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- Chapter One
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Aboriginal fringe dwellers
in Darwin:
cultural persistence or culture of resistance? |
| The Aboriginal Embassy is an example of how ‘hidden’ or ‘everyday’ resistance can become the basis of political action. The Embassy projected the fringe camp into the national and international arena by making the self-built Aboriginal humpy a symbol of sovereignty and land rights. The construction of self-made huts in the fringe camps, and at the Embassy, also draws attention to the lack of adequate shelter comparable to the rest of the community. |
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Chapter One 1.1 Introduction |
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Between 1996 and 2001, as this thesis describes, the presence of unserviced camps of homeless Aboriginal people in urban bushland sites around Darwin remained a contentious issue. The preparedness of unhoused fringe dwellers to protest against their marginalisation in the city was again expressed during my fieldwork in the camps from 1996-8. In seeking an explanation for the continuing militancy of Darwin fringe dwellers over a period of thirty years, my thesis asks: Do Darwin fringe dwellers order their lives in the urban bushland camps through ‘cultural continuities in a world of material change’ (Sansom 1988b:159), or is it in opposition that the ongoing recreation of a distinct cultural heritage occurs (Cowlishaw 1988b:99; 1988a:243, 1993:188)? In brief, do Aboriginal fringe dwellers in Darwin order their lives through cultural persistence or a culture of resistance? Equally as briefly, I suggest that the short answer to my thesis question is ‘both and neither’, as I will explain in the following chapters. I returned to Darwin in 1996 hoping to test whether the oppositional stance of past decades remained a feature of Aboriginal fringe camps in the contested sites around Darwin. As Glendinnen (1999:333) has said of the ‘Wallaby Cross’ fringe camp, they were ‘a group of Aboriginal mavericks, conscientious objectors to the claims of white authority, who lived, at least for a time, a resolutely independent life on the edge of a potentially hostile white community’. From 1971 I knew the ‘Wallaby Cross’ people well, before and after Basil Sansom’s acclaimed ethnography The camp at Wallaby Cross: Aboriginal fringe dwellers in Darwin (Sansom 1980a). An intention of my study was to re-examine Sansom’s vividly evocative descriptions of life in the camps, in the context of the political activism of the ‘Wallaby Cross’ people as I experienced it in the 1970s and 1980s. |
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Apart from ethnographies of Aboriginal
fringe camps, theoretical approaches for a thesis representing the lives
of Aboriginal people living on contested land in an Australian city
are suggested by the literature on diaspora, rural immigration to towns,
squatter settlements, articulation of modes of production, homelessness,
urban nomads or indigenous identity in a changing world. Also the literature
on ‘Aboriginality’ might contribute towards understanding Australian
indigenous people who challenge boundaries. However, indigenous people
deny that they are immigrants, squatters, nomads, or even homeless (see
Dyck 1985:13). The unique Aboriginal connection to land can also be
overlooked by the broader categories mentioned above. The social and economic interconnections between fringe dwellers and the town suggest that a study confined to an analysis of a separate Aboriginal identity would not be adequate. A critique of ‘the anthropological construction of natives’ by Appadurai (1988:36-40) advocates the ‘polythetic’ approach used in much of the literature mentioned above, because study of ‘family resemblances’ resists the confinement of ‘the native’ (Appadurai 1988:46). Appadurai (1988:36) decries ‘the anthropological construction of natives’ by the ‘boundedness of cultural units and the confinement of the varieties of human consciousness within these boundaries’. In the case of Aboriginal fringe dwellers in Darwin, their move from their homelands into the city, where authorities harass them, suggests that a holistic and bounded cultural study would not represent the realities facing Aboriginal fringe dwellers in the city. Instead, what Marcus (1995) calls ‘a multi-sited’ study offers a means of incorporating the wider issues which impact upon fringe dwellers’ lives in Darwin. |
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In Chapter Four, my extensive critique of The Camp at Wallaby Cross and Sansom's other texts, and my fieldwork experience, suggest that a more 'political' approach better represents the realities of fringe dwellers' lives. Rather than concentrating on a specific site, a multi-sited study is able to examine the discourses with which fringe dwellers are engaged in a complex, interconnected environment. (2) By 'following the conflict', as suggested by Marcus (1995:110), a multi-sited study can trace the intersecting interests revealed by the resistance of the fringe dwellers and the opposition of the townspeople. As Ortner (1995:175) notes, resistance can be a useful category of study 'because it highlights the presence and play of power in most forms of relationship and activity'. Before examining these issues in more detail, in the next section I place my thesis in a theoretical, geographical, and historical context. I examine theories from Aboriginal studies that are relevant to my thesis, including the polarised 'political' and 'cultural' approaches, which are also reflected in arguments for the construction of Aboriginality-as-resistance or Aboriginality-as-persistence. Filling a perceived shortcoming in the Aboriginal studies literature, I then apply theories of peasant resistance to an analysis of fringe dwellers' open and everyday opposition, observed before and during my fieldwork. |
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1.2 The influence of the Darwin region on anthropological theory Aboriginal resistance has been ongoing since Darwin was surveyed in 1869 by armed men led by G W Goyder, the Protector of Aborigines and Surveyor General of South Australia, to satisfy speculators who had paid for unseen estates, and were growing impatient for results (James 1979; Wells 1995a:9). Goyder and his men completed the survey in record time, despite violent opposition from the local Larrakia people (Kerr 1971:146). Although few of the surveyed properties had been occupied by 1882, a recent native title judgment (see Devereux 1998; Strelein 1999) found that the land sales effectively dispossessed the Aboriginal landowners. With the establishment of a townsite, Aborigines were confined in their movements, their sacred sites were renamed and their land had become a commodity. The slowness to settle northern Australia and the unsuitability of the land for agriculture offered some protection for Aboriginal people in the north. C D Rowley (1972b:x, 1972c:xiv) termed this vast sparsely populated area 'colonial Australia', or 'remote' Australia as it is more usually referred to today (see Map 4).(3) Marcia Langton (1993b:12) notes, 'remote' Australia [is] where most of the tradition-oriented Aboriginal cultures are located'.(4) In the 'settled' southern and eastern region of Rowley's continental divisions, the temperate climate and good soils where technologies of European agriculture could be applied, resulted in a more extensive dispossession of Aboriginal people (Rowley 1972b:4). In contrast, few Whites came to settle in remote or 'colonial' Australia (Rowley 1972b:14). While the boundary dividing the regions is 'an intellectual tool' (Rowley 1972b:20), I maintain that it remains useful in understanding the relationship between Aboriginal fringe dwellers and the non-Aboriginal settler population of Darwin. In Chapter Nine I argue that as Darwin prospered prior to Northern Territory self-government in 1978, a more stable predominantly White population transformed the city into an embattled enclave of 'settled' Australia in the remote north. Contesting the status of Darwin as a securely settled region of Australia, as Rowley (1972b:16) predicted, Aboriginal people continued to move into northern towns and establish fringe camps on vacant land, 'mak[ing] more obvious in towns the fact of a plural society'. I add that the opposition from within the towns that the campers attract suggests that the social plurality described by Rowley is unwelcome in Darwin, as an enclave of 'settled Australia'. After Baldwin Spencer (1914:152) observed that the Larrakia tribe in Darwin had become 'too decadent to retain anything but vestiges of its old customs', the Darwin area had largely been ignored as a site for anthropological research. By 1970, forgotten by anthropologists and unrecognised by most of the general community, the Larrakia members of the local danggalaba, or crocodile, clan were living with people from allied language groups at an 'illegal' camp they call Kulaluk, behind the drive-in cinema in the northern suburbs (Map 3). Scattered around the town were unserviced camps of other language groups living in self-built shelters who recognised the Larrakia people as the local landowners. The rapid spread of the Darwin suburbs in the boom years of the 1970s (ABS 1974:70) coincided with the increasing assertiveness of Darwin fringe dwellers, encouraged by the national movement for land rights which emanated from strikes and walk-offs by NT Aboriginal pastoral workers in the late 1960s (see Buchanan 1974; Duncan 1975). In 1971 the Darwin fringe campers formed a coalition, which they called 'Gwalwa Daraniki', or 'our land', and demanded ownership of their scattered urban bushland campsites. (5)Their protests and occupation of the land continued until special purpose leases were granted in 1979 at Kulaluk (301.69 hectares), Railway Dam in the inner city (3.12 hectares) and Knuckeys Lagoon at Berrimah (20.56 hectares). Despite government promises of more leases for Aboriginal town camps in Darwin, only one other lease has since been granted, twenty-four kilometres from the city centre. In June 1972 the Federal Government in response to Aboriginal demands established the Aboriginal Land Rights Commission. The Commissioner heard submissions from the small number of Larrakia people at Kulaluk and their Darwin fringe dweller allies from other camps.(6) In his findings, the Commissioner, Mr Justice Woodward, at first used a narrow definition of Aboriginal claimants:
However, Woodward (p.26) left his findings open by welcoming further submissions on 'the question of principles involved'. Following the release of the Woodward's first report, a violent Aboriginal protest erupted at Kulaluk.(7) Arguing for a politically involved approach, I editorialised in the Aboriginal newsletter Bunji (January 1978): 'It is not justice to almost wipe out a tribe and then judge them by anthropology books - books that tell only a small part of Aboriginal history' (reprinted in Day 1978:3). Subsequently, the struggle of the Larrakia and other Darwin fringe dwellers, including my role as secretary and White broker, was incorporated into Woodward's final report. The Commissioner wrote:
Since the success of the Kulaluk claim and the passing of the Aboriginal Land Rights (NT) Act, 1976 and the Native Title Act, 1993, there has been a remarkable revitalisation of the Larrakia people into a language group, or 'nation' as they call themselves, which was said to have over 700 members, mostly living in the urban community (Walsh 1996:101; see also Wei 1990; Sutton 1998). Their numbers had grown to over 1500 members by 1999 (Risk 1999:1). Both Walsh (1996) and Povinelli (1993a:55-57) discuss the relationship between the Larrakia revival and extensive anthropological research that has facilitated the claims of the Larrakia and other Aboriginal people in the region. Undoubtedly, the well-publicised activism of a small group of Larrakia fringe dwellers and their allies in the 1970s also had some influence on the growing assertion of Larrakia identity.(9) Researchers in Darwin argue for the acceptance of process and change in Aboriginal societies of the Darwin area (Sansom 1980a, 1981a, 1988a, 1988b, 1999; Brandl 1983; Brandl and Walsh 1985; Layton 1986; Povinelli 1991, 1993a, 1993b, 1995a), while also proposing appropriate definitions of Aboriginal social structure and connection to the land which can be recognised by Australian legal systems (see Brandl et al 1979; Sansom 1980b, 1980c, 1982b, 1985; Walsh 1989a, 1989b; Povinelli 1995b; Rose 1995; Sutton 1995a, 1995b, 1998, 1999b). As Merlan (1997:5) points out, the Larrakia Kenbi claim is amongst those Aboriginal land claims which suggest: 'broad socio-territorial identities [have] involved people whose concepts of attachment to country [is] at less socially inclusive levels and finer geographic scale [as a result of] historical contingency and change'. From another approach, Kerin Coulehan (1995a) documents Aboriginal systems of governance that extend to Yolngu women and children who live in Darwin. In 1978 the NT Government increased the size of the Darwin urban area to about three times the size of Greater London (Parsons 1998:15). All the Aboriginal claim to vacant Crown land on the Cox Peninsula, across the harbour from the city, was included within the new boundaries and therefore could not be claimed under the Aboriginal Land Rights (NT) Act, 1976, which excludes claims to land in towns (see Olney 1991:12; Blowes 1992). Subsequently, the Larrakia people won a High Court appeal against the government action. During my fieldwork, as I will later describe, the Larrakia people also registered a native title claim over the city (see Carey and Collinge 1997). However, the tribe had received no more than token recognition as traditional owners of the Darwin area prior to the December 2000 findings by the Aboriginal Land Commissioner on the Kenbi Land Claim to the Cox Peninsula and nearby islands. Although most of the above studies incorporate into Aboriginal social systems some of the vast changes that have occurred in the Darwin region, I suggest that the writers continue to construct what Appadurai (1988:40) terms 'metonymic prisons for particular places (such that the natives of that place are inextricably confined by them)'. The construction of 'the survivor native' is understandable, in response to land rights legislation and past stereotypes of urban Aboriginal people; however, I suggest that the above brief 'genealogy' of descriptions of Aboriginal cultural continuity, or persistence, in the Darwin region reveals the exclusion, or marginalisation, of the prolonged resistance made by many Aboriginal occupants of the region. A rare, though stifled, voice of opposition appears in a brief excerpt from the transcripts of the Kenbi land claim hearing that is cited by Povinelli (1993a:247): June Mills:
Compounding the silencing of Aboriginal oppositional voices, fringe dwellers have been excluded from the land claim process. As I discuss in Chapter Seven, the Aboriginal Land Rights (NT) Act, 1976 excludes claims based on needs and the Native Title Act, 1993 does not appear to support the claims of fringe dwellers in Darwin. In spite of their omission from these laws, in my experience most fringe dwellers resist containment and claim that they assert Aboriginal rights in their 'illegal' camps on vacant Darwin bushland. Edmunds (1995:9) views town camps as 'the fundamental point of Aboriginal resistance to European-Australian dominance'. As sites of 'action and change', the camps stand for the recognition of '[Aboriginal] needs, their definitions of community and of the ways in which these definitions are derived from their particular relationship to country' (Edmunds 1995:9). These are issues I examine in this thesis. More usually, the seemingly displaced location of the camps, their reputation as a 'war zone' (see Merlan 1995:165; Glendinnen 1999:92) and the apparent acculturation of the residents has deterred anthropological fieldworkers. Where fringe camps have been the subjects of ethnographies (Sansom 1980a; Collmann 1988), their political context has been seen as secondary to a holistic study. |
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1.3 A multi-sited study In my assessment, a multi-sited study as proposed by Marcus (1995:110) tends to include the campers in town space, rather than being complicit in the confinement of fringe dwellers to a bounded place, which Appadurai (1988) suggests may occur figuratively and literally in a single-sited study. Although Sansom’s analysis is an example of a potentially multi-sited study of people who are ‘no longer exclusively located’ (Sansom 1980a:5), in his ethnography the fringe dwellers are selectively bounded within a ‘segregated social field’ (Sansom 1981a:275) and a region (Sansom 1980a:iii) from which ‘countrymen’ are recruited into a ‘hinterland Aboriginal community’ (see Sansom 1985:84-87). I claim that in the 1990s the Darwin fringe dwellers struggle for space where they can live, knowing that their location in a specific place is usually decided by city power structures that are inaccessible to the campers. However, the physical space contested by fringe dwellers differs from the type of Aboriginal domain that Trigger (1986:114) argues can ‘never be permanently fixed by the location itself’. In Darwin, a shifting spatial domain is created by Aboriginal card players or drinkers in a public park. In contrast, the fringe dwellers I describe struggle for space with security of tenure. Rather than the passive resistance expressed within an Aboriginal domain, as described by Trigger (1992), the fringe dwellers openly challenge Darwin authorities, as my fieldwork illustrates. Marcus (1995:100) points out that fieldwork, which is always potentially multi-sited, bounds the object of study to a single site by the selection of what to include. Even in a multi-sited study, through ‘constructivism’ (see Marcus 1995:105), it is the ethnographer ‘who provides the only site of wholeness and continuity in the face of a fragmented, disjointed array of sites of incommensurable scales’ (Weiner 2000:77). As the field widens, it tests the limits
of ethnography and produces the ‘anxiety’ of losing the perspective
of the subaltern (Marcus 1995:95). In addition, ‘something of the mystique
and reality of conventional fieldwork is lost’ (Marcus 1995:100), including
claims of being a holistic representation (see Marcus 1995:99). However,
the evidence I present suggests that a multi-sited study better represents
the priorities of the Darwin fringe dwellers. According to my thesis, a failure to engage with the nature of power relations between fringe dwellers, the practice of anthropology, the public, other Aboriginal groups, legal institutions, the media and Local and Territory Government would be a failure to represent the ‘perspective of the subaltern’. Marcus (1995:100) notes: ‘what is not lost but remains essential to multi-sited research is the function of translation from one cultural idiom or language to another’. If the conflict in this case is a result of the intersection of powerful discourses with the aspirations of the fringe dwellers, the value of multi-sited research remains in the anthropologist’s role of translation across cultures. This is made more complex in a multi-sited study because ‘innocent "identity" politics’ is less likely to be convincing (Marcus 1995:101) as the connections between sites are revealed. In the world of today, ‘the very status of "cultural difference" as anthropological subject matter is rendered problematic’ (Weiner 1997:87). |
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1.4 Cultural continuities or a culture
of opposition? For example, in defending his descriptions of uniquely Aboriginal cultural continuities, Sansom (1984a:40) asks if apparent cultural accommodation, or ‘adaptations’, in Australia’s indigenous minority must always be viewed as reactive? His view contrasts with the emphatic claim by Cowlishaw (1993:187-188): ‘Cultural reproduction amongst Aborigines in Australia today always occurs in a context of opposition, official and unofficial, in Arnhem Land as well as Bourke’. Although these two ethnographers foreground
cultural forms in an Aboriginal domain, Cowlishaw (1986:10) includes within
contemporary Aboriginal culture all Aboriginal resistance, ‘as creative
response to the conditions of existence experienced by a group’. She is
critical of anthropology that interprets culture as ‘exotic practices’
(p.10). Similarly, Merlan (1998:169) claims Sansom (1980a) privileges
an ‘alternative reality’ in the fringe camps. In Chapter Four, I present
evidence that suggests that the uniqueness of ‘Wallaby Cross’ owes much
to the fringe dwellers’ cattle station backgrounds and their history of
struggle for space in Darwin.
Sansom’s (1980a) description of Darwin
fringe dwellers, as though they are a ‘self-managing entity in classic
field work style’ (Cowlishaw 1986:9), contrasts with Cowlishaw’s (1993:184)
view that ‘one cannot represent Aborigines without representing the dialectical
relations of domination’. Where culture is identified in an inclusive
sense, as Cowlishaw proposes: ‘The analysis of culture groups then depends
more on the nature of the boundaries and relations between culture groups
than on their defining characteristics’ (Cowlishaw 1988b:89).
Cowlishaw (1988a:232, 1993:186, 1994:80) uses the term ‘oppositional culture’ to describe the ‘active creation and protection of [an Aboriginal] arena of meaning in an embattled situation’ (Cowlishaw 1988b:97). An oppositional culture subverts and challenges dominant systems of meaning (Cowlishaw 1993:185) through everyday acts of resistance, like drinking and socially disruptive behaviour. According to Cowlishaw (1993:187): ‘The political aspect of mundane Aboriginal culture need not be due to any intention to be "political". Cultural expression can develop a sharp political edge because of the white response’. Indeed, Jack Davis the Aboriginal author has commented that, ‘To be Aboriginal in Australia is to be political’ (Shoemaker 1994:32). However, I will argue that fringe camps in Darwin exhibit a more active resistance to authority than Cowlishaw noted at Brindleton, where Aboriginal people are reluctant to directly challenge the Whites who rule the town (Cowlishaw 1988a:226). In later chapters I suggest that the Darwin fringe dwellers’ domain is generally marked more by a distinctive ‘lived in’ traditional culture and language than a reactive culture of opposition. Neither does the maintenance of Aboriginal language and beliefs amongst the Burarra fringe dwellers appear to have been the crucial element of defence against missionary intrusion observed by Tonkinson (1974:67) and Trigger (1992:126) at Jigalong and Doomadgee Missions. Darwin fringe dwellers from central Arnhem Land, to the east (Map 2), have not experienced the history of dispossession experienced by both the Aboriginal residents of Brindleton in ‘settled’ Australia and the cattle station workers at ‘Wallaby Cross’ or the indoctrination of fundamentalist missions like Doomadgee and Jigalong. (10) Contributing to the debate, Trigger (1997a:86) suggests: ‘"continuity" is a problematic notion unless it is understood in the context of an ongoing process of reconstruction of culture and identity through an intensive history of relations with the broader Australian society’. In Aboriginal communities like Doomadgee, in Queensland: ‘A researcher ... would have to be particularly romantic to conclude that everyday life reproduces, in any direct fashion, the pre-colonial culture of the region’ (Trigger 1997a:101). Although some readers of Trigger’s (1992) ethnography come to a different conclusion (see Turner 1993:146), (11) Trigger’s description contrasts with my experience of the maintenance of traditions and language amongst the Aboriginal people in the Darwin fringe camps, where many groups have been spared the ‘wild times’ of the pastoral regions (see Trigger 1992:17-37). Despite Trigger’s (1986, 1988a, 1992) and Cowlishaw’s (1988b:97) shared concept of a closed Aboriginal domain as a site of resistance against intrusion by the dominant society, Trigger differs with Cowlishaw’s ‘avowedly materialist analysis’ (Trigger 1990:237). He emphasises the ‘enmeshing’ of Aboriginal culture with the historical experiences and commodities of colonialism (Trigger 1992:223, 1994:33, 1997a:101). That is, Trigger places more importance on Aboriginal accommodation within the intruding system (see Trigger 1988a). His statement, that there are major ‘discontinuities’ in Aboriginal tradition since precolonial times (Trigger 1997:88; see also Merlan 1998:168), implies a dichotomy between ‘traditional’ and ‘introduced’ cultural forms (see also Trigger 1992:102), which is less evident in either Cowlishaw’s or Sansom’s analyses. In everyday affairs, Cowlishaw (1993:187)
stresses that: ‘Cultural expression can often develop a sharp political
edge because of the white response’. Cowlishaw (1993:188) adds:
The fact that these remote communities
are regularly being taught to fit in with alien practices means that ceremonial
life, painting, language use, as well as everyday practices are marked
as distinctively Aboriginal rather than as normal.
For example, fringe dwellers value their closeness to the soil, on which most of them sleep, as confirmation of their Aboriginality. Their lifestyle demonstrates that they belong to the land. As one man told me, ‘My mother put me on the ground. My mattress [was] paperbark - not bed like Whiteman’. In response to authorities that claim that the campers do not belong in the city, the campers assert their identity as indigenous people. However, being harassed from place to place ‘like dingo, like wallaby’, as they told me, suggests to fringe dwellers that they are not regarded as human. The elements of Aboriginality-as-persistence listed by Keeffe (1988:68, 1992:46) are: ‘a belief in the persistence of an inherently unique identity; the continuity of cultural practices that originate in traditional Aboriginal culture; the common sharing of these by all Aboriginal people in Australia’. These are ingredients of the politicised public ethnicity also referred to as ‘the politics of culture’ that Hollinsworth (1992b:169) distinguishes from the ‘private ethnicity’, which is more typical of the Darwin camps. In this thesis I give examples suggesting that Aboriginal persistence is more likely to be exploited in the public realm by non-Aboriginal tourism and festival organisations, which otherwise oppose or do not appear to support fringe dwellers’ complaints. More often, the lifestyle of ‘bush people’, as fringe dwellers sometimes call themselves, is used by opponents as a reason for excluding them from the town. Where persistence of Aboriginal culture
and social structure are required in claims under Australian land rights
laws, the fringe dwellers are excluded. Because of this exclusion, the
‘mimetic’ or imitative representation of Aboriginality that Merlan (1998:150)
believes is a result of land claims around Katherine, is not as applicable
to Darwin fringe dwellers. (12) The following observation by Keeffe
(1988:79) is therefore less likely to apply to fringe dwellers than it
does to other Aboriginal people:
Aboriginality-as-persistence becomes equated
with ‘primordial ties’, and the relationship between Aborigines and the
larger social system within which they are encapsulated and by which they
are dominated is eliminated from analysis.
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1.5 The ‘political’ and the ‘cultural’
Jones and Hill-Burnett (1982:223) label ‘the two major competing ethnic ideologies as the "cultural" and the "political" ideology’. They continue: These polar positions, we claim, are the
basic symbols competing to form the basis of group-wide identity. Indeed,
it seems that the history of the relationship between Aboriginal political
demands and the government’s response had been an attempt to reduce the
full scope of these demands ... to the more limited demand of the rights
of Aboriginals to retain their racial and cultural heritage. (13)
The analysis by Jones and Hill-Burnett appears to be applicable to the two anthropological approaches typified in my thesis question. That is, a bounded study of a culture portrayed as complete in itself is less likely to examine the issues which daily confront Aboriginal people, particularly fringe dwellers. These issues, which are often the material priorities of the fringe dwellers, are more likely to be examined in a study emphasising the interface of Aboriginal people and the dominant socio-economic system. Because fringe dwellers’ demands include recognition of their cultural rights to live as a community, their fight for space in the towns appears to represent an intersection of discourses of equal rights with discourses of identity politics. Prior to 1967, Aboriginal activists claimed an equal humanity as citizens of Australia (Stokes 1997:162; see also McGinness 1991:25). Stokes (p.162) adds: ‘If there was any general Aboriginal identity, it was located within a shared history of oppression’. In that period, activists, unionists, and others identified with elements of Aboriginality-as-resistance, as again occurred in the fringe dweller protests during my fieldwork. After 1967 in Australia, there was a shift
towards emphasising the uniqueness of Aboriginality (Stokes 1997:164).
Frank Hardy (1968) witnessed the changing paradigm as the Gurindji strikers
widened their demands for equal pay to include claims for sacred land.
As Langton (1981:19) writes:
[W]hen paternalistic restrictions and
the stigma of Aboriginality began to lift in the mid-sixties, many Aboriginal
groups, both in and out of the cities gained the freedom to express their
own terms and idioms... By the later sixties, a series of successes brought
Aborigines to the point of demanding equal but different access to material
wealth and social, legal and political status.
My research suggests that the dichotomy
between equal rights (expressed as resistance) and cultural rights (expressed
as persistence) cannot be sustained in an analysis of the struggle by
fringe dwellers for space in Darwin.
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1.6 Transitive and intransitive
resistance
Scott (1989:4) argues that studies of resistance have concentrated on formal protest such as ‘petitions, rallies, peaceful marches, protest voting, strikes, and boycotts’. Scott (21-2) argues that everyday forms of resistance have not been seen as political. He states, ‘if class domination is a process of systematic appropriation, then the measures devised to thwart that appropriation constitute a form of resistance’ (p.22). These issues are reflected in debates on Aboriginal resistance. According to Rowse (1993b), there are two dimensions of Aboriginal resistance. The Dhan-Gadi people, as described by Morris (1988, 1989), use intransitive resistance ‘in the sense ... of actions focused primarily among those doing the resisting’ (Rowse 1993b:273). Similarly, the preference of fringe dwellers to live as a group in the town, barefooted, speaking their own languages and using open fires for cooking, are examples of this form of resistance. In contrast, transitive resistance is directed outwards and challenges the encroaching actions of others. Examples from my fieldwork are the refusal to pay fines for sleeping in a public place and continuing to camp illegally on vacant Crown land. Elsewhere, Rowse (1990:189) questions the effectiveness of the intransitive Aboriginal opposition described by Cowlishaw by asking, ‘In what sense is the "oppositional culture" articulated as political interest?’ In response to Rowse’s privileging of organised resistance over everyday intransitive resistance, Lattas (1993:244) states: ‘Rowse de-politicises the oppositional culture of Aborigines by equating politics with formal institutionalised political processes’. Lattas (1993:243) adds that the high arrest rate for Aboriginal people points to ‘a sense of moral panic in the white community’. For example, in Darwin Aboriginal ‘antisocial behaviour’ is a regular Local Government and Territory election issue (Schulz 1996; NT News April 30, 1996, April 6, 2000; see also Collmann 1988:51; Ween 1997:26). Cowlishaw (1993:193) states that an oppositional
culture is often the only alternative for Aboriginal people: ‘To be heard
by the white institutions [politically active Aboriginal people] must
employ the language, metaphors and moral stance that are often not known,
rarely accepted and certainly not the lingua franca of the black community’.
However, Dyck (1985:14) notes changes that have occurred:
The traditional means of opposition undertaken
by indigenous communities that have been dominated by colonial powers
were indirect, symbolic and commonly expressed in terms which did not
provoke a punitive response from governments ... In contrast the opposition
tactics of today are open and, and often as not, decidedly provocative.
The development of political organizations, the issuing of legal challenges,
and the use of the mass media are all means by which indigenous spokesmen
can appeal directly to governments and the public.
In this thesis I give examples that
indicate that intransitive, hidden or everyday oppositional culture may
quickly transform into open, formal or transitive resistance. My research
also suggests that there is a political awareness behind fringe dwellers’
everyday actions that blurs the distinction between transitive and intransitive
opposition.
Although Keeffe (1988:72) includes elements of an oppositional culture, including school truancy, inattention and ‘cheeky behaviour’, Hollinsworth (1992b:169) and Keeffe (1988, 1992) generally refer to Aboriginal resistance as explicit public forms of ‘transitive’ action. Keeffe (1988:73, 1992:102) claims that Aboriginality-as-resistance has the advantages of being: interactive; conscious; dynamic; modern and political, in contrast to the limiting effect of a reliance on a unique cultural identity, as in Aboriginality-as-persistence. Resistance is also claimed by Keeffe (1988:73) as being: forward looking; does not reify culture; uses a universalistic language; and is inclusive in recognising non-Aboriginal support. However, the claim by Hollinsworth (1992a:149) that young, urban and Westernised Aborigines can identify more easily with Aboriginality-as-resistance does not appear to be as applicable today, as Chapter Seven indicates. Otherwise my research suggests that the features of resistance, listed above, characterise fringe dweller resistance. Although Sansom (1995:276) has more recently given one vignette of fringe dweller protest, in The camp at Wallaby Cross (Sansom 1980a) there is no example of open resistance and little indication of who or what the ‘mob’ would be opposing. Instead, at ‘Wallaby Cross’ Sansom (1980a) describes a persistence of Aboriginal ways that can be interpreted as a form of everyday resistance (see Glendinnen 1999). Elsewhere, Sansom (1982b:137) analyses the ‘limited and constricted vision’ within an Aboriginal commonality based on the cultural continuities of ‘bordered communities’ (Sansom 1982b:136). His argument is for cultural interpretations of Aboriginal oppositional behaviour, rather than interpretations rendered over ‘to a Western world of discourse’ (see Sansom 1985:40, 1988a:148). In contrast, in Chapter Four I give many examples of more open, consciously political resistance by the ‘Wallaby Cross’ mob. |
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1.7 The politics of culture In contrast, Tonkinson (1999:137) argues that Aboriginal ‘tradition’ (his quotes) has intellectual and emotional appeal as a political and economic resource to a growing Aboriginal middle class, and as a component of an Australian national identity. Tonkinson (p.137) distinguishes the persistence of the ‘lived in reality’ of Aboriginal tradition in remote Australian communities from the use of Aboriginal ‘tradition’ in identity construction, which requires ‘a very much higher level of self-consciousness and objectification of the past and of culture than in remote Aboriginal Australia’ (Tonkinson p.139). (14) During my fieldwork between 1996 and 2001, the fringe dwellers often defended their right to camp in Darwin as a valued element of Aboriginal identity (see Illustration 5 and Section 5.11 of this thesis). My observations suggest that their argument was based on the ‘lived in reality’ of the fringe dwellers, rather than a construction of Aboriginality. |
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1.8 Essentialism According to Stokes (1997:158) and Tonkinson and Tonkinson (1998:12), by categorising Aborigines as the ‘primitive other’, non-Aboriginal people asserted their superiority while rationalising dispossession. After 1972, the state began to ‘rehabilitate’ Aboriginality through special structures formed to stabilise and integrate Aboriginal political activity (see Jones and Hill-Burnett 1982:224; Beckett 1988:17). Morris (1985:87) defines essentialism
as ‘the assertion that certain social relations are governed by some
inevitable natural causality, independent of historical contextualisation’.
Similarly, Hollinsworth (1992a:147) comments:
[T]he discourse of cultural continuity
(or persistence) as an essentialist and universal commonality is typically
predicated on some genetic or biological mechanism operating despite
the vagaries of history and diverse backgrounds evident in contemporary
Aboriginal communities.
According to Hollinsworth (1992b:169),
his critique of Aboriginality-as-persistence questions ‘the effectiveness
of particular essentialised and universalistic discursive strategies
in Australian cultural politics’. Hollinsworth (1992a:147) suggests
that an assumption of an Aboriginal essence tends to isolate or ignore
outside influences. In this way, I suggest that studies based on essentialist
theories differ from those studies that examine the infrastructure influencing
cultural superstructures.
If Morton (1998:375) is correct in claiming
that to identify the key characteristics of something is to essentialise
it, then it is not surprising that accusations of essentialism have
often been made in the anthropological literature. Although Cowlishaw
(1988a:279) directs her criticism against concepts that view Aboriginal
culture as ‘unchanging and exotic’, others (Rowse 1990:190; Hollinsworth
1992a:148; Morton 1998:360) accuse Cowlishaw of ‘political essentialism’
for her discounting of ‘interstitial’ Aboriginal people who are not
oppositional (see Cowlishaw 1988a:233, 253). (16) Similarly, Morton (1998:361) states:
Surely, if an older anthropology contributed
to the idea that Aborigines in ‘settled’ Australia had lost their culture
simply by overwhelmingly emphasising (and therefore authorising) the
idea of the traditional black, a newer anthropology overwhelmingly emphasising
opposition contributes equally to the idea that those persons whom Aboriginal
people sometimes refer to as [assimilated] have lost their history.
As I argue in a later chapter, the ‘newer
anthropology’, to which Morton (1998:361) refers has been overtaken
by a return to ‘older’, or ‘neo-classic’ forms in native title claims,
under laws which may judge that fringe dwellers have no claims or that
people like June Mills, who defended her right to identify as Larrakia,
have ‘lost their culture’. Or, as Wolfe (1994:122) claims:
The fundamental political consequence
of the specifications attaching to traditional connection [in the Native
Title Act], like its predecessor, traditional ownership, is that they
shift the burden of history from the fact of expropriation to the character
of the expropriated.
Lattas (1992:162, 1993:249) believes
that Aboriginal people, in claims of ‘persistence’, legitimately adopt
an essentialist view of themselves as a form of resistance. This point
is also conceded by Keeffe (1988:77, 1992:90) and Hollinsworth (1992a:149,
1992b:170) in their essays expounding the advantages of Aboriginality-as-resistance
over persistence. Perhaps more appropriately, Tonkinson (1999:134) suggests
that resistance and persistence are ‘analytically separable yet closely
intertwined’.
With the notable exception perhaps of Sansom, outside observers do not usually view fringe dwellers as models of the persistence of Aboriginal traditions. Aboriginal town residents who have achieved a degree of acceptance in the dominant society (see Fink 1957:103) mostly view the fringe dwellers’ drinking behaviour as an embarrassment. As letters to the Darwin press suggest, the lifestyle in the camps is more usually equated with a failure to adapt to the standards of White-dominated towns, rather than as opposition. An observation by Keeffe (1988:78), on education but applicable to this study, suggests an explanation for the failure to recognise fringe dweller resistance: Aboriginality is being condensed into
a form that can be incorporated into the dominant cultural tradition.
The elements of Aboriginality that are resistant or oppositional are
sanctioned and constrained, edited from the formal curriculum and denied
the support of state resources.
In a study of a Central Australian Aboriginal
employment program, Rowse (1993b:283) suggests an alternative to giving
an ‘ethnic personality’ to resistance:
Now that Aboriginal people occupy positions
of power at all levels of the administration of ‘Aboriginal affairs’,
the structural ‘frontier’ that divides the central apparatus of the
state from its local capillaries may be a more significant topic for
our study than the (increasingly abstract) ‘frontier’ which is said
to divide Aboriginal from non-Aboriginal people.
Attwood (1992a:159) suggests that an
alternative model for the construction of Aboriginality is ‘Aboriginality
as history’. Keeffe (1992:142) stresses the importance of Aboriginal
oral history in constructing a ‘community of memory’, in resistance
to what Stanner (1969:18) termed ‘the great Australian silence’. By
using history to construct space for a people otherwise marginalised,
there is also the potential for Aboriginal people and other Australians
to perceive that their pasts and presents are not necessarily opposed,
but often shared (see Attwood 1992a:159, 1992b:xvi).
The fringe dwellers use their historical
memory to defend their right to be in Darwin. Older campers often told
me of their experiences walking to Darwin from Arnhem Land in the 1950s.
An example of history conveniently ‘forgotten’ in Darwin public memory,
but remembered by Darwin Aboriginal people in the camps, is the Aboriginal
burial site at Mindil Beach that was exposed by earthworks (see Bunji
May 1981). A Larrakia elder told Sean Heffernan (1996): ‘That’s where
they dug all the people who were buried there. They dug [my sister]
out too’.
I find that C D Rowley’s arguments are
relevant to the dichotomies of persistence and resistance. Attwood (1992a:159)
also acknowledges the importance Rowley (1972c:8) places on history
in understanding the Aboriginal predicament. According to Rowse (1993a:30),
Rowley found anthropology to be ‘redundant in its ahistorical concern
with "cultural predispositions", and potentially apologist in its analytical
promotion of "race" and "culture" over the historical structures of
colonialism itself’. Rowse (1993a:30) cites Rowley (1972a:173):
If from their many origins there are
indeed some cultural predispositions, as there may well be, it is not
necessary to postulate these as the cause of Aboriginal actions and
attitudes; these may be adequately accounted for by historical and economic
factors and by social factors arising from the relationship of the group
with government and with non-Aboriginal society.
Despite Sansom’s (1988a:150) critical
assessment of Rowley’s texts for being ‘determinedly culture free’ (discussed
in a Chapter Four), according to Cowlishaw (1992:26) it was the ‘encyclopaedic
study of Aborigines in Australian society’ by Charles Rowley (1972a,
1972b, 1972c, 1978) which heralded major changes in Aboriginal studies
(see also Hamilton 1995). Inglis (1994:74) describes Rowley’s focus
on contacts between Aborigines and non-Aborigines as a break with anthropological
studies that Inglis (1994:77) says suffer from ‘theoretical myopia’
by ‘de-emphasizing both the role of the state and the resistance of
Aborigines to colonial (and post-colonial) oppression’.
The separation of studies of ‘traditional Aborigines’ from racial, political or policy considerations is traced by Cowlishaw (1992:22) to the 1940s and 1950s when ‘the anger and energy of students who were concerned about the position of Aborigines was deflected into other disciplines, or away from the academic arena altogether’. Today there is a wealth of historical texts on the Aboriginal protest movement (see Hardy 1968; Palmer and McKenna 1978; Lippmann 1981; Bandler 1989; Hawke and Gallagher 1989), including reinterpretations of early Aboriginal resistance (Reynolds 1982, 1995; Broome 1982). Other studies examine Aboriginal resistance
to institutionalisation (Tonkinson 1974; Morris 1989; Trigger
1992; Rowse 1993a, 1998). However, only passing reference is
made in earlier anthropological literature to the formal, organised
protests that have influenced public and political opinion (Maddock
1972:15; Berndt and Berndt 1992:525). More recently, anthropological debates on Aboriginal resistance centre on everyday, informal forms of opposition to assimilation (Toussaint 1987, 1992; Cowlishaw 1990, 1988a, 1988b, 1993, 1994; Rowse 1990, 1993b; Hollinsworth 1992a, 1992b; Attwood 1992a; Lattas 1992, 1993). Otherwise, when Aboriginal protest is mentioned in the anthropological literature (Trigger 1997:84; Beckett 1988:16; Keeffe 1988:71, 1992:140; Tonkinson 1998:301), it is included to illustrate the functional role of protest in identity formation, or ethnogenesis (see Jones and Hill-Burnett 1982; Tonkinson 1990; Stokes 1997). A rare exception is an early analysis of Aboriginal protest by Ronald Berndt in a paper to the Adelaide ANZAAS Congress (Berndt 1969). (17) |
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1.9 Why do fringe dwellers
resist?
Abu-Lughod (1990:41) noes that studies of resistance widen the definition of the political. She paraphrases Foucault (1978:95), to state: ‘Where there is resistance, there is power’. Abu-Lughod (1990:53) concludes: [I]t seems to me that we respect everyday
resistance not just by arguing for the dignity or heroism of the resistors
but by letting their practices teach us about the complex interworkings
of historically changing structures of power.
In this thesis I examine fringe dweller
resistance in the framework of Rowley’s division of Australia into ‘settled’
and ‘colonial’ regions and the tension where these regions intersect.
In this section, I more specifically examine why Aboriginal groups living
without land tenure in fringe camps around ’settled’ Darwin are often
more prepared than other Aboriginal groups to participate in open resistance.
Later chapters of this thesis give examples from my fieldwork between
1996 and 2001 and of fringe dweller protest in the 1970s and 1980s that
suggest a political dimension to fringe camps not shared by other urban
Aboriginal groups. (18)
During fourteen years involvement as
a political activist and personal friend of fringe dwellers in Darwin
I observed that fringe dwellers like those at ‘Wallaby Cross’ and Kulaluk
were notably prepared to take part in open protest despite outside pressure
from police and more conservative Aboriginal people against their activities.
Their living conditions were inadequate and they had no security of
tenure, which resulted in a vulnerability to prosecution; however, there
appeared to be other factors that motivated their opposition.
It was often suggested by the public and in the media that I was instigating this unrest (see Gilbert 1977:221; Sydney Morning Herald February 11, 1973; The Age February 13, 1973), and my involvement is a factor that is considered in this thesis. (19) However, formal, organised, fringe dweller resistance has been recorded by Eames (1983), Perkins (1998), Rubuntja (1998) and Shaw (1998) in their brief accounts of the Alice Springs campaigns in the 1970s. (20) Similar protests were held in Katherine and outside the NT Parliament House by the Katherine Combined Aboriginal Organisation of town camps (see ‘Rally for more Aboriginal housing’, Green Left Weekly October 12, 1995; Land Rights News October 1995, February 1996). As I will describe in Chapter Six, fringe dweller protest resulted in tragic consequences while I was absent from the NT in December 1996 and January 1997. In addition, the struggle for recognition by the group I describe in this thesis intensified after the completion of my fieldwork. (21) Trigger (1997:116) examines ‘Factors
relevant to taking an oppositional or accommodationist position’ and
theories of power relations (Trigger 1992:8-16). He places an emphasis
on the ‘consciousness’ of powerless groups (Trigger 1988b:236) and the
hegemony of the powerful (Trigger 1992:9-11). However, there appears
to be little analysis in the Aboriginal studies literature of the reasons
a marginalised group are prepared at various times to move from informal,
hidden everyday opposition to formal open activism.
I suggest that the paucity of analysis
in Aboriginal studies literature reflects the predominance of
‘cultural’ interpretations. Therefore, to explain why some Aboriginal
groups are prepared to openly resist, I have followed Trigger (1992:13)
in applying theories of peasant resistance to Aboriginal studies. In
particular, I have adapted ideas from Wolf (1971), Migdal (1974), Paige
(1975), Scott (1985, 1986, 1987, 1989, 1990), Gutmann (1993), Ortner
(1995), Korovkin (2000) and the comprehensive overview of the theories
of peasant resistance given by Skocpol (1982).
As I have discussed, central to my analysis is Rowley’s division of Australia into ‘colonial’ (more usually referred to as ‘remote’) and ‘settled’ regions. Rowley (1972b:12) emphasises that organised resistance can only come from ‘colonial Australia’ where ‘small Aboriginal groups’ have ‘maintained some power to act, to make crucial decisions, and to adhere to them’. In ‘colonial’, or remote, Australia, ‘two systems of legitimacy [Aboriginal and White] remain in juxtaposition’ (p.12). The following chapters appear to illustrate this point. Rowley (p.12) argued that: ‘What remains of Aboriginal culture [in] "settled Australia" can provide neither means of decision-making nor legitimacy for leadership’. As Tonkinson (1998:299) notes, claims of legitimacy for Aboriginal leaders are complex, but based largely on the possession of certain kinds of knowledge. He adds that the subtleties of who has the right to speak become more complex in the national political arena than in territorially defined actions, which are more typical in the remote north. Rowley’s earlier theory of Aboriginal leadership was later questioned by the actions of the Aboriginal Embassy on the lawn a outside Parliament House in Canberra in 1972 which began claims for recognition of Aboriginal sovereignty in capitals of ‘settled’ Australia. The Embassy activists did not claim authority through traditional structures, but gained legitimacy as leaders of Aboriginal resistance. By making the Embassy an impoverished, self-built structure on disputed land, the Black activists also projected the fringe camp into a symbol of national Aboriginal resistance to dispossession. As Rowley later comments: When they looked at the Embassy, some
of our legislators were stirred with that same indignation that has
moved generations of country town councillors, contemplating Aboriginal
shanties unlawfully built from materials acquired from the town tip,
and unlawfully placed on the town common (Rowley 1978:1). (22)
The Aboriginal Embassy is an example of how ‘hidden’ or ‘everyday’ resistance can become the basis of political action. The Embassy projected the fringe camp into the national and international arena by making the self-built Aboriginal humpy a symbol of sovereignty and land rights. The construction of self-made huts in the fringe camps, and at the Embassy, also draws attention to the lack of adequate shelter comparable to the rest of the community. In addition, the shelters contrast with the popular image of nomadic itinerant Aboriginal people. Korovkin (2000:6) examines this relationship between hidden and open forms of resistance in rural Ecuador, where ‘small acts of defiance can prepare the ground for organised [actions]’ (see also Esman 1989:222). The testimony of Bob Bunba and Johnny Balaiya in Section 5.11 of this thesis and their subsequent participation in the protest described in Section 6.16 are perhaps evidence of this. Rowley (1972b:12) assessed that organised
resistance could only come from Aboriginal societies with a traditional
structure in remote Australia, as in the Pilbara (p.12) and Gurindji
strikes (p.338). However, traditional Aboriginal organisation may be
linked to colonising structures through ascribed or elected leadership,
bureaucratic structures, or ‘false consciousness’ (see Trigger 1988b:236).
Trigger (1988a, 1992 :215) gives examples of Aboriginal accommodation
to mission hegemony at Doomadgee and also describes how traditional
decision-making authority has been used against Aboriginal activism
by government and industry (Trigger 1997a:95, 1997b:119; see also Dixon
1990:67).
I maintain that fringe dwellers benefit
from a lack of formal organisation, because their leadership is less
vulnerable to being expropriated. (23) For example, Stewart Harris (1994)
contrasted the bureaucratic restrictions he experienced on Darwin’s
Bagot Aboriginal Reserve with his relationship to fringe dwellers, and
an Aboriginal social worker and activist, Vai Stanton, described confrontations
inside Bagot when the reserve was dominated by a conservative Aboriginal
council and employees (Kamener 1992). (24) In my experience, fringe dwellers
consistently contrasted the relative autonomy of their camps with the
problems of living at Bagot.
Evidence in Chapter Seven suggests that land-owning, institutionalised or wage-earning groups are inhibited by governing structures and may be dependent on unreliable government grants. Governments generally prefer the more manageable Aboriginal advisory bodies or the more co-operative and predictable institutionalised pressure groups (Weaver 1983:106; see also Weaver 1985). Jones and Hill-Burnett (1982:224) note that, since 1972, the emerging Aboriginal elite has become a part of the governmental structure. Their position limits their freedom to criticise continuing injustices without fear of reprisal (Tonkinson 1998:298). As Jones and Hill-Burnett (1982:224) suggest, the leadership became ‘integrated into the very structure of oppression that they are attempting to combat’ as positions in these organisations became salaried. (25) They contrast this with the Embassy protest where ‘selection of leaders was not controlled by whites’ (Jones and Hill-Burnett 1982:225). Other Aboriginal commentators claim
that government-sponsored Aboriginal organisations are an advancement
towards self-determination (Cadd 1998). In the final report, the Royal
Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody, states that Aboriginal
organisations raise ‘the status of Aboriginal people in their own eyes
and the eyes of non-Aboriginal society’ (Johnston 1991:23). Commissioner
Johnston (1991:22) stresses, ‘the existence of strong Aboriginal organizations
does not lead to an exacerbation of community relations but to improvement
in those relations’. If so, it appears to be at the expense of fringe
dwellers’ interests, as I later discuss.
Although few observers in Darwin recognise
the actions of Aboriginal drinkers as resistance, I have cited anthropologists
who view drinking as a culture of opposition. The freedom to consume
alcohol in the camps contrasts with alternative Aboriginal places of
residence in towns and at communities where alcohol is banned or restricted
(see Sansom 1980a:51). Drinking also becomes politicised when it is
the cause of confrontation between fringe dwellers and the administration
in the towns. I discuss the relationship between alcohol and resistance
at greater length in Chapter Nine.
The experiences of earlier struggles,
and the links made with supporters during these struggles, are important
in the formation of political awareness. Rangiari (1997) describes the
ties that existed between NT unions and Aboriginal groups in the late
1960s. In the 1970s there were many Aboriginal veterans of the struggle
for citizenship who lived in the camps and referred to White supporters
as ‘union’ people. Those who had experienced the long campaign for Aboriginal
equal rights knew that their victories had not come easily (see Sansom
1977:59, 1980a:49).
Although the Burarra people in fringe
camps in the 1990s have worked with White supporters in the continuing
actions for self-determination at Maningrida since the early seventies
(see Gillespie 1982), by 2001 few Aboriginal residents in the fringe
camps survive who have experienced the citizenship struggles of the
1960s. (26) The ending of this connection
is compensated for by a greater awareness of Aboriginal land rights
today, and the resultant development of political consciousness discussed
by Trigger (1997a:95). However, the examples in Chapters Six and Eight of this thesis suggest that powerlessness, lack resources and cultural divisions between groups in Aboriginal fringe campers in Darwin ensure that an oppositional culture will not advance to organised resistance without outside help. (27) However, my study focuses on the willingness of fringe dwellers to resist and the political awareness of their actions, not whether they will openly resist the state unaided. (28) Despite Rowley’s theories of Aboriginal
leadership in remote Australia, Berndt (1969:8) appears to acknowledge
a need for brokers in a reference to five examples from the region:
(29)
The stimulus to protest came from outside
agents concerned in varying ways with Aboriginal welfare. Indications
of discontent were already present; they awaited the necessary lines
of communication, resources, and ability to organize, which the Aborigines
themselves lacked but which the outside agents possessed.
A reliance on outsider activism in fringe dweller protest in Darwin may be because there is no overarching activist organisation like the Tangentyere Association, which serves Aboriginal town camps in Alice Springs. Coombs (1994:182) claims that the Tangentyere Association is a good model of ‘bottom-up’ federalism that ‘does not compromise the identity or culture of individual groups, but give[s] common purpose and considerable effectiveness to Aboriginal aspirations and political action’. Unlike the Tangentyere Association, the Aboriginal Development Foundation, as the NT Government-appointed ‘umbrella’ organisation for most Darwin camps, did not originate from the fringe camps and is accused of being unrepresentative of them, as I later describe. Glendhill (1994:190) discusses ‘alternative visions of modernity’, noting that social movements may contest ‘normative models’ of social practice (p.181), including interpretations of the past and future directions. Darwin fringe dwellers were influenced by the arrival of the counterculture in Darwin in 1969 and the change that was occurring within Australia and elsewhere before there was any real prospect of land rights. Many were familiar with the rise of black consciousness in North America (see NT News February 4, 1972) and anti-colonial struggles overseas. (30) The shared interests of fringe dwellers, alternative political parties and White activists continued between 1996 and 2001, as Chapter Eight of this thesis describes. According to Migdal (1974:87), peasants remained ‘inwardly orientated’ unless an extraordinary crisis pushes them into an ‘outward’ engagement with capitalist expansion. Berndt (1969:6) also gives examples of Aboriginal ‘movements’ which have been ‘inward looking and have drawn heavily on traditional elements’ (see also Kolig 1987a). In contrast with Aboriginal people on Aboriginal land, such as Arnhem Land, who may remain inwardly orientated, fringe dwellers have experienced a dramatic shift of location into the heart of the city, associated with an ‘outward’ re-orientation of their lifestyle, as I will later argue. In contrast with ‘inward’ religious movements, Berndt (1969:9) suggests that: [Aboriginal protest is] outward-oriented,
toward the wider Australian scene, in an attempt to achieve an equal
allocation of various resources - economic viability, socio-politicial
representation, access to sources of wealth, status and the right to
be heard.
Away from the restrictions of the permit system which remains in operation for the more remote communities, and free of ‘gatekeepers’, the campers are able to chose diverse company, including many with political views which would not be welcomed by those in authority in the remote communities. Sometimes with difficulty, campers attempt to exclude unwelcome company, as is illustrated in a conflict with Mormon missionaries, recounted in following chapters. Also described is the formation of allegiances in times of threats from outside the camps that occurred between 1996 and 2001 (see also Sansom 1980a:185). According to Berndt (1969:8), ‘for protest to be effective ... publicity is essential’. Aborigines who may speak English as a second language have had their ‘protesting voice ... heard indirectly through external agents’ (Berndt 1969:9). In Darwin, the examples I give suggest that the introduction of local television news in 1971 empowered Aboriginal groups and continues to do so. However, my research suggests that Aboriginal groups now have to struggle against increasing public cynicism of their cause rather than ‘jump[ing] on the bandwagon’ to gain popular and political support as Berndt (p.9) claims Aboriginal protesters could do in the late sixties. Not all homeless Aboriginal people formally
resist. It appears that the construction of shelters on the land is
a good indication of feelings of proprietorship and willingness to defy
authorities. This is a common factor with the camps at Kulaluk, Knuckeys
Lagoon and Railway Dam in the 1970s, and Lee Point, Fish Camp and Palmerston
in the 1990s (see Map 2). (31)
In particular, resistance to eviction at Johnny Balaiya’s Palmerston camp in 2001 focussed on bough shades, old vans and a caravan (see Illustration 5). (32) In contrast, Yolngu groups near Mindil Beach in the 1980s at a site they called ‘Low Down’ and the Burarra people living in parks and on the streets in the 1990s, with no fixed shelters, lacked stability and a focus for their protests. Groups in Darwin with a long association to the land that they claim, or strong links to the traditional landowners of the area, also appear more likely to openly make a stand. This may explain why, according to Coulehan (1990:10), ‘the [diverse accommodation] needs of comparatively recent Aboriginal migrants and transients in urban centres like Darwin, have been largely neglected’. In the 1970s, successful fringe dweller
protests were endorsed by the traditional owners - the Arrernte in
Alice Springs (see Eames 1983; Layton 1986; Rubuntja 1998), and the
Larrakia in Darwin. Although there are historical links between many
Aboriginal campers and the traditional owners of the land, I explain
in a later chapter that the ‘Larrakia Nation’ in Darwin is reluctant
to support fringe dwellers’ claims. (33) Sansom (1977:61, 1980a:65) describes ‘Masterful Men’ who ensure drinking in the camps is conducted without incident. I refer to the dominant personality in each camp as the ‘doyen’ (Day 1994:106), who, in my experience, is not always a man and does not necessarily drink moderately. The ‘doyen’s’ authority, often strongly self-asserted, appears to come from the length of their connection with the site and their strength of personality. While they usually also have some form of traditional authority, their position is not recognised by the state. In every case in my experience, having a recognised and strong doyen is a prerequisite for organising formal fringe camp resistance. In contrast, in larger Aboriginal communities on Aboriginal land, processes controlled by others often select leaders, and open resistance is rare (see Day 1997b). On the other extreme, there does not appear to be any leadership or organised resistance amongst the solitary homeless. In Darwin, confrontation with authorities
appears to be generated by competition for land usage, brought to a
crisis either in times of rapid suburban growth, as in the early 1970s
in Darwin, (34) or through the persecution of campers,
as occurred from 1996 to 2001. If people are relatively secure on Aboriginal-owned
land, live on land where illegal camping is tolerated, or have the authority
of the landowner to camp, they are less likely to join in open protests.
Recognition of indigenous rights gives
courage to fringe dwellers’ resistance. Heppell and Wigley (1981:184)
note that the ‘passive attitudes’ of fringe dwellers in Alice Springs
changed in 1976 after land rights became a possibility:
From the process of politicization and
subsequent success of some of the leasehold applications, the town campers
came to realise they were no longer impotent and that, through political
action, they could obtain other desirable goals (Heppell and Wigley
1981:185).
As I will discuss, the results of open resistance are often in contrast to the original aims. Scott (1985:29) comes to similar conclusions in his analysis of peasant resistance. I give the example of the ‘Wallaby Cross’ mob whose success in gaining housing and land tenure facilitated deeper penetration by the state and resultant loss of their autonomy. In most cases, those who fight for long-term
aims do not survive to see the fruition, or a new generation of stable
residents succeed the activists on the town camps leases. This is
the background of many of my interlocutors who achieved an official
camping place in the 1980s. When other groups moved into the houses
provided, the original claimants returned to the relative autonomy
of fringe camp life (see
Appendix II). Gutmann (1993:86) asks, ‘Why must everyday resistance always be hidden?’ My thesis recounts many acts of open protest. However, I question whether there will be benefits those who take part. Scott (1986:21, 1987:422, 1989:6) notes that peasant groups avoid calling attention to themselves through everyday resistance. In one case, I describe how the negative effects of public, open resistance by Fish Camp people in 1997 eventually culminated in their eviction in 1999, where beforehand they were tolerated. The emphasis on individuals in open resistance also led to dissension, rivalry and possibilities for other interests to influence leaders and groups. In my fieldwork experience, and previously, the recognition of individuals in a fringe camp community by an authority figure, or the media, led to constant arguments in the camp. However, the disputes had a levelling effect and were confined within the group. Fringe dwellers in the Northern Territory
are perhaps uniquely placed to exploit the sometimes contradictory,
overlapping administration by tiers of government, statutory authorities
and the law. The liminal status of a site often delays eviction. On
the other hand, the separation of powers between Federal, Territory
and Local Government can result in long delays in the negotiation for
town camp leases and make targeting opponents difficult for Aboriginal
groups. One camp claimed 'the city council' evicted them from Lee Point,
near Darwin (Channel 8 News, October 18, 1996), although the area in
question is outside the city council boundaries. Issues were further
confused when the Darwin City Council refused to take responsibility
for inflammatory statements against homeless Aboriginal people made
by the Mayor of Darwin.
Apocalyptic visions or harnessing of supernatural forces are not as influential in the recent protests by fringe dwellers as they sometimes are in peasant resistance. However, Buchanan claims that a prominent Larrakia leader, Bobby Secretary, told 'quite a few people' in Melbourne in September 1974 that 'the spirit who watched over their land, had said that a very big cyclone was to come [to Darwin]' (Marginson 1975:8). A Larrakia woman, who was the elder at the Kulaluk camp during my fieldwork, also told Heffernan (1996) that 'one important reason for Cyclone Tracy coming to Darwin in 1974 was because her brother [Bobby Secretary] asked [Old Man Rock, a sacred site off Casuarina Beach,] to bring a big wind because the Government would not give the Larrikiya the Kulaluk land'. (35) Threats of sorcery are also sometimes made in anger against government figures. Fringe dwellers also threatened to use supernatural powers to revenge acts of discrimination by police and others (Day 1994:38). Although a southern Aboriginal supporter of the fringe dwellers in the 1970s named his newsletter Son of Nemarluk after an Aboriginal resistance leader of the 1930s, and later held a public servant hostage at gun point in Canberra (Day 1994:52), (36) 'primitive rebels', or outlawed individuals, do not appear to inspire visions of a just society, as they do in the cases of peasant resistance given by Hobsbawm (1959). According to Hobsbawm (1959:15) the social bandit 'does something which is not regarded as criminal by his local conventions, but is so regarded by the State or the local rulers'. Occasionally, people from central Arnhem Land would tell me of their ancestors who used weapons against early attempts to begin cattle stations on their land (see Dewar 1992:9). More recently, I was told that the struggle of the fringe dwellers in Darwin inspired opposition to government policies at Maningrida. Another example is the popular song 'Tiwi Warriors', sung and composed by the Letterstick Band from Maningrida, which praises a self-titled group of Burarra-speaking 'warriors' who drink in the parks around the suburb of Tiwi, in Darwin (Letterstick 1999). Ortner (1995:179) emphasises that 'individual acts of resistance, as well as large-scale resistance movements, are often themselves conflicted, internally contradictory, and affectively ambivalent' (see also Robinson 1994). In particular, she believes internal gender politics are not analysed in studies of resistance. Hiatt (1986:16) agrees with Cowlishaw (1978, 1979) that in Aboriginal societies, women 'are not in the business of domination but of resistance'. Hiatt (1986:16) sees Aboriginal women 'contributing more to the egalitarian and anarchistic tendencies in Aboriginal society than to its authoritarian components'. In the liminal and somewhat anarchic space of the fringe camps, women appear to have greater opportunity for a leadership role. During my fieldwork, the camps at Fish Camp, Knuckeys Lagoon and Kulaluk all had female 'doyens' and an elderly woman who died had been the 'doyen' of the Railway Dam town camp for many years. (37) As Coulehan (1995a:12) suggests, women may move to the city to 'access the better standards of living there and to exercise greater autonomy'. Collmann (1979b:210, 1988:118) also notes that women are advantaged by the move to the town because of their greater access to financial resources than the men. However, unlike the Yolngu women in rented housing who claim to be 'going their own way now' (Coulehan 1995a:128), women in the fringe camps do not appear to be advantaged more than the men with whom they share their lifestyle. |
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1.10 Resistance in 'colonial
Australia'
Finally, I briefly place my discussion of fringe dweller resistance in the context of debates on the articulation of Aboriginal society with the wider Australian economic system. Although I have used Rowley's division of Australia into 'colonial' and 'settled' regions as a useful concept for an understanding of the relationship between Aboriginal people and non-Aboriginal settlers in Darwin, Trigger (1988b:235) is critical of Rowley (1986) for 'inadequate discussion in support this analytical continuum'. Similarly, Hartwig (1978:123) wonders, 'when relations between Whites and Aborigines in any part of "settled" Australia cease to be "colonial"?' Despite this query, Hartwig suggests that Rowley's concept of 'colonialism' is essentially similar to the concept employed in the general literature on 'internal colonialism', which he claims best reveals how bourgeois ideology masks the expropriation of the Aboriginal means of subsistence (p.132; see also Edmunds 1994:19). In addition, Hartwig (p.122) asks, 'What is the relationship between the system of class exploitation and domination and the relations of racial and ethnic exploitation characteristic of internal colonialism?' More specifically, Bagshaw (1977) analyses Black-White relations at Maningrida, in central Arnhem Land, where many of the Darwin fringe dwellers have ties. He argues: [In bourgeois society] economic processes generate cultural meaning both in themselves and through the goods created by them. However, in 'primitive' society, with its lack of specialised economic subsystems, symbolic production is necessarily located in the overarching set of kinship relations through which all activity is articulated (Bagshaw 1977:61). At Maningrida, Bagshaw (1977) examines the way 'European political forms' are imposed on Aboriginal social life, and claims: 'The political interests of the Australian bourgeois polity were clearly served by the creation of European-style Councils in Aboriginal communities' (p.74). The 'cultural incongruity' of the bourgeois mode of material production and Aboriginal kinship relations prevents successful articulation of the two systems (p.67). Furthermore, the movement away from Maningrida 'is indicative of a firmly held collective desire on the part of Aborigines to return to an environment in which the normative genealogical proscriptions regulating traditional social relations can again become effective' (p.71). Cowlishaw (1997b:108) discusses the 'cultural resistance of Aboriginal communities to insistent modernising processes'. And Benn (1994:178) cites a man who now lives in the Darwin fringe camps. The man was interviewed on film when he was a teenager at Maningrida in 1970: Finity expressed his dislike for the
school, the settlement staff and 'all' white man's things ... He wants
to go 'bush' never to return. All 'white man's things' will be discarded.
For food he intends 'singing' buffaloes and crocodiles - 'an old man
told me how'. He said he has no need for Maningrida, its people or
its material things (Maningrida Mirage, May 15, 1970). Peterson (1998:106) criticises theories of welfare colonialism for focusing on the undifferentiated delivery of entitlements rather than on their reception and use, which varies. For example, Aboriginal people on outstations (and fringe camps) use social security benefits to support their chosen life style (see Bernardi 1997:40). They avoid the 'bureaucratisation of the Aboriginal domain', which is integral to 'welfare colonialism', by opting out of the special Aboriginal structures and institutions (Bernardi 1997:42). Pearson (2000c:21) argues strongly that welfare is a 'method of governance [which] is increasingly becoming a method of managing marginalised groups at minimal cost without even maintaining the fiction that a lasting solution to their problems is sought'. While the latter part of Pearson's statement appears to apply in Darwin, the lifestyle of the fringe dwellers suggest that they take advantage of government entitlements, while attempting not to compromise Aboriginal sovereignty. As Collmann (1988:84-102) notes, the campers 'restrict their material demands' and structural involvement with the town to maintain their independence while retaining access to white-dominated resources. In later chapters, I apply these arguments more specifically to fringe camps and suggest that their aspirations for land tenure may have unforseen consequences for fringe dwellers. In the next chapter, I discuss the confusing array of categories and terms for Aboriginal people living in an urban environment and examine these terms in the context of the arguments expressed in this chapter. |
| Pearson (2000c:21) argues strongly that welfare is a 'method of governance [which] is increasingly becoming a method of managing marginalised groups at minimal cost without even maintaining the fiction that a lasting solution to their problems is sought'. |
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| 3.
Drakakis-Smith (1981:35) redraws Rowleyís boundary to encompass an area
where the Aboriginal population is approximately 20 per cent of the
total, according to the 1976 census. Drakakis-Smith (1981:37) calls
the northern section "Aboriginal" australia (his quotes and lower case)
(see Map 4). |
| 4. The division has been further blurred by the recognition of native title across Australia. However, the majority of successful claims are likely to be on unalienated land in 'remote Australia'. Map 4, showing Australia's freehold land in 1992 (see Trigger 1994:38), suggests that the alienated areas are mostly within the region of settled Australia in Rowleyís map. |
| 5. The Larrakia founders translated gwalwa daraniki to me as the more inclusive "country belonga we". Heffernan (1996:16) spells the Larrakia words as gwoyalwa darrinigi. |
| 9. For example, the long-running Kenbi claim had its origins in this period (see McNally 1974:53-6; Willey 1980). |
| 13. Merlan (1998:164) finds Jones and Hill-Burnettís view to be debatable in the context of the demand for land rights which is not just a "cultural" claim, but has considerable materiality. |
| 16. In a spirited defence, Cowlishaw (1993:192-3) claims that her comments were misread. |
| 18. For accounts of the activism of the 1980s, see NT News (October 2, 3, 31, 1978, February 12, 1982); Hayward-Ryan (1980:14); Darwin Star (April 23, 1981) and Bunji (March 1982). |
| 20. Wenton Rubuntja (1997) describes a later campaign to protect Aboriginal sacred sites in Alice Springs. |
|
21. Stella Simmering, a friend of the campers since 1997, has continued to document the struggle for space by Darwin fringe dweller groups and individuals until the time of writing. A newsletter called Kujuk published and edited by non-Aboriginal activists, was printed in July and September, 2001, and further editions were planned. The title is a popularly used Kriol word for sexual intercourse. See http://www.geocities.com/kujuk2001/ |
| 22.
In 1973, Fred Fogarty from the Darwin fringe dwellers staffed the second
Canberra Aboriginal Embassy for several months (see Harris 1994:vii). |
| 23.
In 1975, I emphasised this point in an article in Aboriginal and Islander
Forum that suggested tactics for Aboriginal groups making land claims
(Day 1975:1). |
| 25.
See the interview with Cheryl Buchanan by Marginson (1975:8) for her
analysis of the split between "welfare orientated blacks and the militant ones". |
| 26. The very high mortality rate amongst Aboriginal fringe dwellers has left myself and several other Whites as some of the few living participants in the actions of the 1970s. |
| 29. The Pilbara strikes, the Warburton Range controversy, the Wave Hill strike, the Gove land rights dispute and the Weebo affair. |
| 30. Two Darwin Aboriginal leaders had earlier visited newly-independent Kenya (see Hardy 1968:47). |
| 31.
All these locations are indicated in Map
2. See also Appendix II and Appendix III. |
| 32. In 2001, Johnny Balaiya told me the story printed in Kujuk, July 2001: One afternoon as Johnny was walking back from the shops he saw his bushland was on fire. Subcontractors had lit the dry long grass without notifying Johnny or helping him protect his camp. Johnny spent all night with a metal rake defending his camp from the bushfire. Following the fire the bulldozers started work near Johnny's camp. Nobody came to talk to Johnny about what was going to happen... Family and friends helped to move the caravan, water tank, two old vans used for sleeping, cooking gear and mattresses. |
| 33. According to Layton (1986:30), the absence of traditional owners in Darwin contributes to the "spontaneity and anarchy" of the Darwin camps described by Sansom (1980a). |
| 34. There was an 80 per cent increase in dwellings constructed in the greater Darwin area between 1966 and 1971 (ABS 1974:44). |
| 35. See "The revenge of Old Man Rock", NT News April 30, 1994. Also NT News July 11, 1975; Cole 1977:183 and Bunji March 1982). |
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1
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Contents
Appendices
Bibliography
Plates
Maps
Illustrations
Figures