Aboriginal Visibility in the ‘System’

Gale, Fay; Wundersitz, Joy

doi:10.1080/03124078608549820

Cited by 5 publications

(2 citation statements)

References 10 publications

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“…The 16 articles fall into three categories (see Table 1): seven provided research findings about Indigenous Australians (Carter et al 1970a; Gale 1966, 1968, 1970b; Gale & Wundersitz 1986; O’Connor 1993; and Williams 1971); two articles wrote about policy towards Indigenous Australians (McMahon 1997 and Tomlinson 1986) and seven articles emphasised social work practice with Indigenous Australians (Downing 1969; Jackson 1974; Webber 1978; McMahon 1990; Freedman & Stark 1993; Trevallion 1993 and Crawford 1997). It was not until 1969, 22 years after publication began, that the first publication dealing with practice, which, interestingly, urged a community organisation approach (Downing 1969), was published.…”

Section: Social Work and Indigenous Australiansmentioning

confidence: 99%

Writing diversity: ethnicity and race in Australian Social Work, 1947-1997

McMahon¹

2002

Aust Social Work

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In 1997, Australian Social Work celebrated 50 years of publication. This paper provides a content and discourse analysis of 50 years of articles on Indigenous and immigrant Australians in the journal and its predecessors. The analysis critically evaluates the published accounts of cross‐cultural social work research, policy and practice and identifies the meanings these articles convey of race and ethnicity in Australian professional identity and practice. The analysis found little published analysis of social work practice with Indigenous Australians and that articles written about Indigenous Australians are either more negative or more positive than the generally approving tone of articles about immigrants. Only one or two articles in either category proposed a structural or community development approach to practice.

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Section: Social Work and Indigenous Australiansmentioning

confidence: 99%

Writing diversity: ethnicity and race in Australian Social Work, 1947-1997

McMahon¹

2002

Aust Social Work

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“…Aboriginal Legal Services also report that a substantial majority of clients seeking legal aid for criminal offences have a history of child removal (Sommerlad 1977: 168). Indigenous people are over-represented as clients of welfare services and programmes (Standing Committee 1983:1), in corrective institutions (Australian Law Reform Commission 1986: 236), have a greater chance of living in poverty (Ross & Whiteford 1992: 107), are more likely to appear before the Children's Court (Gale & Wundersitz 1986), and are over-represented in notifications of child abuse and neglect made to the NSW Department of Community Services (Australian Institute of Health and Welfare 1996:3).…”

Section: Welfare Colonialism and The Elusive Goal Of Aboriginal Partimentioning

confidence: 99%

Child Protection Interventions Within Indigenous Communities: An ‘Anthropological’ Perspective

Litwin¹

1997

Aust J Social Issues

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In recent times, child welfare bureaucracies have been required to re‐define their relationship with indigenous communities, particularly in view of the impacts associated with their past interventions within these communities. This process of readjustment has been grounded in the apparent endorsement by child welfare bureaucracies of the principle of indigenous self‐determination and their declared acknowledgement of the desirability of devolving greater responsibility for decision making about child welfare matters to indigenous communities. This paper suggests that, despite statements to the contrary, the processes and mechanisms employed by child welfare agencies to promote indigenous autonomy have not adequately acknowledged the saliency of indigenous social domains nor have they seriously challenged the precepts of the existing administrative domains that govern child protection interventions. Consequently the processes employed by child protection agencies to develop culturally appropriate services have seldom matched the rhetoric associated with them. It is still the case that indigenous Australians are expected to fit within the current structure of child welfare agencies, and that their expectations should conform with the accepted orthodoxies that govern child protection interventions. This paper seeks to examine the processes by which child welfare bureaucracies have, on the one hand, attempted to re‐cast their relationship with indigenous communities, while, on the other hand, maintaining the primacy of their administrative domains.

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The Great Shoe Store Robbery1

Hutchings

1993

Oceania

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This article contributes to the significant debate on the effects of the Australian criminal justice system on Aborigines and in particular Aboriginal youth. This debate fed into nation‐wide concern over an ever increasing number of Aboriginal deaths in custody, recently culminating in the Federal Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody. Through the use of case studies and other ethnographic data drawn from investigations in the country town of Port Augusta, South Australia, the author illustrates how the agents of the legal and welfare systems in this state operate to present a view of Aboriginal juvenile crime as a normal response to these children's social environment and social conditioning. This process in turn, it is argued, reinforces and legitimates Aboriginal juvenile crime and contributes to its continuance, and the subsequent over‐representation of Aboriginal youths at all stages of the juvenile justice system. Yet it is forcefully pointed out that Aboriginal children are not passive victims of the legal and welfare systems. Rather, they form their own interpretations of these systems and their ‘criminal’ activities are often attempts at defiance and capturing some form of control of their own lives in the face of a legal/welfare system seeking to impose control over them. Unfortunately, it is these very activities which return Aboriginal children to the legal and welfare systems they act against.

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Aboriginal Visibility in the ‘System’

Cited by 5 publications

References 10 publications

Writing diversity: ethnicity and race in Australian Social Work, 1947-1997

Writing diversity: ethnicity and race in Australian Social Work, 1947-1997

Child Protection Interventions Within Indigenous Communities: An ‘Anthropological’ Perspective

The Great Shoe Store Robbery1

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