Kirjahaku

The colonial practice of rationing goods to Aboriginal people has been neglected in the study of Australian frontiers. This book argues that much of the colonial experience in Central Australia can be understood by seeing rationing as a fundamental, though flexible, instrument of colonial government. Rationing was the material basis for a variety of colonial ventures: scientific, evangelical, pastoral and the post-war program of ‘assimilation’. Combining history and anthropology in a cultural study of rationing, this book develops a new narrative of the colonisation of Central Australia. Two arguments underpin this story: that the colonists were puzzled by the motives of the Indigenous recipients; and that they were highly inventive in the meanings and moral foundations they ascribed to the rationing relationship. This study goes to the heart of contemporary reflections on the nature of Indigenous ‘citizenship’.

The colonial practice of rationing goods to Aboriginal people has been neglected in the study of Australian frontiers. This book argues that much of the colonial experience in Central Australia can be understood by seeing rationing as a fundamental, though flexible, instrument of colonial government. Rationing was the material basis for a variety of colonial ventures: scientific, evangelical, pastoral and the post-war program of 'assimilation'. Combining history and anthropology in a cultural study of rationing, this book develops a new narrative of the colonisation of Central Australia. Two arguments underpin this story: that the colonists were puzzled by the motives of the Indigenous recipients; and that they were highly inventive in the meanings and moral foundations they ascribed to the rationing relationship. This study goes to the heart of contemporary reflections on the nature of Indigenous 'citizenship'.

H. C. Coombs was one of the most influential Australians of the twentieth century. Born in 1906, he is best known as the governor of the Reserve Bank, but the breadth of his activities and his commitment to public life until his death is unsurpassed. Tim Rowse traces Coombs' life from his childhood in Western Australia to his many roles as policy maker, change agent, advocate and adviser. Particularly interested in Coombs as an economist, Tim Rowse shows that a key motif in his life as a public servant was to create an economic rationality among the political elite that was socially integrative and that looked beyond the strictures of economics to environmental sustainability, scientific and artistic creativity. This 2002 book covers Coombs' life from birth to death, providing intriguing insights into the life of one of Australia's most influential people.

Since the 1967 constitutional referendum, Australian governments have moved towards policies of indigenous self-determination. Obliged to be Difficult, first published in 2000, presents the central issue of self-determination as seen by Dr H. C. Coombs, the most important policy maker since the referendum: through what political mechanisms will indigenous Australians find their own voice? Coombs was singularly influential within government in the years 1967 to 1976, and he remained a tireless critic and policy advocate from 1977 to 1996. Rowse's narrative of his work, drawing on many unpublished sources, illuminates the interplay of government policy with indigenous practice. This book is both an account of government policies and a biographical slice of an outstanding Australian. In attempting a critical celebration of Coombs' vision and methods, it invites informed reflection on the issues of land rights, sovereignty and reconciliation in these conservative, and highly anxious, times.

Since the 1967 constitutional referendum, Australian governments have moved towards policies of indigenous self-determination. Obliged to be Difficult presents the central issue of self-determination as seen by Dr H. C. Coombs, the most important policy maker since the referendum: through what political mechanisms will indigenous Australians find their own voice? Coombs was singularly influential within government in the years 1967 to 1976, and he remained a tireless critic and policy advocate from 1977 to 1996. Rowse’s narrative of his work, drawing on many unpublished sources, illuminates the interplay of government policy with indigenous practice. This book is both an account of government policies and a biographical slice of an outstanding Australian. In attempting a critical celebration of Coombs’ vision and methods, it invites informed reflection on the issues of land rights, sovereignty and reconciliation in these conservative, and highly anxious, times.

H. C. Coombs was one of the most influential Australians of the twentieth century. Born in 1906, he is best known as the governor of the Reserve Bank, but the breadth of his activities and his commitment to public life until his death is unsurpassed. Tim Rowse traces Coombs' life from his childhood in Western Australia to his many roles as policy maker, change agent, advocate and adviser. Particularly interested in Coombs as an economist, Tim Rowse shows that a key motif in his life as a public servant was to create an economic rationality among the political elite that was socially integrative and that looked beyond the strictures of economics to environmental sustainability, scientific and artistic creativity. This 2002 book covers Coombs' life from birth to death, providing intriguing insights into the life of one of Australia's most influential people.

In the recent public debate about the success or failure of Australia's Indigenous policies, opinions have been grounded more often in personal experience than in social scientists' research. By synthesising ten years' work from the Centre for Aboriginal Economic Policy Research (CAEPR), Tim Rowse fills that gap in public discussion. In Indigenous Futures: Choice and Development for Aboriginal and Islander Australia he begins by asking: What vision of the 'good life' should guide an assessment of policy? Unlike those who uphold 'cultural diversity' or 'socio-economic equality' as the objectives of Indigenous policy, Rowse argues that 'Indigenous choice' is a more fundamental and more widely shared political value. Government policies have enabled Indigenous Australians to make choices about their futures in three ways: they choose as individuals; as family groups; and as the 'Indigenous Sector' - thousands of Indigenous organisations established since the early 1970s. As a result of self-determination policy, an Indigenous Sector has flourished, enhancing the Indigenous capacity to make choices. However, much of CAEPR's research has hesitated to acknowledge the importance of the Indigenous Sector. Examining the reasons for this hesitancy, Rowse reflects on the strengths and weaknesses of CAEPR's social scientific representation of the 'Indigenous interest'. He argues that in any debate on the Indigenous future, we must pay attention to what social scientists have to say, as long as we do so with a critical awareness that social science is not neutral but animated by its own 'politics'.

In the early 1970s, Australian governments began to treat Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders as peoples with capacities for self-government. Forty years later, confidence in Indigenous self-determination has been eroded by accounts of Indigenous pathology, misplaced policy optimism, and persistent socio-economic gaps. This record accounts for this shift by arguing that Australian thinking about the Indigenous is a continuing, unresolvable tussle between the ideas of peoples and population. Offering snapshots of moments in the last 40 years in these tensions are palpable from honoring the heritage and quantifying the disadvantage to acknowledging colonization s destruction and projecting Indigenous recovery from it this book not only asks if a settler colonial state can instruct the colonized in the arts of self-government, but also how could it justify doing anything less."