Insight ran an excellent series of interviews with young Aborigines living in Alice Springs last night. The kids opened up and talked about their fights, their drinking, their family problems and their hopes for a better future. If I have one regret about my book Dragon Bones, it’s that the stories of the Bhutanese people… Continue reading Telling their own stories
Tag: aborigines
Drive Safe NT
Have you ever heard a politician praise the previous government? Adam Giles, NT Transport Minister, gave full credit to his predecessor for ‘the best program the territory government has ever run‘ and vowed to continue it. The program? DriveSafe NT Remote is helping indigenous Australians to get driving licenses. In the Northern Territory, it’s impossible… Continue reading Drive Safe NT
Blackfella Facebook
Last month, the National Centre for Indigenous Excellence launched its own social networking site. The officially named Community of Excellence is known as Black Fella Facebook by its users. Targeted exclusively at young Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders, the site allows youths to share their goals and aspirations and to indicate their support for each… Continue reading Blackfella Facebook
Flexibility For Aboriginal Education
I must applaud the NSW government’s new moves to improve education for Aborigines. The biggest mistake the federal government made in the NT Intervention was not consulting Aboriginal elders regarding their plans. Perhaps having learnt from past mistakes, the federal government apparently created the Indigenous Action Plan (probable parent of this NSW effort) following ‘extensive… Continue reading Flexibility For Aboriginal Education
Plans for the Old Swan Brewery
During the course on Aboriginal interests that I did over the last 6 months, I took particular interest in the conflict over plans for the old Swan Brewery in Perth. Edge of Empire: Postcolonialism and the City by Jane Jacobs was written in 1996 so the issue is long since resolved, but it could easily… Continue reading Plans for the Old Swan Brewery
Intervention
The more I learn about the NT intervention, the angrier I become. Last night I read The Emergency We Had To Have by Larissa Behrendt, the first chapter in Coercive Reconciliation: Stabilise, Normalise, Exit Aboriginal Australia. The book is a critical view of the intervention, written by experts in the weeks following its announcement. The… Continue reading Intervention
Knowledge is Wealth
In every anthropology subject I’ve done, the students take turns presenting a topic for each week. I volunteered to start this semester because I’m not sure what demands the book will put on me later on. This week, the topic was around what the term ‘hunters and gatherers’ really means. Can we say that Aborigines… Continue reading Knowledge is Wealth
Indigenous Interests
I’ve just started my final coursework subject for my Masters in Applied Anthropology. It’s on Indigenous Interests and Identity and I think I’m in for a fascinating semester. The lecturer has focused his studies on Aboriginal music and media so we’ll be spending a lot of time looking at the traditional owners of this land.… Continue reading Indigenous Interests