The new Indigenous affairs orthodoxy
Myrna Tonkinson; 11/9/08; is an honourary research fellow in anthropology in the School of Social and Cultural Studies at the University of Western Australia who has done research among Aboriginal people in the Western Desert of WA since 1974.
There is a new orthodoxy in Indigenous affairs, and woe betide anyone daring to diverge from it. Nicholas Rothwell is one of the chief enforcers of this orthodoxy. In this month’s Australian Literary Review he pours scorn on the recalcitrants, singling out Jon Altman (whose sins include issuing a ‘rebuke’ to Rothwell about a story he had written) as representative, while heaping praise on Marcia Langton, Noel Pearson and others to whose views he accords his stamp of approval. Masterful as the arguments Rothwell elects to champion are, they do not adequately account for what exists, nor do they provide definitive prescriptions for change. For example, it is highly contentious to proclaim that alcohol is the ’cause, not mere attendant symptom’ of the ‘present-day Indigenous crisis’ and that drinking and drug-taking are ‘best conceptualised as self-perpetuating diseases, rather than symptoms of social ills’.
See: http://www.eurekastreet.com.au/article.aspx?aeid=8878
Tags: Aboriginal, Australia, Reconciliation