Indigenous Peoples, Poverty, and Self-Determination in Australia ...

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Indigenous Peoples, Poverty and Self-Determinationthe remnant parcels, some of them substantial, have combinedwith the treaty process and the peculiarities of federal Indianadministration to simplify and rigidify inter-group boundariesthat previously had been more complex or fluid. Although thisprocess often ignored Indigenous perceptions, it unintentionallyprovided a foundation for tribal continuity and survival (Cornell1988b).Today, both as political units and as frameworks of collectiveidentity, most Indian nations remain robust. The “self ” in selfgovernance,has in most cases been apparent, embedded both incontinuing social relations and cultural practice and in formalpolitical relationships established by treaty between individualIndian nations and the United States. This clarifies whereconstitutional authority and jurisdiction should be vested andfocuses the challenge of nation building. 20The situation has been more variable in the other three countries.A recurring concern in Australia, for example, according to Bernand Dodds (2000: 163), “is how indigenous self-governmentand representation should be structured, given the array of goalsthat self-government is supposed to meet, and the diversity ofAboriginal communities.” Much of the organizational structureof inter-group relations in Australia today is embedded in localor regional, federally funded, Indigenous service organizationsor in the national Aboriginal and Torres Strait IslanderCommission (ATSIC). Sanders (2002) argues that both theservice organizations and ATSIC represent Indigenous interests,albeit different sets of interests and in different ways, but he alsoacknowledges that many local Aboriginal communities see neitherservice organizations nor an elected national body as adequatelyrepresenting their concerns.20. Exceptions to this overall pattern include peoples forced together ontoreservations or into shared treaty-making and others fragmented by warfare,forced migration and other events. Both Alaska and California also includemany small Native groups located on small land bases, limiting human capitalpools and prompting debate about building joint institutions of larger scale andbroader jurisdiction.22
CornellBern and Dodds discuss the situation in the Northern Territory,where Aboriginal polity is constituted in three primary forms: landcouncils, local communities, and kinship/language groups. Onlythe last has traditional roots. Local communities “are largely basedon pastoral containment and/or government/mission institutions,”while the land councils are products of federal statute (2000:174). Only a few groups, particularly those with a geographicalbase or strong language ties, have been effective at organizing“above the level of the local community” (ibid.: 175). DavidMartin argues that in much of Cape York, “few if any Indigenouscommunity-wide political institutions exist, apart from the quasilocalgovernment community councils instituted under Statelegislation, and regional bodies…” (2001: 14). Many communitiesare products of enforced relocation to mission and governmentsettlements; the councils that have emerged in these situations,he claims, have “neither the political nor the moral authority”required for effective self-governance. Any new institutional orderwill require identifying—and perhaps rebuilding—“clear centresof political authority” (ibid.: 17) in these communities: a difficulttask. Meanwhile, Diane Smith (2002) and others argue for a“regionally dispersed, layered” system of self-governance in whichlocal communities are jurisdictional building blocks, aggregatedfor certain purposes into larger structures.A different Indigenous history in New Zealand has led to somesimilar issues. According to the Maori historian Ranginui Walker,prior to European incursions the hapu, sometimes described asa clan, 21 was “the main political unit that controlled a definedstretch of tribal territory” (1990: 64). Angela Ballara (1998) has21. Walker (1990: 63-5) identifies three basic units of Maori society: thewhanau is an extended family, the hapu is a descent group composed of relatedwhanau, and the iwi is a descent group composed of related hapu. Ballara(1998: 161) describes hapu as “politically independent corporate and socialgroups which also regarded themselves as categorically identified with a widerset of people.” Like Walker, she emphasizes the prominence of hapu, but shealso notes that this tripartite organization is neither as rigid nor as static as asimple description might imply (ibid.: 17-19).23
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