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- Chapter
Two-
Aboriginal
fringe dwellers in Darwin:
cultural persistence or culture of resistance? |
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Chapter Two
‘Itinerants’ or at home in their land? Defining the fringe 2.1 Introduction
In 1982, the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Aboriginal Affairs Inquiry into Fringe Dwelling Aboriginal Communities (HRSCAA 1982) decided that ‘fringe dweller’ was not an appropriate category for Aboriginal groups living in self-made shelters on vacant Crown land around Australian towns. Following submissions that claimed that ‘fringe dwellers’ should be viewed as part of the town, the inquiry decided to use the term ‘Aboriginal town camps’ in preference to ‘Aboriginal fringe dwelling communities’. However, in Darwin, since 1979 town camps have had a different legal status to fringe camps, as I will explain. The use of other terms such as ‘itinerants’, ‘transients’ and ‘long grass people’ in the report and later investigations, articles and reports, suggests a confusing array of terminologies. Examining the way fringe dwellers are
represented is pertinent to my thesis, as I explain in this chapter.
For example, the debate over the use of the category, ‘fringe dweller’,
which I discuss in a later section of this chapter, illustrates the
perceived negative or positive inferences that this term can signify.
I will discuss the appropriateness of various terms that are used in
investigations into the needs of urban Aboriginal communities and individuals,
in media reports and in general use. I also demonstrate the influence
anthropology has had in the selection of those definitions. I will argue
that the nature of ‘the problem’, and the definitions of it, are contested
by my interlocutors, who believe that they have yet to experience the
benefits of the recommendations of the many reports and investigations
into their needs - from the Woodward Report to the present.
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2.2 Clarifying
definitions
Special purpose leases with services and designed housing for incorporated Aboriginal communities are usually referred to as ‘town camps’. This terminology began in an era of transition recorded by Heppell and Wrigley (1981), Eames (1983), Rubuntja (1998), Coombs (1994:177-182) and others. Before the establishment of ‘town camps’ in the 1970s, ethnographers and others referred to Aboriginal communities who camped on identifiable urban sites without services as ‘fringe dwellers’ (Rowley 1972a, 1972b, 1972c; Sansom 1977; Collmann 1988, 1979a). Robert Bropho, who has described a lifetime
in the Aboriginal camps around Perth, Western Australia (Bropho 1980),
submitted to an inquiry: ‘All Aboriginal people became fringedwellers
the day the white man set foot upon this continent. All Aboriginal people
are fringedwellers until land is given back’ (HRSCAA 1982:3). In an
alternative interpretation, Collmann (1979a:47) describes the first
Whites as living on the fringes of Aboriginal society. More recently,
Coulehan (1995a:338) describes Aboriginal groups who live ‘on the fringe
of both Yolngu and [non-Aboriginal] systems of care and control when
they become "lost to grog" in Darwin’.
Gale (1972:3) describes the ‘fringe dwellers’
as the fourth group of six ‘widely differing [Aboriginal] adaptations
to [urban] European society’; however, I suggest that regional differences
blur Gale’s categories. For example, ‘Aborigines who live and think
as members of a traditionally orientated group’ (Gale 1972:2) are also
the majority of those who inhabit the fringe camps of Darwin. Young
(1981:14) suggests one reason why traditional Aboriginal people may
be marginalised:
[M]ost Aborigines in urban and metropolitan
communities aspire closely to equality of living standards and employment
opportunities with non-Aborigines while those in rural areas, particularly
where the tribal background remains strong, do not necessarily value
these material needs as highly.
Spradley (1970:106) observed in his ethnography
of ‘urban nomads’ in the United States:
In one sense those who live in cities share many facets of urban life, including climate, scenery, streets, parks, law enforcement agencies and other institutions. In another sense, members of the same city do not share these things since their function and meaning is different. People in the same town can be ‘cultural worlds apart’ because physical space and objects are socially constructed and mean different things to different groups. For example, an Aboriginal woman who circulated between the urban camps drew me a diagram on the sand illustrating how homeless Aboriginal people divide the city between various groups (Figure 1). These urban regions tend to be spatially orientated to the homelands of the linguistic groups who claim them, as Heppell and Wigley (1981:55) noted in Alice Springs and Merlan (1991:269, 1998:1-2) observed in Katherine. For example, the region my informant marked for ‘Daly River mob’ straddles the highway leading south to the hinterland of cattle stations where the Daly River people and other allied groups work (Sansom 1980a:5). The Wagaitj area at Railway Dam is located near the wharf where the ferry plies to the Cox Peninsula, on the far side of the harbour. People from the Catholic Mission at Wadeye (Port Keats) gravitated around the old Stuart Park mission headquarters that operated the radio communication to their homeland. Along Darwin’s northern beaches the coastal people of northeast Arnhem Land and Groote Eylandt have their camps, in addition to the airport area where charter flights provide a quick service to their distant coastal communities. The inner city is an area for ‘mixed’ groups. (1) Many of the Aboriginal homeless remain
hidden from view and seldom have conflict with the law. Some belong
to large groups, others live as loners. Some sleep out, some build shelters,
some return to hostels and houses at night. Some have a commitment to
certain places while others move from place to place. Some groups share
common languages while others are linguistically mixed. As Coulehan
(1990:10) claims, ‘urban-dwelling Aborigines are not a homogeneous group’.
For example, Wells (1995a:6) cites Sansom’s view that, because they
are traditional owners, the Larrakia people camped at Kulaluk in the
suburb of Nightcliff, ‘had a very different and extra super duper special
status in terms of their camping site’. Sansom submitted to the HRSCAA
(1982:13) that there are two types of campers: those who have a long
association with a particular area which he called the ‘local community’
and the ‘hinterland Aboriginal community’ who belong to a wider region
and are absent for extended periods.
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2.3 Long grass
people Rather than signifying a particular site,
when the Parliamentary Standing Committee reported that ‘there were
about 500 transients living in the long grass area around Darwin’ (HRSCATSIA
1992:156), the committee was using the term as a metaphor for homelessness.
I suggest that the description also historically locates the homeless
as hidden and ‘wild’, although their drinking and their lifestyle is
more open than the citizens who drink inside homes and hotels. (3)
Langton et al (1998:24) suggest another level of meaning: ‘The so-called
"long grass" people, resident along the beaches and on the edges of
the town in Darwin [are] a reminder of Australia’s hidden "black" history’
(see also Langton 1993a; Day 1997a).
In the past, Aborigines regularly burnt
the long grass in the north for hunting and sometimes as a tactic of
resistance. Kerr (1971:144) notes a case that occurred during the surveying
of Port Darwin. With the establishment of colonial administration, Aborigines
lost the power to burn the grass in all but remote areas. According
to Langton (1998:9), Aboriginal people and their land management traditions
have been ‘rendered invisible’ in Australian landscapes, in particular
their use of fire. Without the power to burn the grass in the towns,
the Aborigines are symbolically concealed in their long grass camps.
Power resides with the ‘short grass’ people, surrounded by their mown
lawns. Even at the remote Maningrida Aboriginal community, Annette Hamilton
(1975:169) observed ‘a neatly mown white Anglo-Saxon suburb dropped
by a twist of fate at the very edge of the last of wild Australia’.
At a time when authorities were tightening
controls on sleeping in public places, the cartoonist Wicking drew a
wall of flame threatening two oblivious long grass drinkers to illustrate
the start of the dry season (NT News May 3, 1997; Illustration
1.1). It appears that an environment they used to manage
now threatens homeless Aboriginal ‘long grassers’. Another Wicking NT
News cartoon has a worried householder peering out a window complaining,
‘I don’t feel safe in my own home’. A ragged man looking up from long
grass answers, ‘You should try it out here’ (Illustration
1.2). For the short grasser, the ‘wilderness’ with its
untamed savages remains as a threat, while for the long grasser what
was once a managed ‘wilderness’ has become an unpredictable place with
the dangers of eviction or arrest.
Identity is removed from ‘long grass’
people, who are seen as beyond the structures of Black and White societies.
For example, when ‘long grass’ Aborigines protested in Darwin for rights
to shelter and services in 1997, they also carried banners referring
to conditions at the settlement of Maningrida (NT News March 18, 1997).
A Gunavidji couple, who were traditional owners of the Maningrida area,
complained to me that the televised banners had made them ‘shamed’.
Although most of the protesters originated from Maningrida, the couple
reflected the liminal status of the fringe camp when they said, ‘Don’t
say Maningrida people - they are long grass people’ (Later the couple
joined other protests and lived in the fringe camp for long periods).
Confirming the liminal position of the camps, Brandl (1981:99) states:
‘We know very little about the problems of the town camps. Undoubtedly
this is a result of their Orwellian state of "non-exist"’.
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2.4 The itinerants
and transients
In the 1980s, ‘the transient problem’ was debated by politicians and the media (Cooper 1985; Day 1994:121; Wells 1995a:72). At the time, I contributed to this debate in a Darwin newspaper: So we are told the need is ‘transient
camps’ without a clear explanation of what a transient is - an all-encompassing
word that has become meaningless, overused by an insecure population
desperately trying to earn the envied label of ‘Territorian’ (Day 1983:2).
The mayor had campaigned on a promise ‘to relocate illegal Aboriginal camps’ to Bagot Reserve or Kulaluk (Wells 1995a:72) and plans were made for two government-sponsored camps to accommodate up to forty ‘transient’ Aborigines on the Kulaluk lease under the airport flight path (NT News October 14, 1981; Darwin Star October 14, 1981; Bunji October 1981), and later on the old Ludmilla dump, now occupied by the Minmarama Aboriginal village (NT News March 19, March 30, 1983; Advertiser April 7, 1983). In the same period, the influential report
of the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Aboriginal Affairs
inquiry into fringe dwelling Aboriginal communities (HRSCAA 1982) categorised
homeless Aborigines in towns as ‘permanents’, ‘transients’ and ‘homeless
drifters’. By 1992, another parliamentary report, Mainly Urban (HRSCATSIA
1992:152), used Beckett’s (1965) and Sansom’s (1982b) descriptions of
Aboriginal mobility patterns to stress a ‘complex and purposeful’ itinerancy
that fulfils obligations and maintains links between people along a
‘beat’.
All the above categories fit the definition
of homelessness by the Australian Council of Social Services, cited
by the latter report (HRSCATSIA 1992:157):
The absence of safe, secure affordable
and adequate shelter, as perceived by the individual. This can be defined
by a person being in any of the following situations, or combinations
of them:
having no shelter being threatened with loss of shelter having to move constantly between residences having limited choices of alternative housing having inadequate accommodation because of overcrowding insecure occupancy lack of emotional support or stability threat of physical, sexual or emotional abuse eviction or threat of such payment of high proportion of income in rent Drew and Coleman (1999:17) emphasise
that homeless people are not rootless: ‘They are people who are connected,
and who value those connections as much as we more settled community
members do’. Langton et al (1998:24) believe describing indigenous people
who live in urban bush communities as ‘homeless’ or ‘camping’ implies
their failure to live in ‘acceptable’ ways. Reser (1977) also draws
attention to a European preoccupation with houses as ‘home’. However,
although some Aboriginal people have consciously rejected the costs
of housing, I suggest that it cannot be assumed the residents of camps
in towns are at home where they reside. In many cases the people are
living in unsanitary sites not of their choosing, are constantly threatened
with eviction and have not been free to select better sites with access
to water and services since the establishment of the town.
Both ‘unhoused’ and ‘homeless’ are terms
that suggest a link between my interlocutors and the wider society that
can be developed in a multi-sited study. The terms draw attention to
the needs of the fringe dwellers in comparison to others. In contrast,
the parliamentary report, referring to Sansom (1982b), discusses Aboriginal
itinerancy as a natural condition, a cultural continuity of people who
were ‘itinerant in this country prior to British colonisation’ (HRSCATSIA
1992:151). (4)
An account by Heppell and Wigley (1981:11) is applicable to many
campers:
Many of the older people in the camps have watched the town grow and found themselves inexorably pushed from campsite to campsite, each time further away from the centre. Moreover, there have been many occasions when camps have been dismantled by the authorities and their members forcibly evicted. These movements might have given the camps an air of impermanence, but it needs emphasising that the core populations of town camps do not consist of itinerants; only, until very recently, of landless and dispossessed people. An anthropological text (Sansom 1982b)
is used by the parliamentary inquiry to argue that Aboriginal itinerancy
is an individual choice of movement within a cultural pattern of behaviour
that is purposeful and not ‘aimless wandering’ (HRSCATSIA 1992:153).
Discussing homelessness, Mackie (1998:17) believes an emphasis on individuals
typically deflects attention from the public domain to the inadequacies
of the person in the private domain. According to Mackie (p.17), homelessness
is thus seen to be a pathological condition of individuals rather than
a result of a structural problem within society.
(5)
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2.5 Media representations of
‘itinerants’ from 1996
In keeping with the 1992 parliamentary report, the Darwin media now refers to the anonymous and voiceless group of ‘transients’ as ‘itinerants’. The description includes a diverse group, including some who have been born in Darwin (see Appendix II). Cowlishaw (1988a:106) believes: ‘The politics and economics of a small town enmeshes the people in a particular historical process which each tries to shape in their own way’. With the coming of land rights in the north, race becomes a signifier of the special rights of Aborigines that are carefully avoided by using the non-racially-specific category ‘itinerants’. The term ‘itinerant’ avoids an association with dispossession or the specific needs of homeless Aboriginal people and is justified by a supposed desire not to appear racist. In 1996, Wicking’s cartoon headed ‘clean
up day tomorrow’ (NT News March 1, 1997; Illustration
1.4) showed ragged men being carried from the long grass
and loaded onto a truck. ‘Drunks’ were blamed for Darwin’s litter problem
and ‘itinerants, both black and white’ were named as a major cause (NT
News February 9, 10, 1996). Itinerants were said to be spitting, urinating,
defecating, fornicating and masturbating in public (NT News February
10 and 16; April 5, 1996). The mayor claimed council workers often had
to clean excreta off barbecue plates (NT News February 10, 1996). In
1999, he claimed a man had ‘pulled down his daks and had a crap’ on
a pathway in his view (Australian April 29, 1999). Ween (1997:46) comments:
‘The European Australian inhabitants of Darwin had something close to
an obsession with Aboriginal bodily functions’. In a later chapter,
I suggest that the annual
Darwin Beer Can Regatta serves to contrast uncontrolled
Aboriginal drunkenness with controlled and purposeful White drinking.
It is no coincidence that the campaign against the itinerants began with the Clean Up Australia launch in 1996. I suggest that culturally-specific attitudes to litter are markers of the racial divide in the Northern Territory. Bourgeois ideology can be used to justify expropriation of land (Hartwig 1978:133) and groups who are different are made deviant in ‘the search for the true essence of Australianness’ (Cowlishaw 1997b:179). The ‘itinerants’ are to be swept from the parks with the litter that has branded them as unAustralian, without civic pride and environmentally unaware (see also Trigger 1998a). As Edmunds (1994:106) notes, civic tidiness becomes another basis for defining Aboriginal behaviour as non-conformist. Commenting on the litter associated with groups using the parks, the Mayor of Darwin stated: ‘I think one of the myths that we are told is that Aboriginal people are the world’s most concerned environmentalists - in fact we never see that at all’ (NT News February 10, 1996). |
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2.6 Transients’, ‘itinerants’
and ‘homeless drifters’
The HRSCAA further divided town campers into ‘permanents’, ‘transients’ and ‘homeless drifters’ with different strategies for each, although the committee admitted there is overlap and movement between these groups (HRSCAA 1982:6). Transient visitors have been identified as a problem for more permanent Aboriginal residents in towns (Woodward 1973:25; Young 1982:1754; Coulehan 1990:9; Memmott 1990:35). Typically, the Tangentyere Council which represents Alice Springs town camps asked in their submission to the HRSCATSIA (1992:155) for ‘visitors camps’ to provide for transients to ‘decrease the disruption caused by visitors to town camps’. The disruptive effect of visitors results from the changed nature of camps that have achieved land tenure, housing and services. The NT Department of Lands and Housing noted: ‘many of the town camps, originally established to cater for transients, have become preferred places for permanent residence’ (NT Government 1982:50). Most transients can be accommodated in
the self-managed fringe camps that have shelters that can be expanded
to accommodate visitors who are attracted to the site by a common language
and kin. An NT Government report (NTG 1981b:3) states:
The elusive presence of these shelters
is normally indicative of the lack of tenure over [temporary camps].
However, many Aboriginals prefer accommodation of these types as they
may be laid out to reflect social organisation, kin relationships, and
do not compromise serious avoidance relationships. A sudden increase
in population does not pose a problem as these structures are lived
‘around’ rather than ‘in’. (6)
Outside the fringe camps, housed Aboriginal
urban dwellers are pressured to accommodate the homeless (Coulehan 1990:9,
1995a:255, 1995b:217). For the more stable residents with increasingly
fewer links to hinterland people, transients are perceived as a problem,
as they are for Darwin residents who compete for the public spaces contested
by homeless people.
The parliamentary report defined the
‘homeless drifter’ as ‘frequently destitute and frequently alcoholic
people who live in parks, under bridges or in deserted buildings’ (HRSCAA
1982:11). Although homeless Aboriginal people are not as likely to be
social isolates as other groups (Eggleston 1974:59), it appears that
‘the drifters’ are likely to have weak ties to kinship structures and
cultural heritage. Their networks of soup kitchens and welfare agencies
are concentrated in the inner city where their lifestyle is likely to
be closer to that of the urban nomad described by Spradley (1970).
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2.7 ‘Sit down’
and ‘lie down’ camps
Two important reports, one by an anonymous researcher for the NT Government (1981b:2) and another prepared by Hayward-Ryan (1980:8), view ‘sit down’ camps in Darwin as camps of convenience. As Hayward-Ryan (1980:7) points out, the sit down camps ‘are often the targets of criticism by the wider community, ostensibly because of the amount of accumulated litter which characterises such sites’. (7) The term is commonly used by Aboriginal people for favoured locations that are known to be safe, close to conveniences, and with shelter from sun, wind and rain. The location may therefore shift throughout the day. In Darwin in 1996 and 1997, large numbers of Aboriginal people gathered at ‘sit down’ camps on the foreshore and near the hospital to play cards, in what police described as a ‘positive social gathering’ (NT News April 12, 1997 and May 27, 1997). Card playing continued into the night under street lighting but people did not sleep in these very public, open locations. It is the well known ‘sit down’ drinking sites which are regularly raided by police patrols (see ‘Hundreds held in Darwin grog blitz’, NT News April 18, 1997). The HRSCAA (1982:13) defines the ‘sit
down’ camps as temporary and the ‘lie down’ camps as ‘more or less permanent’.
Overnight ‘lie down’ camps are divided by Hayward-Ryan (1980:6) into
those with facilities and those without facilities. The NT Government
report (1981b:3) prefers categories of permanent, or ‘major camps’,
and temporary camps with lack of tenure. However, under present policies,
to be illegal, or without tenure, equates to temporary occupancy. As
John Tomlinson (1982:104) comments, camping is criminalised other than
on a few sites approved by Local and Territory Government. In Tomlinson’s
(p.104) view, the criminalisation of Aboriginal campers is enacted by
Darwin authorities who are ‘totally lacking a sense of history, an understanding
of Aboriginal culture, and who are totally devoid of humanity’.
Young (1982:1756) believes that the leasing
of land to the ‘illegal’ campers is essential: to provide amenities,
preserve the identity of groups who wish to live in town and to allow
the option of living a life-style which may differ significantly from
that of non-Aboriginal town residents (Young 1982:1755). Brandl (1981:101)
also stresses the need to recognise fringe camp communities as autonomous
bodies. She claims that, although Aboriginal groups have always camped
near settlements, the townsfolk have ‘consistently seen [Aboriginal
camps] as temporary phenomena’(p.94).
Tomlinson (1982:104) claims there are
‘over thirty places where Aboriginal people coming to Darwin sit down’,
while Sansom (1980a:8) describes eighteen ‘on-and-off’ sites, used on
an irregular basis, which are ‘owned’ by a similar number of out-of-town
Aboriginal groupings. Sansom (p.8) states that although the land is
not legally owned by the campers, permission is needed from the Aboriginal
‘owners’ to camp at these sites. In more recent years, it appears that
police action has resulted in smaller groups in more locations. Gradual
takeovers, in minor ‘turf wars’, do occur between groups. In 1997,
Daly River people were moving into the area around the shops in the
suburb of Tiwi, long-dominated by a Burarra group of homeless men and
women.
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2.8 Reserves
Until the 1960s, Aboriginal people in some northern towns were still confined to Aboriginal reserves by a curfew (Jackson 1996:9). Prior to World War II, in Darwin, the Aboriginal population on the reserve also supplied domestic labour to the town (Wells 1995a:27, 2000:64). As I have discussed, until the mid-seventies, the town reserves were tightly controlled by a government superintendent and compliant councils, with entry permits issued by government officers. Before being converted into Aboriginal land under Aboriginal control in the late 1970s, reserves were sites to train Aboriginal people for assimilation, with ‘transitional housing’ preparing residents to move into the wider community. During the assimilation period, according
to Wells (1995b:220): ‘The bus did not leave each morning to take Aboriginal
workers to town - there was no longer a place for gangs of Aboriginal
workers in Darwin and most Aboriginal wards worked in training schemes
at Bagot ... Opportunities for personal relationships to develop were,
therefore, few’. By 1959, when Darwin was declared a town with its own
municipal council, ‘The gap between the increasingly affluent settler
community and the impoverished [Aborigines] living at Bagot [Reserve]
had widened so much that the two communities almost never came together’
(Wells 1995b:119). Both the unserviced fringe camps built by Aboriginal
people who refuse to live at Bagot and the bounded domain of the Bagot
Community were indicators of the state of race relations in Darwin in
the late 1990s. (8)
At Bagot Reserve in Darwin, and the Amoonguna
Reserve near Alice Springs, Aboriginal people in towns were compelled
to live in an ‘undifferentiated area in which it was impossible to maintain
traditional boundaries’(Heppell and Wigley 1981:24). This remains true
for the Aboriginal people in Darwin at the Bagot Community, as the old
reserve is now known, who have been unable to find suburban housing, or
who do not belong to the few groups with town camp leases. In 1964, promises
were made by a Federal Minister that one house in three in the new suburb
of Ludmilla would be set aside for Aboriginal people; however, the promise
was not kept (Woodward 1974:62). Wells (1995b:229) suggests that the failure
was partly because ‘Aborigines at Bagot repeatedly made clear by their
actions that they were not particularly interested in moving into Darwin
away from kin and friends’.
‘Wallaby Cross’ is described by Sansom
(1980a:51) as a ‘free grogging’ community, unlike the missions and government
reserves which were organised as ‘total institutions’ (Sansom 1980a:45,
citing Long 1970:6). In an interview, Vai Stanton, an Aboriginal social
worker and activist, claims that ‘there were basic rights violations [at
Bagot]. She attributed the lack of resistance to the fact that ‘people
were so institutionalised that they didn’t know ... they just accepted
it as the norm’ (Kamener 1992:20). Similarly, Rowley (1972a:278) describes
the Aboriginal residents of institutions as ‘inmates’ (see Rowse 1993a:27).
With the granting of a lease, the incorporated Bagot Community council
has permitted the drinking of alcohol on the old reserve land, resulting
in a common complaint of fringe dwellers that there is ‘too much trouble’
at Bagot, where Aboriginal people of many language affiliations are housed
side-by-side in overcrowded homes, without the night patrols of the past.
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2.9 Town camps
The House of Representatives Standing Committee assigned to investigate the needs of ‘fringe-dwelling Aboriginal communities’ preferred the title ‘town camps’ in their final report. The committee defined town campers as: any group of Aboriginals living at identified
camp sites near or within towns or cities which form part of the socio-cultural
structure of the towns and cities, but which have a lifestyle that does
not conform to that of the majority of non-Aboriginal residents and are
not provided with essential services and housing on a basis comparable
to the rest of the community (HRSCCAA 1982:xii).
The report usefully divided Aboriginal
living areas in towns into ‘tenured’ and ‘non-tenured’. Non-tenured campsites
were unlikely to receive essential services (HRSCCAA 1982:26). They are
also more prone to harassment. Both were included under the terms of reference,
despite the NT Government claim that tenured communities on special purpose
leases should be described as ‘developed urban leases’ (HRSCCAA 1982:57),
or ‘group housing projects’ (HRSCCAA 1982:41), rather than town camps.
The NT Government claimed that Aboriginal town camps on a lease, ‘because
of their development’ were best seen as ‘part of the town’ (HRSCCAA 1982:16)
and therefore excluded from the terms of reference of the inquiry.
The Aboriginal Development Commission (ADC)
argued that the camps with land and services should be included as ‘fringe
dwellers’ because they are a ‘positive model’ of what could be achieved
by similar Aboriginal groups (HRSCCAA 1982:16). The parliamentary committee
agreed that all types of camps might benefit from the strategies to be
recommended, although the needs may be different. They decided to exclude
from their inquiry only those few Aboriginal groups in towns ‘which have
been provided with essential services and housing on a basis comparable
to the rest of the community’ (HRSCCAA 1982:5).
Heppell and Wigley (1981:14) reject the term ‘fringe-dweller’ as one of ‘opprobrium’. They suggest a more positive definition of ‘town campers’: [G]roups of people who have largely rejected
the European suburban way of life, desire to live in small closely knit
homogeneous groups which exalt certain human values above those held and
expected by white society (such as kinship obligations) and, above all,
want to pursue their chosen lifestyle away from any possible interference
by outsiders who little understand the values and aspirations of the town
campers.
Heppell and Wigley (1981), Drakakis-Smith
(1980, 1981), Rowse (1988) and Collmann (1988) describe some of the changes
taking place in the late 1970s and early 1980s as ‘town camper’ groups
became incorporated associations to manage land and make improvements
to previously unserviced camps in Alice Springs. As a result of these
changes, ‘town camps’ are now more specifically seen as incorporated communities
on leases with housing designed for the perceived requirements of the
Aboriginal residents. Despite the good intentions of the HRSCAA to find
an all-inclusive term, the official town camps now have different needs
to the illegal camps and a distinction is therefore made in this thesis.
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2.10 Fringe or town camp?
Comments by fringe dwellers suggest that the persistence of cultural values in the ‘illegal’ Darwin camps is a focus of resistance. For example, Johnny Balaiya says: This is not for a White man country, because this is the country for the Blackfella country. They born here and I born here, true story. My son, my brother, my cousin, they born here ... I don’t like that Balanda way, no. I want to look after myself Blackfella way, that’s the really one. (9) Wallace (1979:144) notes: ‘An essential
prerequisite to any investigation into Aboriginal housing schemes is a
knowledge of the religion, culture and philosophy which the Aborigines
concerned are striving to maintain’. These points are considered in the
objectives of the ‘Fish Camp Community Housing Project’ (Appendix III).
A recurring theme is the preference for outdoor living, where ‘sleeping
inside occurs only when absolutely necessary’ (Larbalistier 1979:193;
see also Appendix III, p.6). The isolating nature of a ‘more conventional
European residential environment’ is also noted by Reser (1977:52).
With good intentions, while perhaps underestimating
the resistance role of fringe camps, contemporary social scientists
have sought to incorporate fringe dwelling Aboriginal communities into
the urban society. Reser (1977:58) gives an example of ‘benign statements’
advocating housing for all which can be ‘used to justify the wanton destruction
of existing and psychologically meaningful traditional living environments’.
Reser (p.52) notes that: ‘A physical environment which departs from the
European model is too readily seen as squalid, dirty, unhealthy’. He suggests
that there is a correspondence between ‘a culture’s dwellings and its
values, lifestyles and institutions’. He argues that ‘Aboriginal communities
are inevitably expected to adapt to European dwelling environments, rather
than adapting environments to people’ (p.52).
Similarly, Cowlishaw (1988a:221) is critical
of ‘do gooders’, who she describes as, ‘The purveyors of the new enlightenment
theories ... struggling in the pool of their own middle class mores’.
However, in another chapter I describe the developing relationship between
two Darwin Aboriginal fringe camps and White alternative lifestylers and
activists who share with fringe dwellers a rejection of many of these
mores, in preference for a more communal, less materialistic style of
living.
Rowley (1972a:231) believed: ‘The fringe
area has to be established in the minds of townsmen as part of the town’.
Langton et al (1998:24) state: ‘Understanding the distinct camp culture
which has emerged is one important step in devising necessary policy measures
to benefit camp residents and meet the objections of non-indigenous Darwin
residents to their lifestyle’. These are worthy replies to the popular
concepts of detribalised, demoralised people clinging to the edges of
towns. Similarly, Diane Bell told a parliamentary inquiry:
The term ‘fringe’ gives the idea they are peripheral, transient and somewhat haphazard... It makes people look as if they have no rights, where they are, as if they are on the fringe. It suggests that in some sense they have different sorts of claims whereas the term town campers locates people within the town. It indicates that they are camping there and camping in Aboriginal terms means living (HRSCAA 1982:5). I suggest that by not recognising the long
and unaided resistance role of fringe camps, the above researchers may
unintentionally assist the incorporation of fringe dwellers into a social
and economic system that the campers have resisted without assistance
in the past. That is not to deny that the campers want better housing.
As Tonkinson and Tonkinson (1979:198) point out, the basic problem is
making improvements to living conditions without seriously disrupting
the positive aspects of life in Aboriginal camps. According to Tonkinson
and Tonkinson (p.204): ‘Aborigines can no more appreciate the eventual
ramifications of a move into new housing than they could their move into
contact with Europeans’. Reser (1977:57) states that building codes ‘are
one of the most crippling sources of community deterioration in Aboriginal
Australia’. My fieldwork suggests that these are topics for further investigation.
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2.11 Fringe dwellers
Homeless Aborigines in Darwin today resemble the people of Bourke who ‘lived on the fringe of the town, on the fringe of the economic system, on the fringe of the education system, and ... on the fringe of adequate health’ (Kamien 1978:45). Despite the view by Heppell and Wigley (1981:14), that ‘fringe dweller’ has little currency amongst those to whom the term refers, Collmann (1988:13) and Bropho (1980) claim that either the term ‘fringe-dwellers’ or ‘fringedweller’ reflect the people’s view of their existence. An attribute defining the fringe dweller is the ‘rudimentary shacks’ they build for themselves (Collmann 1988:6). During Sansom’s and Collmann’s fieldwork these structures were on vacant Crown land. The camps could maintain the degree of
autonomy described by Collmann and Sansom in various urban bushland locations
before NT self-government in 1978 ended the more tolerant and distant
Federal administration of vacant Crown land. However, despite the changed
regime, some fringe camps that resemble those described by Collmann and
Sansom in the 1970s remain on vacant land within and around most northern
towns. They are often tolerated until the land is required for development.
(10)
Darwin Aboriginal ‘long grassers’ do not
describe themselves as ‘fringe dwellers’ and are unfamiliar with the description.
However, as I have outlined, the term is useful in distinguishing from
other groups the people whom I describe in camps around Darwin. Gare (1961)
and other writers have popularised the Aboriginal fringe dweller as an
Australian icon. In keeping with anthropological tradition, my research
suggests that the term remains appropriate for Aboriginal communities
living without tenure on vacant urban land in self-made unserviced shelters.
These camps are therefore distinct from temporary ‘sit down’ camps. Fringe
dwellers are also distinguished from ‘town campers’ that have tenure to
the land where they live in architecturally-designed serviced huts.
In the next chapter I describe how a particular
fringe camp in the northern suburbs of Darwin became the base for my fieldwork
in 1996. Complicating my definitions of fringe dwellers, the grop had
been evicted from Crown land earlier that year and were living under tarpaulins
on land held by an Aboriginal Association (see Map 3). I discuss their
relationship with the landowners in Chapter Seven. In Chapter Five, I
discuss at length the origins and affiliations of the campers. In the
following chapter I examine the ‘finding’ of a field site and the earlier
forced relocation of the fringe dwellers in a historical and political
context. The role of the anthropologist as a committed witness is also
defended.
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| 2. The Mayor of Darwin said that fining "long grassers" was like cutting down coffee bush: "It just comes up again" (Australian, "A new kind of sleeping sickness in the Top End", April 29, 1999) |
| 7. Tomlinson (1982:102) reproduces a newspaper story picturing one of these camps at East Point under the heading, "Darwin's dirty problem baffles chiefs". |
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9. From "Freedom to sleep" (Media release, Darwin Longgrass Association, September 5, 2001). |
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Contents
Appendices
Bibliography
Plates
Maps
Illustrations
Figures