Small successes in Australian Indigenous Affairs: Reflections on the Australia Unlimited Roundtable and the Ti Tree Creek Camp Study

Abstract

Recently I attended the Australia Unlimited Roundtable in Melbourne where I witnessed an interesting discussion on the role of 'success' and 'crisis' in Australian Indigenous affairs. This seminar will begin by recounting that discussion, leading to a point made by Geraldine Doogue of the ABC that we need to be more aware of and celebrate 'small successes' in Australian Indigenous affairs. The seminar will then reflect on some work I have undertaken over the last two years on Creek Camp in Ti Tree, 200 kms north of Alice Springs, in conjunction with the Anmatjere Community Government Council and my ANU colleague Sarah Holcombe. The idea of small successes will be used to analyse the achievements of Creek Camp and the Study of it, however slight. I will argue that this small successes lens is far more useful in looking at the Creek Camp Study, and at Australian Indigenous affairs more generally, than either the language of crisis or of the big success story. These latter two ideas unhelpfully polarize and simplify Australian Indigenous affairs debates. Seeing small successes requires us to respect and take seriously Indigenous people's own understandings of their particular situations. These situations may not represent the best of all possible worlds, but neither are they the worst. Ti Tree Creek Camp will be understood for its positives, as well as its negatives. And it will be argued that the status quo in Australian Indigenous affairs more generally needs to be similarly understood. Show more