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Abstract:
Mobility plays a key role in the traditional and contemporary lifestyles of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples in regional and remote Australia. For all human populations, mobility is an important means of facilitating economic participation, the acquisition of goods and services and engaging in the social and cultural interactions that individuals and groups have the right to value. A common perception, however, is that the relatively high level of temporary mobility of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians creates frictions with mainstream models of economic participation and service delivery, and frustrates attempts to reduce Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander disadvantage (Morphy 2010a, Prout 2008). This is an impression that has persisted since the first contact between Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and the European settlers, for the many policies designed to ‘civilise’ and ‘assimilate’ the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander population that were to follow have revolved around an explicit aim of sedentisation as a precursor to further progress (Young 1990 p. 186). Despite the longevity and persistence of this view, even now only limited evidence exists on the drivers or extent of temporary mobility of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, and there remain significant deficiencies in existing statistics. Further, evidence on best practice in accommodating such mobility into policy and practice remains critically under-developed. This report reviews the existing literature about the temporary mobility of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in remote Australia. It follows a number of other literature reviews on this topic, including Habibis et al. (2010), Memmott et al. (2004) and a comprehensive survey article by Prout (2008). While some of the same ground is covered as in those earlier contributions, the material covered here is aimed specifically at informing future research designs to increase our understanding of the temporary mobility of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, and to facilitate the modelling of temporary population flows for the purpose of improving service delivery, resource allocation and employment opportunities for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians.
