Indigenous Senior Officials in the Northern Territory Government: How Compelled Are They by the Accounts of a Representative Bureaucracy?
Elizabeth Ganter, Research School of Social Sciences, Australian National University and Desert Knowledge Cooperative Research Centre.
By its own account the Northern Territory Government is increasingly representative of Indigenous interests, both in its parliament and throughout its bureaucracies. How compelling for its Indigenous officials is the Northern Territory Government’s self-account as a representative bureaucracy? This paper presents my research into how some of the government’s Indigenous senior officials have seen themselves ‘representing’ Indigenous people while engaging in discursive activities about them as part of their work. Some have left to take up positions as advocates in the Indigenous sector beyond government. Others have moved into the government from such positions. My research is concerned with the subjectivities which guide their choices about how best to work in the Indigenous interest. The paper will reflect on inner tensions between the aspiration to reflect social demography in the composition of government and the expectation that Indigenous senior officials in the government bureaucracy want, or are able, to act for others.
