Unreal Cultures and Real Economies in Aboriginal Australia: An Enduring Polarity
Anthony Redmond, Australian National University
Noel Pearson (2007) has recently contended that besides the obvious impact of structural poverty on Aborigines, the other reason Aborigines are economically so far behind the eight-ball is that they have been reluctant to question the viability of traditional cultural forms in the modern economy. The complaint that indigenous cultures are antithetical to development of a ‘real economy’ is one we have heard a lot lately from government ministers, from Tony Abbott’s instructions to Aborigines to quicken the tempo of their mourning practices so they can be work-ready for the mainstream economy, to Mal Brough’s stripping of the CDEP programs in the Northern Territory, many of which revolve around cultural projects. These politicians and many in the media can’t seem to make up their minds about whether Aborigines have too much culture (i.e. that they are overburdened by traditional loyalties) or too little (i.e. that there's a been a cataclysmic breakdown of an idealised traditional social organization). This surplus or lack in ‘the culture’ of contemporary Aboriginal settlements (which some others have been keen to show is ‘not to blame’ for economic disadvantage and dysfunction) is always contrasted with what is seen to be lacking in their economy. Does the evidence support this argument?
