Challenging simplistic notions of outstations as manifestations of Aboriginal self-determination: Wik strategic engagement and disengagements over the past four decades

Challenging simplistic notions of outstations as manifestations of Aboriginal self-determination: Wik strategic engagement and disengagements over the past four decades Book Section

Experiments in Self-Determination

• Author(s): Martin, David F., Martin, Bruce F.
• Secondary Author(s): Peterson, Nicolas, Myers, Fred
• Published: 2016
• Publisher: ANU Press
• ISBN: 9781925022902

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Abstract: This is a practitioners’ chapter, focusing on outstations in the Aurukun region of western Cape York Peninsula, and based on our experience spanning nearly four decades. We are father and son: David Martin, now an anthropologist, who established and coordinated an outstation support organisation in Aurukun for some eight years from the mid-1970s; and Bruce Martin, whose mother is a Wik woman from Aurukun, and who in 2011 worked with his community to establish a community-based organisation, Aak Puul Ngantam (APN), focused particularly on developing productive livelihoods on country. The key aims of this chapter are to outline and critically evaluate the principles and practices of the original outstation project against the concept of ‘self-determination’, and to contrast these principles and practices with what is being attempted now in a profoundly different Indigenous policy environment. The chapter has arisen as part of a long-term and ongoing engagement and dialogue on such matters between us. However, the first sections on the original outstation movement are largely written by David Martin, and those on APN’s work by Bruce Martin. The concluding section of the chapter is jointly written.

• Urls: https://press-files.anu.edu.au/downloads/press/p331981/pdf/book.pdf
• Publisher Location: Canberra