"Who shall rule the rules?": education, self-determination and aboriginal community management

Abstract

This paper constitutes a critical examination of the concepts and policies of Aboriginal self-management and self-determination, within the context of education for Aboriginal community management. The field of study is focused particularly upon the situations of remote communities and Aboriginal organisations in the Northern Territory, but much of the critical analysis is applicable to policies and practices generated and implemented at the national level. The study commences with an examination of the case of Aboriginal Community Councils in the N.T. (Ch. 2), before progressing to an analysis and discussion of self-management and self-determination which seeks to highlight the ideological and practical differences between the two, relating self-management to more general but culture specific concepts of "management" and Weberian bureaucratic rationality. Attention is then drawn to the role which such concepts play in processes of hegemony and cultural reproduction to which Aboriginal communities and organisations are subject (Ch. 3). The role of education is considered through a case study - the Associate Diploma of Business - Community Management, offered by Batchelor College (N.T.), the theoretical concerns of the earlier chapters being related to and reflected by the contents of the case study (Ch. 4). The paper continues with an ideological critique of Competency Based Training (CBT), currently being imposed upon Aboriginal and other vocational education, and concludes with a brief view of possible alternatives to the culture specific "management" paradigm and reductionist methodology of CBT, drawing upon Aboriginal representations of and metaphors for, community organisation. Show more