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Abstract:
In this chapter, the author examines the Bawinanga Aboriginal Corporation located at Maningrida in Arnhem Land. Bawinanga is an Aboriginal corporation and for over 20 years it was also a Community Development Employment Projects (CDEP) organisation. It was established in 1979 and, during the first decade of the 21st century, it became one of the largest and most financially successful Indigenous corporations in Australia. Bawinanga succeeded in remote and difficult circumstances largely devoid of market opportunity where others, including the Australian colonial state from 1957, have failed. Its only serious competitor in the Maningrida region is the Maningrida Progress Association, a community-owned organisation that focuses on retail trade in the township of Maningrida. Much of Bawinanga's success can be linked historically to its productive deployment and reconfiguring of CDEP funding support from the Australian government. The focus of the chapter is on the relationship between CDEP and Bawinanga, as their life cycles are closely related; Bawinanga was established as a small community-based outstation resource agency two years after CDEP began. Both were new and innovative institutions in the 'Indigenous sector'. The author provides an account of the consequences of the demise of CDEP for Bawinanga, its members and the regional population more generally. Edited excerpts from publication.
