We all one mob but different: groups, grouping and identity in a Kimberley Aboriginal village

Abstract

`This thesis examines the development and maintenance of a fragile group identity at the community level among Aboriginal people in the West Kimberley in Western Australia. It focuses on the town-based Aboriginal settlement of Junjuwa in Fitzroy Crossing. With no indigenous political structures relevant to the permanent co-residence of several hundreds of people the development and maintenance of a community sentiment powerful enough to allow the effective operation of the community as an administrative unit is problematic. While the material constraints of successive government policies have been a key limitation on people, indigenous identities, groupings and associations which pose obstacles to sustaining a commitment to the community are always present and constantly threatening it. This thesis explores the bases of cohesion at the community level and the constant tension with sub-community loyalties of one kind or another. It begins with a consideration of aspects of the historical background that are crucial to understanding the contemporary situation, paying particular attention to the transformations in residence patterns brought about by the pastoral industry. The emergence of Junjuwa is described in the context of the pastoral industry in the 1960s, which forced many Aboriginal people into Fitzroy Crossing. This is followed by an analysis of the community constitution, the physical structure and the resident population. In the subsequent Chapter, the bases of group sentiments and the circumstances in which these were expressed and operated are analysed. Chapters six and seven examine the sub-groupings, associations and identities that are in constant tension with the community identity. Chapter eight concentrates on the leadership in the community and Chapter nine on the consequences of external interventions. In the final chapter I discuss why the factors that make the emergence of a community sentiment at the level of associations like Junjuwa are not, at present, expendable to the regional level.