Constitutional recognition and change for the benefit of Australia’s First Peoples has recently emerged as the focus of Indigenous politics. This article critiques the ‘top-down’ nature of the constitutional recognition movement, specifically the Recognise campaign. It highlights the campaign’s contribution to the‘politics of distraction’ which dominate the mainstream discussion of Indigenous issues, detracting from ongoing...

The competing principles framework for analysing Australian Indigenous affairs is revisited, starting with Rowse on 'the Coombs experiment'. Rowse rehabilitates this term from pejorative critics, arguing that all government policy in Indigenous affairs is experimental. The task becomes one of characterising changing patterns of government experiment since the Commonwealth became involved in Indigenous affairs on...

This thesis examines the explanatory power of social capital theory as an aid to understanding disadvantaged socio-economic circumstances prevailing in many contemporary remote Aboriginal communities.

This report is the culmination of 18 months of engagement and design work by Indigenous leaders, communities and organisations across the eight Empowered Communities regions. In it, we propose a range of reforms that build on decades of effort by Indigenous peoples to reclaim control in driving our own priorities for development.

This edited book explores the transformation of cultural materials through the Australian landscape. Overview