Introduction: Aboriginal Workers

Abstract

Australia's national history has rarely allowed space for the history of Aboriginal work. This void enabled the growth of racist stereotypes of Aborigines as lazy, non-productive or unwilling to work - images still flourishing on talk-back radio shows. Historical research tells us otherwise, with Aborigines demonstrably efficient workers in their traditional economy, and later essential workers in early colonial Australia. We hope this volume will challenge white workers, male and female, to reassess their complicity in exploiting Aboriginal labour and their role in the wider imperial project. Throughout Australia's colonial and national history Aborigines worked as domestics, pastoral and sexual workers, in entertainment, sports and the arts. It seems remarkable that this is the first collection of historical essays on Aboriginal work and workers and we urge other writers to follow. We are pleased that Aboriginal Workers presents an Australia-wide survey with a chronology sweeping across the full post-contact period, especially the less researched twentieth century. It has also been important to have successfully included the perspectives of both Aboriginal and nonAboriginal historians and workers. Show more