‘Like a Rusty Nail, You Can Never Hold Us Blackfellas Down’; Cultural Resilience in the Southwest Gulf of Carpentaria

Abstract

Even though their countries were violently invaded by settler colonisers in the 1870s, the Indigenous peoples of the southwest Gulf of Carpentaria region maintained their social capital – their laws, cultures, knowledge, ceremonies and songs – to survive as distinct groups. Then when legal opportunities became available they regained ownership of some of their ancestral lands and then, over a period of 40 years, they slowly rebuilt their natural capital; their lands, waters and other natural resources. Using both their natural and social capital have they developed innovative community-based cultural and natural resource management initiatives to provide social, economic and environmental benefits to themselves and to the wider Australian community.