Little theory, big plans : social capital and community building in Aboriginal Australia

The discourse surrounding recent Aboriginal social policy regularly refers to pragmatism and partnership. In a simpler world, we might call this ‘getting things done with Aboriginal people.’ To that extent, the discourse draws on an indisputable common sense, and it is not surprising that a variety of political agendas can be packaged within such language. While many things need to be done, the quantity and particularly the quality of social networks required to take effective policy into effective practice is something we ought to consider more carefully. This is where the concept of social capital could be useful, since it focuses attention on the social resources required to construct social policy, as well as the social resources that could be produced by effective social policy. Partnerships and pragmatism are therefore related at a most fundamental level in terms of social policy. We question whether this important conceptual bedrock has been fully explored. Hence we review here some recent ‘big plans’ for Aboriginal Australia, and ask whether the size of the theory matches the size of the plans.

Revitalizing health for all : international Indigenous representative group. Learning from the experience of comprehensive primary health care in Aboriginal Australia — A commentary on three projects

This paper presents a regional commentary (hereafter ‘the commentary’) on the three Australian projects of the Teasdale-Corti Global Health Research Partnership Program. The three Australian projects are: Victorian Aboriginal Health Service Ltd (VAHS), Melbourne, Victoria—Forty Years of Comprehensive Primary Health Care; Central Australian Aboriginal Congress Inc. (Congress), Alice Springs, Northern Territory—Ingkintja, Male Health Program; and Urapuntja Health Service (UHS), Utopia, Northern Territory—Outstation Health Care. It highlights common themes and lessons in respect to the Revitalising Health for All project in the context of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health in Australia.

Crossing lines: Sport history, transformative narratives, and Aboriginal Australia

In this collaborative article, we seek to unsettle the dominance of Western, reconstructionist accounts of Indigenous Australian sport history through reflections on our past research in the Queensland Aboriginal community of Cherbourg. That research focussed on a statue of legendary 1930s cricketer, Eddie Gilbert, and on sport exhibitions in Cherbourg's Ration Shed Museum. Here, we are less concerned with unveiling the ‘true’ account of Australian Aboriginal sporting history, or even a ‘true’ Indigenous representation of events. Rather, we are interested in analysing various perspectives in order to generate a more inclusive and complete account of Aboriginal sport history and the narrative implications of these for Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australia. Central to this endeavour is the positioning of Indigenous knowledge and understanding at the centre of history-making. The article is in two sections: reflections on our past work from the perspectives of the researchers themselves and an Aboriginal academic colleague, followed by a discussion of how those experiences and reflections will inform our pending project on the 1950s and 1960s Cherbourg marching girls teams.

Aboriginal and non-aboriginal Australia : the dilemma of apologies, forgiveness, and reconciliation

This article presents a qualitative study of the indigenous Australian perspective on reconciliation with nonindigenous Australia, with a focus on the role of an apology for the oppression and violence perpetrated by nonindigenous Australians, and forgiveness on the part of indigenous Australians. A brief historical analysis of the relationship between Aborigines and waves of settlers is presented to demonstrate the extent of the wrong that was perpetrated against Aborigines and the need for social as well as practical reconciliation in the current context. It is argued that negotiated forgiveness is a concept that is pertinent to the discussion of reconciliation, because it requires a dialogue between the parties and ultimately for the wrongdoer to accept accountability and responsibility for offending actions, thereby opening the door for forgiveness and, ultimately, possible reconciliation. It is suggested that a first step in the required reconciliation dialogue is an apology, but the issue of who should give and receive an apology is a complex one. The issue of who should forgive and who should be forgiven is shown to be similarly complex. Qualitative analysis of interview data from 10 participants indicated that at this point in time, forgiveness might not be salient to the indigenous population, whose primary focus is more on the matter of an apology. This suggests that negotiated forgiveness and reconciliation will remain elusive goals until the matter of an apology is resolved.

Deep ecology and Australian suburbia: learning from Aboriginal Australia philosophy

Naess’ Deep Ecology [50] represents a fundamental philosophical and conceptual shift from the dominant Western thinking that can be traced back to the Greek and Roman Empires. Like all philosophy, Naess’ Deep Ecology was born of and is most relevant to a specific time and place being northern Europe. Although the fundamentals of the Deep Ecology philosophy were new to modern Western thinking, it is not new to traditional Indigenous cultures, including the world’s oldest culture, that of Aboriginal Australia. While the past four decades has seen an increasing recognition of Aboriginal philosophical approaches, there is very little understanding of what this philosophical approach is and means for the management of the Australian environment in which humans are a central part. Since European arrival, Australia has been one of the world’s most urban societies. Unlike northern Europe, urban Australia is low density and suburban, a legacy of British and North American influences. Nearly 90% of Australians live in detached houses surrounded by gardens. Managed by individual residents, this land use accounts for about 70% of the total area of cities like Melbourne. Deeply culturally embedded, the Australian desire for living in low-density suburbs is unlikely to change soon. Contemporary cities are widely recognized as causing severe environmental degradation and are not sustainable. Yet in Australia introduced philosophical and design approaches are still used to address the unsustainable impacts of urban forms introduced from another time and place. While impractical to remove the existing suburban form in Australian cities, there is a significant opportunity to retrofit them using Australian Aboriginal philosophical and land management understandings developed and tested over tens of thousands of years. This paper establishes a contemporary Australian Deep Ecology philosophical approach to sustainably living in the suburbs that recognizes and works with the legacies of Australian Aboriginal, English, North American and contemporary Australian influences.

Book review: An Appreciation of Difference: WEH Stanner and Aboriginal Australia, edited by Melinda Hinkson and Jeremy Beckett, xvii + 293 pp, Aboriginal Studies Press, Canberra, 2008, ISBN 9780855756604 (pbk), $39.95

An Appreciation of Difference: WEHStanner and Aboriginal Australia is a tribute nearly 30 years after his death to one of the lost esteemed anthropologists who worked in Indigenous Australian contexts. It is also a reflection on what Stanner achieved in his lifetime and what his work contributes to current Indigenous issues and Indigenous studies in Australia today.

An entrepreneurial adventure? Young women pre-service teachers in remote Aboriginal Australia

Following global interest in how pre-service teacher education might engage with social justice imperatives, this paper reports on interviews with three non-Aboriginal young women pre-service teachers taking part in a professional placement in remote Aboriginal Australia, and explores how their identity work reinscribes and/or challenges racialized forms of power. I argue that theories from the sociology of youth around 21st century girlhood can illuminate these young teachers’ identity work in useful ways that raise important issues and questions for teacher educators to consider. Simultaneously, I show how empirical research into teacher identity can enrich theory and research on young femininities.

Aboriginal community control and decolonizing health policy : a yarn from Australia

This chapter outlines: a brief history of Australian Aboriginal health and health policy and then moves on to demonstrate how the Victorian Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Organisation (VACCHO) undertakes its work and is an example of 'decolonizing policy in action'. Moreover, it highlights how Aboriginal participation in the development of policy and in the planning, delivery, management and evaluation of health programs enables policies and programs to respond effectively to the needs of Aboriginal people and to change future health outcomes for them. It showcases how Aboriginal decision-making has gone some way to decolonizing policymaking and has addressed the power imbalance - both of which have been critical in the improvement in Aboriginal health outcomes.