– if any existed - was limited and closely monitored and controlled. The fear of an essential genocide scarred an identity of victimhood within the Indigenous people (Laqueur, 2010). While the Indigenous narrative was grounded in victimhood, the Australian master narrative at the time was one of the savior. This narrative was perpetuated by cultural leaders and maintained by the government, as few individuals had personal memories of Indigenous people and history was written by mainstream…
is to embrace Australia’s First Nation, their culture, identity, and their dreamtime stories into Australian mainstream schooling. Aunty Tina Quitadamo (cited in Beresford et al. 2003, p. 149) comments ” similar to our dreaming, I see quality education as an evolving, holistic, spiritual and educative process providing meaningful opportunities for personal growth”. For the past 200 years Australian education formulated post-colonial guidelines with an absolute insistence for all Indigenous…
The purpose of this essay is to analyse areas of miscommunication in the education system, and to discuss the many issues it causes for Aboriginal peoples. Communication is an exchange of ideas, information or feelings through a number of different mediums. Failure to communicate can impact the relationship between Aboriginal students and their non-Indigenous students and teachers. Language is an area of communication that can be easily misconceived and causes many issues in a multi-language…
“An invitation to narrative practitioners to address privilege and dominance” is a thought provoking document that induces critical thinking about privilege. The paper pushes individuals to question their experiences with privilege in their everyday lives and the effect that privilege has on the lives of others who don’t have that same privilege. My experience with this document successfully helped me to gain insight on my privilege and the way it shapes my life through the aspects of my gender,…
By definition suicide is described as taking your own life for the reason that you do not want to live anymore (“Suicide”, 2015). Within various Aboriginal communities series of suicides have been occurring. In a chapter by Ronald Niezen, he explores and analyzes the causes as well as the consequences of cluster suicide in Indigenous communities (Niezen, 2009). While reading the chapter, three main factors stood out, the first was the history of Aboriginals in relation to cluster suicide,…
history of Indigenous Australians in the more distant past as well as in contemporary Australia. To be specific, the colonial history shows a typical example of institutional racism, a discriminatory limitation against ethnic groups via laws, practices, and policies (Hampton & Toombs, 2013, p. 30). At the beginning of colonisation, Europeans believed that they were superior to Indigenous people. Based on such beliefs, the colonists controlled and regulated Indigenous Australians and denied them…
Aboriginal Australians - Life within a Dream Before british colonization hit Australia, there was a unique way of life here. Aborigines were the members of the traditional aboriginal race of Australia. These people were hunters and gathers. Kinship represented their social structuring. Tribes formed along the male lineage were called the Patriarchal descent and consisted of 2 or more families, while the female led lineage was considered the Matriarchal descent. After the british…
Rangatahi Courts Indigeneity has also been attempted to be recognised through Rangatahi Courts, which emerged after the judiciary acknowledged the overrepresentation of Maori youth in the criminal justice system (Dickson, 2011). Rangatahi courts monitor family group conferences which engage in sentencing. They support retaining Maori identity which is critical to avoid harm and poverty (Jackson, 1988). Yet, the same concerns of being tokenistic in nature are present, as though the process is…
All it took for my friends to lure me into tennis was to suggest that I join the team with them sophomore year. At first it started out as something to do with my friends, but soon became a hobby and passion of mine as I learned more about the game. Tennis is a sport that involves two players hitting a ball back and forth across a net to each other using a racquet. It may sound simple, but decades have passed since the game was created and has given people time to turn the game into a highly…
In escaping her current life, Maggie also leaves behind her best friend Nell, a representation of self-confinement comparable to Maggie’s own unintended self-confinement that results from her misplaced compassion by marrying Edward Vardoe. Maggie doesn’t leave Nell entirely behind though, the two women share a strong commonality in their respective self-awareness’. Nell’s act of sending her beloved swamp angel to Maggie is emblematic of the duo’s departure from isolation; at once, Nell…