47:32 GMT
Issue 1 - Recollections of Brewarrina Aboriginal Mission
- Abstract: Latukefu, Ruth A Fink
  In 2013 I revisited Brewarrina Aboriginal Mission after nearly 60 years. This paper describes what life was like for Aboriginal people living on the mission during my fieldwork in 1954. Information from Aboriginal informants at that time is supplemented by Jimmie Barker, whose memoir records 20 years as handyman on the mission (1920-42). There was historical continuity in racist attitudes, fears of child removal, suppression of languages and culture, inadequate schooling and authoritarian controls by the managers of the New South Wales Aborigines Welfare Board. People felt ashamed to be seen by white people doing anything traditionally Aboriginal, and skin colour and Aboriginal features were socially stigmatised. Apart from its cemetery, Brewarrina Mission, established in 1897, was closed in 1965 and later demolished.
  
  PubDate: Thu, 2 Nov 2017 11:47:32 GMT
Issue 1 - Two takes on social problems in Central Australia
- Abstract: Peterson, Nicolas; Merlan, Francesca
  In the months following the enactment of the Northern Territory Emergency Response (the Intervention) in June 2007, one set of reactions was to claim that the extent of the social problems in the Territory that had provoked the Intervention was being exaggerated. Initially, most attention focused on the extent and levels of child abuse and somewhat less on the much better documented issue of domestic and interpersonal violence.
  
  PubDate: Thu, 2 Nov 2017 11:47:32 GMT
Issue 1 - The three rules of being Aboriginal: Anxiety and violence in
central Australia
- Abstract: Frost, Malcolm
  The Violence Intervention Program at the Ingkintja (Male Health) branch of the Central Australian Aboriginal Congress in Alice Springs treats Aboriginal offenders and victims of all types of interpersonal violence. By treating both offenders and victims, staff members are able to observe the effects of ongoing intergenerational violence and its consistency with violence and trauma research drawn from around the world. This paper presents several brief case studies to illustrate some of the complex interactions between the current state of Aboriginal culture in Central Australia and the behavioural responses of those who have been impacted by exposure to violence and trauma. Some cautious suggestions for long-term change are made.
  
  PubDate: Thu, 2 Nov 2017 11:47:32 GMT
Issue 1 - Violent and tragic events: The nature of domestic
violence-related homicide cases in Central Australia
- Abstract: Lloyd, Jane
  Violence and abuse among Australia's Aboriginal populations and communities, especially across Central Australia, have increasingly been the focus of government, academic, social and criminal justice, law enforcement and media reporting. Despite the weight of these reports and other evidence, such as the lengthy daily court lists of assault offences, there continues to be a culture, within both the Aboriginal and the non-Aboriginal community, of minimisation and blindness about the nature and extent of domestic or intimate partner-related family violence. The very private nature of most domestic and family violence incidents within a social and cultural environment that sanctions acts of aggression and violence contributes to the minimisation and blindness. This paper focuses on how problems such as domestic and family violence in Aboriginal communities in Central Australia can be better understood by examining specific domestic violence-related homicides that occurred between January 2000 and November 2008. The domestic-related homicides involved women and men, married and/or recognised by their families and the wider community as being married, from close and inter-related families in the remote cross-border communities of the Northern Territory, South Australia and Western Australia. From 1994 until 2006 I was involved in establishing and managing a program and service aimed at improving the protection and safety of Aboriginal women who experienced domestic violence in this region. I knew the victims, the offenders, and one or both of their families in eight of the homicides that occurred in that period.
  
  PubDate: Thu, 2 Nov 2017 11:47:32 GMT
Issue 1 - Native Tongue Title: Compensation for the loss of Aboriginal
languages
- Abstract: Zuckermann, Ghil'ad; Shakuto-Neoh, Shiori; Quer, Giovanni Matteo
  This paper proposes the enactment of an ex gratia compensation scheme for loss of Indigenous languages in Australia. Although some Australian states have enacted ex gratia compensation schemes for the victims of the Stolen Generation policies, the victims of 'linguicide' (language killing) are largely overlooked by the Australian Government. Existing grant schemes to support Aboriginal languages are inadequate, and they should be complemented with compensation schemes, which are based on a claim of right. The proposed compensation scheme for the loss of Aboriginal languages should support the effort to reclaim and revive the lost languages. We first outline the history of linguicide during colonisation in Australia. We then put a case for reviving lost Aboriginal languages by high-lighting the benefits of language revival. After evaluating the limits of existing Australian law in supporting the language revival efforts, this paper proposes a statute-based ex gratia compensation scheme, which can be colloquially called 'Native Tongue Title'.
  
  PubDate: Thu, 2 Nov 2017 11:47:32 GMT