A history of the Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies 1959 -1989 : an analysis of how Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people achieved control of a national research institute

Abstract

The Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies (AlAS) was set up to record Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultures before they disappeared forever. Proposed by Liberal parliamentarian WC Wentworth in 1959, the Commonwealth Government established it in 1961 and made it permanent through an Act of Parliament in 1964. This history focuses on its first thirty years, ending in 1989, the year the Institute came under a new Act, which introduced changes to its character and governance.

In the 1960s, the Institute's focus was on 'traditional' Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultures and most research took place in remote Australia. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people had no input into the Institute's activities other than as 'informants'. By 1989, they were involved in all facets of the Institute's operations including its governance. Informed by the work of Michel Foucault on power/knowledge and truth and on governmentality, and in the context of the broader political and social environment, this thesis will explore the history of AlAS to identify the factors, both internal and external, that led to the changes. It will address the Institute's relationship with the Academy (including the conflict between academic disciplines within AlAS), and the ideological battles for its control between academics; Aboriginal people and the Academy; and Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal scholars and the government. It will seek to explain how a relatively powerless group of Aboriginal people (with the help of their non-Aboriginal supporters) managed, over time and in the face of the power of the Academy, to control the Institute. Show more