they want the reserves back because they didn’t build
the Town Hall far enough away?. But they can’t get
the Aboriginal people back because of the wall of
indifference they have built. The Great Wall of China,
the Iron Curtain in Russia? They are nothing like the
wall of indifference that Australia has towards the
‘ Aboriginal people (Colbung, in Tatz, ed., 1975:28).
The indifference Aborigines perceived was attested to by
the lack of factual information about Aborigines already pointed
out by Broom and Jonesɪ. ..
It was also reflected in the dearth of research in the social
sciences other than anthropology.
9.6 Identification in social sciences research literature -pre-1967
Watts (1982), in her overview of research literature on
Aboriginal identity, referred to the growing body of research in
: the seventies and the role of such literature in supporting the
⅛
Aboriginal search for an Aboriginal identity. ' ‘
■ V
i' Conversely, the lack of research literature,other than that
L in the discipline of anthropology before the sixties, can be
і attributed to the lack of interest of researchers in this area,
I ”
t
t
! indicating a lack of support for the people in the process of
⅛
h
location of the Aboriginal self in a world of meaning.
I Aborigines, if they were considered at all by researchers, were
K
r
I seen in terms of a problem. Even then the problem in general, was
t
seen in terms of economics - problems of occupancy of land wanted
к
I by settlers, of a people who were a strain on the economy once .
S
«.
P
they had been dispossessed of their land,
t
к
L
L
For most white people in Australia, the plight of the Aborigines
!
t
was not recognised as a social problem until the government
:
articulated the policy of assimilation as a solution to the black
L
problem, following upon the migration of Aboriginal people to the
’• cities during and after the Second World War (Gale and Brookman,
1975; Rowley, 1971).
