Resources and publications

The following submission is in response to the Closing the Gap Refresh Public Discussion Paper.

In this submission, AIATSIS supports the adoption of a strengths-based approach to the refresh of the COAG Closing the Gap framework. The submission outlines key areas of importance for the refresh. These are  defining 'prosperity' based on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander notions of 'wealth' and freedom, adopting broad and sophisticated definitions of culture, and co-designing targets, measures and analysis with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. Further, creating structural changes which are well balanced with community priorities, address blockages, inequalities and inconsistencies in legislation and policy, and ensuring engagement with the Refresh process occurs in a considered and meaningful way.

This collection of papers examines the dilemmas and challenges involved in the Indigenous struggle for the development and recognition of systems of governance that they recognise as both legitimate and effective.

Country, native title and ecology all converge in this volume to describe the dynamic intercultural context of land and water management on Indigenous lands. Indigenous people’s relationships with country are discussed from various speaking positions, including identity and knowledge, the homelands debate, water planning, climate change and market environmentalism. The inter-disciplinary chapters range from an ethnographic description of living waters in the Great Sandy Desert, negotiating the eradication of yellow crazy ants in Arnhem Land, and legal analysis of native title rights in emerging carbon markets. A recurrent theme is the contentions over meaning, knowledge, and authority.

This policy statement provides brief information for Indigenous Data Sovereignty (IDS), which refers to the right of Indigenous peoples to exercise authority over the collection, access, analysis and use of data that pertains to them.

Bridging historical scholarship and Aboriginal oral tradition, this innovative book tells the story of the Gugu Badhun people of the Valley of Lagoons in North Queensland. It provides new insights into Aboriginal–European interactions, and new understandings of how Aboriginal people sustained their identities and exercised agency.

It lays bare violence and oppression, but also recognises the inter-racial cooperation and friendships which were equally part of Gugu Badhun experience. It tells of a people whose options were limited by state power and public racism but who remained proud and undaunted, making their own decisions for their collective and individual benefit.

Much of the story is told in the words of Gugu Badhun people themselves. Interviews are interspersed with commentary and analysis by the four authors, one of whom, Yvonne Cadet-James, is herself a Gugu Badhun elder.

This collaborative approach has produced a timely book for an Australia in which notions of Indigenous autonomy and self-determination are being re-imagined and re-configured.

To purchase this book please visit the AIATSIS shop via think link.

Much of the attention paid to native title in Australia has focused on court proceedings and other legalities, but what does it actually mean to live with native title? This book presents the experiences of native title holders and the corporations they have established to look after their native title interests.

The influence of the renowned High Court Mabo case is such that there are already more than 100 Registered Native Title Bodies Corporate (RNTBCs) across Australia with responsibilities for about 18 per cent of the continent. RNTBCs operate in a profoundly intercultural context where ‘western’ and Indigenous laws are constantly interpreted and negotiated as part of a new suite of landholding and land management practices for contemporary Australia.

Through seven case studies from the Torres Strait, Far North Queensland, the Kimberley and Central Australia, Living with native title documents the experiences of RNTBCs, including those that are parties to large mining agreements. Each case study is accompanied by a short update written immediately prior to publication.

Living with native title is a product of the AIATSIS research project Prescribed Bodies Corporate: Research Action Partnerships.

In this award-winning work Carlson explores the complexities surrounding Aboriginal identity today. Drawing on a range of historical and research literature, interviews and surveys, The politics of identity explores Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal understandings of Aboriginality and the way these are produced and reproduced across a range of sites and contexts.

Emphasising Indigenous debates and claims about Aboriginality, The politics of identity explores both the community and external tensions around appropriate measures of identity and the pressures and effects of identification. An analysis of online Indigenous communities on social media that have emerged as sites of contestation adds to the growing knowledge in this area, both nationally and globally.

This is a brave and personal contribution to the often vexed subject of Aboriginal identity and offers a distinctive and fresh line of analysis.

The papers in this collection reflect on the various social effects of native title. In particular, the authors consider the ways in which the implementation of the Native Title Act 1993 (Cwlth), and the native title process for which this Act legislates, allow for the recognition and translation of Aboriginal law and custom, and facilitate particular kinds of coexistence between Aboriginal title holders and other Australians.