Aborigines in the Economy: A Select Annotated Bibliography of Policy-Relevant Research 1985-90

Abstract

This study was undertaken as a consultancy by the Centre for Aboriginal Economic Policy Research (CAEPR), Australian National University, for the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission (ATSIC). The contract was signed in July 1990, research started in August and the study was completed in April 1991. The study was conducted in various stages. The first stage was undertaken primarily by Elizabeth Owen, assisted by Linda Allen, in the period August to October 1990. Early research focussed on library searches to compile a comprehensive listing of all published material in the broad area 'Aborigines in the Economy' and preparation of appropriate data base and retrieval softwares. The second stage of the project, undertaken from October 1990 to February 1991, required annotation of selected published material. This part of the project was jointly conducted by Linda Allen and Elizabeth Owen, assisted by Bill Arthur and myself who provided editorial and other comment on annotations. It became clear at this stage that, given available resources, all published items identified could not be annotated unless annotations were extremely brief. Therefore it was decided to select a proportion of all items for annotation. The final selection has resulted in the annotation of 133 items. This number is arbitrary and was influenced by time, resource constraints and an assessment of the policyrelevance of the research. An additional influencing factor was the belief that, to be useful, individual annotations had to be reasonably comprehensive. The last stage of the project from February to April 1991 required final editing and indexing of the select bibliography. This task was undertaken by Elizabeth Owen and Linda Allen, assisted by Hilary Bek. During this period, I drafted the introductory essay and sought comment on it from co-authors and others. Show more