Indigenous peoples, self-determination and international law

The article examines the re-emergence of indigenous rights in contemporary international law in the context of worldwide agitation by indigenous peoples for the adoption by the United Nations of a Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. Two approaches to the protection of indigenous rights are considered: a minimal one that relies on existing human rights conventions, and an inspirational one that seeks a Declaration negotiated in partnership with states willing to recognise indigenous autonomy. Attention is given to judicial recognition of the right to self-determination as a right of free choice, and to the distinction between minority rights and indigenous autonomy. The importance of defining indigenous self-determination in a positive way is emphasised, and prospects for a new UN permanent indigenous forum overcoming the stalemate about indigenous rights are reviewed in terms of the need for greater dialogue.

Controlling and developing native people : anthropology, government and the management of indigenous peoples in Australia and its territories 1920 to 1950

Examines the relationship between anthropology and native administration in the Australian territories of Papua and New Guinea and the Northwest of Australia between 1920 and 1950. Is is argued that anthropology needed colonialism rather than colonialism needing anthropology.

Indigenous peoples are not multicultural minorities : cultural diversity, heritage and indigenous human rights in Australia

This theoretically innovative anthology investigates the problematic linkages between conserving cultural heritage, maintaining cultural diversity, defining and establishing cultural citizenship, and enforcing human rights.

It is the first publication to address the notions of cultural diversity, cultural heritage and human rights in one volume. Heritage provides the basis of humanity’s rich cultural diversity. While there is a considerable literature dealing separately with cultural diversity, cultural heritage and human rights, this book is distinctive and has contemporary relevance in focusing on the intersection between the three concepts. Cultural Diversity, Heritage and Human Rights establishes a fresh approach that will interest students and practitioners alike and on which future work in the heritage field might proceed.

Understanding coastal urban and peri‐urban indigenous people’s vulnerability and adaptive capacity to climate change

This brief presentation will commence to address a number of emerging questions that are underpinned by the current NCCARF research project: Understanding Urban and Peri‐urban Indigenous People’s vulnerability and adaptive capacity to Climate Change. In terms of climate change adaptation barriers, options and priorities, what are the major considerations for indigenous communities residing in coastal peri-urban and urban places that may differ from those of their non-indigenous counterparts and possibly from Indigenous communities living away from the coasts? It will speculate on whether these considerations can be addressed through existing planning and management frameworks.

Indigenous climate change adaptation perspectives : understanding urban and peri‐urban indigenous people’s vulnerability and adaptive capacity to climate change

The National Climate change Adaptation Research Plan: Indigenous Communities (2011) highlighted that research on Indigenous communities and climate change, including the variables of impacts, vulnerability and adaptive capacity and adaptation has been limited. While most research has focused on identifying the biophysical impacts of climate change, a minority of studies have considered the Indigenous knowledge and peoples whom continue to reside in Australia and care for; ‘country’;. The report concluded that “there is a need for research that expands knowledge about these and other dimensions of Indigenous adaptation to climate change.“ This paper reviews work in progress on a NCCARF funded research project that is seeking to investigate select coastal urban and per-urban Indigenous community vulnerability to, and capacity for climate change adaptation. Working collaboratively with Indigenous communities resident in Adelaide, Heywood/Portland, Mornington Peninsula, Stradbroke Island and Brisbane, it seeks to explore and articulate strategies that enhance Indigenous capacity to climate change including possible protocols, frameworks, processes and procedures that may lead directly to a more informed appreciation of what is transpiring around Australia’s coastal per-urban regions for their Indigenous communities who still hold strong bonds and responsibilities to their ‘country’.

Making meaning from collective apologies : Australia's apology to its indigenous peoples

This article considers the meaning of intergroup apologies for their recipients. Our research examined Indigenous people’s responses to the 2008 Australian apology to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples forcibly removed from their families under previous governments (the Stolen Generations). We interviewed Indigenous men (n=10) and women (n=22) about their attitudes toward the apology and forgiveness. To cover the breadth of Indigenous responses to the Australian apology, we sought out participants from diverse geographic, cultural, and occupational contexts across Australia. After pooling the transcripts and entering them into NVivo, we identified key concepts and themes. Participants expressed positive, negative, and mixed views toward the apology and forgiveness. A dominant theme emerged as participants indicated that for the apology to be truly meaningful, there needed to be action commensurate with the emotion of the apology. Though participants indicated that the apology promoted reconciliation, this was not true for forgiveness. We conclude by discussing implications of these findings for theoretical models of intergroup apology.

Contributing to health reform : urban Aboriginal women speak out

In this thesis, the researcher shares their own personal journey as an Aboriginal researcher walking the borderlands between academic and Indigenous worldviews.  Indigenous Methodologies and Talking Circles provided a culturally safe environment for urban Aboriginal women to collectively develop and share their strategies to enable health care providers, educators, and policy makers to provide respectful non-racist, non-disciminatory health care.

Research ethics, reconciliation, and strengthening the research relationship in Indigenous health domains : an Australian perspective

Australia has one of the best health care systems in the world. Despite this, the health of Indigenous Australians remains poor in comparison to non-Indigenous Australians and in comparison to other Indigenous peoples in other developed countries, such as Canada, the USA and New Zealand. Although the disparities in Indigenous health are the result of a complex array of interacting social and political processes, the historical failings of the nation's research endeavours to directly benefit the health status of Indigenous peoples are bring increasingly implicated in the status quo. Because of their shared memories of past bad experiences, Indigenous communities are profoundly distrustful of non-Indigenous health researchers. As a result of this distrust, opportunities to improve the performance, accountability and benefits of health research in Indigenous health domains are being lost—to the further detriment of the health of Indigenous peoples. In an attempt to redress this distrust and strengthen the research relationship in Indigenous health domains, various national research ethics guidelines and frameworks have been developed. It is evident, however, that if the research relationship in Indigenous health domains is to be improved, researchers need to do much more than merely uphold prescribed rules and guidelines. This article contends that if the research relationship in Indigenous health is to be strengthened, health researchers must also engage in the distinctive political processes of ‘recognition’ and ‘reconciliation’. In support of this contention, the processes of recognition and reconciliation are described, and their importance to improving the overall performance, accountability and benefits of Indigenous health research explained.

Relating practice to theory in indigenous entrepreneurship : a pilot investigation of the Kitsaki partnership portfolio

In Canada and elsewhere around the world, Indigenous Peoples are struggling to rebuild their "nations" and improve the socioeconomic circumstances of their people. Many see economic development as the key to success. This is certainly true for Indigenous people in Canada (the First Nations, Metis, and Inuit, collectively called Aboriginal or Indigenous people). Among them, participation in the global economy through entrepreneurship and business development is widely accepted as the key to economy building and nation "re-building." As elaborated in the next section, the demand is that this participation must be on their own terms for their own purposes, and traditional lands, history, culture, and values play a critical role. There is an intriguing symmetry between the modernity of the desire for global business competence and competitiveness and the insistence upon the distinctive importance of cultural heritage in developing new enterprise. The way that the two superficially contrasting concepts of innovation and heritage are combined in the field of Indigenous entrepreneurship has been expounded by Hindle and Lansdowne.1

Recognizing the challenges they face in attempting to compete in the global economy on their own terms, Indigenous people are increasingly developing enterprises in the form of partnerships of all types among themselves and with non-Indigenous enterprises. As both a form and a context of business organization, the partnership or alliance model is particularly fraught with the need to blend the old with the new, heritage with innovation. This study is a preliminary investigation of the Kitsaki initiative of the Lac La Ronge Indian band. In it we:

* explore several ventures involved in the partnership, asking key operatives for their opinions about the factors that explain success and failure;

* distill the explanations into as few, all-embracing factors as possible;

* relate the findings to the emerging theory of Indigenous entrepreneurship, with particular reference to the suggested paradigm of Indigenous entrepreneurship developed by Hindle and Lansdowne (2002);

* project the results of the investigation into suggestions for a more structured program of future research.

How should we measure indigenous entrepreneurship? A search for explanatory variables

In Canada and elsewhere around the world Indigenous Peoples are struggling to rebuild their ‘nations’ and improve the socioeconomic circumstances of their people. We are embarking on a program of research in an effort to understand this phenomenon and to inform the process. In this paper we (i) explore the approach to development being adopted by Indigenous people in Canada; (ii) conduct a preliminary literature review; (iii) identify input indicators of entrepreneurship and business development capacity, process measures of development activity and an output indicator of development effectiveness and (v) identify the information available from secondary sources relating to these indicators and the gaps in information that will have to be filled by primary research.

The Archaeology of No man's land: Indigenous camps at Corindi Beach, mid-north coast New South Wales

At Corindi Beach on the mid-north coast of New South Wales are five twentieth century campsites located on the fringes of the township, beside the town racecourse, an area called by local Aboriginal people 'No man's land'. These campsites are important symbols of the self-sufficient lifestyle followed by the Corindi Beach Indigenous community in the twentieth century and are a physical reminder of cross-cultural relationships between local people over the last hundred years. In a collaborative research project with Yarrawarra Aboriginal Corporation, these places are being documented through studying oral history, the cultural landscape and the material culture left behind at these places.