ABSTRACT ,
The object of the research was to map Aboriginal ’worlds’ in order
to establish the components of a viable individual and group identity
for Aboriginal people. .
Three research contexts were established:
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1) Strelley Community, a tradition-oriented group in the
IPilbara region of Western Australia. The group had
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forged social structures with the specific aim of conserving
Aboriginal identity;
2) Port Augusta, a country town located in the north of
South Australia, a town situated at geographical and
cultural crossroads for Aboriginal people;
3) Metropolitan Adelaide which received migrations from the
sixties onwards, chiefly from two Aboriginal reserves,
Point McLeay and Point Pearce.
!Identity was defined as the location of the self, both by the self
and others in a particular world of meaning;
I The problem which was investigated was one of how identity is socially
constructed and socially maintained. The research, therefore, was
located theoretically into that area of sociology concerned with the
social construction of reality - namely,the sociology of knowledge. ∙
The issues isolated for the study were
iɔ Interaction between psychological reality and psychological
models - that is,the theorizing about ’worlds’ of meaning, and
the way in which this locates the people into a particular identity,
(ii) Interaction between social structure and the 'worlds* in
which Aboriginal people find their identity - that is, the
typifications of Aboriginal people which locate them into
particular 'worlds’.
(iiiɔ Interaction between the self and society - that is, the
choice among the identities offered by these 'worlds’.
The world.of Aborigines was studied through an analysis of the
conceptualisation of the Aboriginal world and the naming/identification
of Aborigines found in Government legislation and policy before and
after the 1967 Referendum.
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