Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Tables
- List of Maps
- Preface
- Acknowledgements
- Abbreviations
- 1 Inequality: an overview
- 2 Remote Australia I: government settlements and missions
- 3 Remote Australia II: pastoral stations
- 4 Remote Australia III: decentralised communities
- 5 Settled Australia I: urban and rural communities
- 6 Settled Australia II: the major urban areas
- 7 Some economic issues
- Appendixes
- Bibliography
- Index
4 - Remote Australia III: decentralised communities
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 March 2010
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Tables
- List of Maps
- Preface
- Acknowledgements
- Abbreviations
- 1 Inequality: an overview
- 2 Remote Australia I: government settlements and missions
- 3 Remote Australia II: pastoral stations
- 4 Remote Australia III: decentralised communities
- 5 Settled Australia I: urban and rural communities
- 6 Settled Australia II: the major urban areas
- 7 Some economic issues
- Appendixes
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
There has been an increasing number of instances of small groups of Aborigines breaking away from missions and settlements and adopting a more remote satellite role. This tendency to form smaller and more homogeneous communities can be understood as one response to the complex problems created by contact with our society - a move towards a more traditional type of relationship between societies based upon agreed mutual obligation without mutual interference.
H. C. Coombs, ‘Decentralization Trends Among Aboriginal Communities’, Presidential Address, Anthropology Section, 45th ANZAAS Congress, Perth, 1973.It is true that the people who are belonging to a particular area are really part of that area and if that area is destroyed, they are also destroyed. In my travels throughout Australia, I have met many Aborigines from other parts who have lost their culture. They have always lost their land, and by losing their land they have lost part of themselves.
S. Roberts, Chairman of Northern Land Council (Second Report of the Ranger Uranium Environmental Inquiry, 1977, p. 47)In recent years, there has been a growing tendency for groups with a feeling of traditional Aboriginal kinship to leave white-controlled settlements and to establish ‘decentralised’ communities, usually on lands of ancestral affiliation. This tendency is an intriguing response to the historical pattern of relationships which has evolved between whites and Aborigines.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- The Economic Status of Australian Aborigines , pp. 76 - 100Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1979