This essay will analyze how the creation of the nation-state systemically marginalizes indigenous women because of their race, class, gender, ethnicity and sexuality. I will briefly define the concept of spatial segregation to understand how it relates to the film Finding Dawn and the book Ravensong. The nation-state facilitates violence towards indigenous communities through their laws, social practices, and institutional policies. Moreover, aboriginal women are highly vulnerable to male violence because of how patriarchal powers define their identities. Sherene H. Razack “gender racial violence and spatialized justice: The murder of Pamela George” argues that the birth of the term “spatial segregations” came to life during the creation…
Barry Morris within this book explores the postcolonial period of 1970s – 1990s as Indigenous Australians struggle for equality, recognition and autonomy as citizens of Australia. Morris illustrates this period as an era of socio-economic and political change informed by neoliberal policies. Morris defines neoliberalism as an ideology that is “conspicuous for its belligerent free market approach to economic development and demands for trade liberalisation, privatisation of state industries, and deregulation of markets and wages” (p.3). Morris states that this ideology gave rise to an environment filled with racial tensions as colonial issues such as dispossession and assimilation were substituted with ‘progressive’ discourses. Morris aims to…
Aboriginal people are relatively excluded and invisible in main stream media. If they are represented, they are usually portrayed in a stereotypical and inaccurate fashion. Furthermore, challenges that the aboriginal community struggle with are not adequately reported in the media, nor given the appropriate investigation. They do not receive adequate funding to help solve or alleviate the issue. This paper will focus on a person of aboriginal background, Charlene Teters, she has dedicated her life to changing the perception of aboriginals.…
“A Republic is the last step in our journey of departure from our colonial origins. And it cannot be achieved as a truly significant step ─ a moment of re-funding ─ unless it also represents the end of the colonial experience for Aboriginal people.” (2004, p.20-21) This argument is at the heart of Mark McKenna’s book “This Country a Reconciled republic? “, that was published in 2004, only a few years after the failure of both the 1999 republic referendum and the reconciliation movement.…
Paul Keating and Noel Pearson, both demonstrate the awareness of the long term disadvantages the Indigenous people were confronted with for many years. They speak with passion and enthusiasm of the Australian land and people within it and understand that when it comes to Australians something has to be done in order for there not to have a division between non-Aboriginal and Aboriginal Australians. The two speak with intensity regarding this matter and provide insightful knowledge on our country and what it should be, they relate back to Australia’s history to illustrate what the Indigenous people have done for us and the land and create a vision of what our lives would be like if it wasn’t for them. These speeches mark a turning point in Australian history; they recognise the importance of Aboriginal culture…
Introduction: Australia Day (on the 26th January) is a day that a considerable amount of Indigenous Australians remembers as the 75th anniversary of the fight for Aboriginal rights and recognition in their own country, the place that they were born and raised. (2013) Consequently, in the year of 1938, the Day of Mourning protest attracted a large group of Aboriginal Australians in Sydney, marking the monumental 150 years since the Europeans settled in Australia. Furthermore, they demanded that they the same citizen rights and equality as the rest of the Australian population, the Day of Mourning protest was the birth of the well-structured Aboriginal civil rights movement.…
The Aboriginal activists saw the “value of direct action” (Indigenous Australia, unknown) and decided to take the issue of Aboriginal land rights immediately into their own hands, by establishing the Aboriginal Embassy. However in contrast to the US movement as no violence was intended. Thus, the aim of Australian Black Power Movement, much like US, was to identify the need for “Black people to define the world in their own terms, and to seek self-determination without white interference” (Koori History Website, 2000). The Black Power Movement and the Freedom Rides…
In Australian history the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders of Australia were not treated with the respect and dignity that they deserve, they have been the protectors of this land for many years before British colonised here, they lived from the land and they had a very strong community based life. After years of demoralising them and taking their basic ways of life away from them, we now have certain policies and procedures in place to bring the equality back. From the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders Health Plan 2013-2023 the government is committed to improving health and wellbeing through closing the gap in health outcomes with the wider Australian population. In the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders Health…
The constant oppression that all Indian princesses and squaws face is a major contributor to not only how I view the world, but also my particular influence in the binary. For instance, aboriginal women have no control over their public identity; therefore, limiting their potential and labeling them as sexual objects instead of distinct individuals (Anderson 82). This cruel reality for Native women reflects how our world sees all women – worthless and inferior compared to men. For this reason, I think it is exceptionally important to take control and support equal rights. Living in Canada we are lucky enough to have freedom of expression, thus we have the responsibility to take care of our fellow women in times of need.…
Politics of Indigenous Recognition Analyse the broad shifts that have taken place in Australian society since the end of the Second World War, and how those historical changes have shaped the contemporary nation There has been an abundance of injustices suffered by the original owners of our land which still continue to this day but since WW2, which occurred from 1939-1945, Indigenous Recognition has been one of the rapidly changing important issues in Australian society. Although there has been a shift towards recognition, which has helped to shape this nation into a more diverse and accepting nation, we have still not come far enough to ‘Closing the gap’. Indigenous Recognition is defined as having a voice to parliament, treaties and truth…
However, Aboriginal’s persist to encapsulate the authentic Ancestral Dreaming, as a medium to succeed the indigenous ‘fight’ for land rights and native title. Here, their inextricable connection with the land is being restored through the land rights movement where they are able to foster their lost connection with the fabric of life- their inextricable connection with the land; through which the marks of dispossession are slowly fading. The notion of ‘Terra Nullius’ under the European settlers’ jurisdiction acted as a detriment to the Aboriginals, as it preached their mass genocide- genocide of their being and identity. Judith Wright accentuates that “the all-embracing net of life and spirit which had held land, and people, and all things together was in tatters. The sustaining ceremonies could not be held, men and women could not visit their own birthplaces or carry out their duties to the spirits”.…
Not only were mixed race individuals yearning to learn more about their non-dominant cultures, but the nation as a whole was intrigued in learning more about the cultures and customs of Indigenous peoples that had long habituated the land. The fight and successes of the land rights campaign coupled with a new era of multiculturalism in Australia further harnessed a sense of identity and memory that begged for basic rights that had long been denied, including acknowledgment and reparations for the Stolen Generations (Lecouteur & Augoustinos,…
Oodgeroo Noonuccal, from South-East Queensland was an Indigenous Australian poet. Her works include many poems and books, while she is best known for her book Stradbroke Dreamtime. The Dawn is at Hand is one of many poems completed by Oodgeroo. This poem is about a better future for all Indigenous Australians and letting go of their past.…
Next, the prevalence of aboriginal women are doubly victimized according to their histories of child sexual abuses and assaults. Numerous indigenous women who have exposed to child sexual violation are repeatedly continue to endure other fashions of sexual and aggressive victimization in the future (Fagan, 2001). Considering a research of the sexual health and conduct of 199 female indigenous inmates in New South Wales, over half (59%) of interviewees had exposed to several kinds of sexual force and/or brutality (Stathopoulos & Quadara, 2012). The research shows the re-victimization is typical when one-third of aboriginal females had suffered child sexual forces approximate three to nine times, also a more 13% indicated it had happened indeed…
Aboriginal women are victimized by violence far more than their non aboriginal counter parts due to various factors which steam from the systemic, intersectional oppression of social construct in Canadian society. Society views these women as if they are not apart of society; they are otherized and thus, treated as such which leads to violence, abuse and the dismissal of harming issues regarding Aboriginal women. “In far too many instances,extreme racialized violence against Aboriginal women leads to their disappearances and even murder”- (Harper,A. (2009) The abuse inflected on these women such as violence, even murder have high record rates in Canada; efforts to expose and inform the public (Canadian Society ) such as the ‘Red Dress’ Organization are implemented, exemplifying and help the understanding of the public of how these Aboriginal Women are being citizens by violence and how great the numbers are. The Red Dress organization/ movement in Canada is a showcase of red dresses hanging, each dresses repressing another ‘sister’- Aboriginal women, lost and taken victim of the violence affecting indigenous women in Canada.…