The geographic area in which government settlements and church missions for Aborigines are found today has been variously called remote, traditional and ‘colonial’ Australia. All three adjectives seem appropriate. This vast area of the country is remote, being beyond the fringes of settlement, and isolated from major population centres and economic activity. It is also traditional, since the majority of Aboriginal residents in the region are of full descent and appear less divorced from the social, cultural and kinship systems of their forefathers than those Aborigines in more settled or urban areas. Finally, Rowley's (1971b) expression ‘colonial’ is apposite as well, alluding as it does to the pluralistic features of society in this part of Australia. But while each adjective is in its own way appropriate, the term used in this chapter is ‘remote’.

Geographically, remote Australia comprises half the continent.