'What do we want?' : a political history of Aboriginal land rights in New South Wales
Norman, Heidi, 1970-2015
Book
The passage of land rights laws in New South Wales in 1983 saw political intrigue, deception and disappointment as well as unprecedented engagement by Aboriginal citizens and their supporters. How could a sympathetic NSW State Government redress the effects of two hundred years of colonisation in the most densely populated state in the Commonwealth? "What do we want?" was the rallying call for land rights activists. Heidi Normans insightful book begins in the late 1970s when Aboriginal people, armed with new skills, framed their land rights demands. The 1978 land rights inquiry and the laws that followed brought Aboriginal people -- and the state -- into new and different relationships of power. These have been the source of on-going contestation ever since. For NSW Aboriginal people, the laws allowed an unparalleled level of involvement in government, and in governing. It opened up a host of possibilities. Thirty years later, with over a billion dollars in land assets, a near billion-dollar investment fund, and with over 115 local Aboriginal land councils, the resultant network of land councils is the largest Aboriginal representative body in the country. This book reveals the challenges of Aboriginal people adjusting to modernity as land councils struggle to fully realise the hopes of their members, many of whom continue to suffer chronic disadvantage.
Main title:
Author:
Norman, Heidi, 1970-, author
Imprint:
Canberra, ACT : Aboriginal Studies Press, 2015.©2015.
Collation:
xvi, 240 pages, 4 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations ; 24 cm.
Notes:
Includes bibliographical references (pages 209-233) and index.
Contents:
Ch. 1. Aboriginal Land Rights: From ‘reserves’ to ‘country -- Ch. 2. Government, Aborigines and power: The 1978 Land Rights Inquiry -- Ch. 3. TheAboriginal Land Rights Act: Politics and the art of the possible -- Ch. 4. Working with the Act: self-determination and modern rule -- Ch. 5. Justice, tradition, progress: shifting land strategies under the Act -- Ch. 6. Defending the Act: Aboriginal civil society and the market -- Ch. 7. Aboriginal governmentality: technologies of the self -- Ch. 8. What do we want? Land rights?
ISBN:
97819220599011922059900
Dewey class:
333.209944
LC class:
DU124.L35
Language:
English
Subject:
Aboriginal Australians -- Legal status, laws, etc -- New South Wales -- HistoryAboriginal Australians -- Legal status, laws, etc -- Australia -- New South Wales -- HistoryAboriginal Australians -- Land tenure -- New South WalesAboriginal Australians -- Land tenure -- New South Wales -- HistoryAboriginal Australians -- New South Wales -- Land tenureAboriginal Australians -- Land tenure -- Australia -- New South WalesLand tenure -- New South Wales -- HistoryLand tenure -- Australia -- New South Wales -- HistoryAboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Collection
BRN:
319275