The name is absent

CHAPTER XVIII

ABORIGINAL WORLDS - PT. AUGUSTA AND ADELAIDE

18.1 Introduction

In every conceivable comparison, the Aborigines and Islanders
stand

*

... in stark contrast to the general Australian society,
and also to other 'ethnic' groups whether defined on the
basis of race, nationality, birthplace, language or
religion. They probably have the highest growth rate,
the highest birth rate, the highest death rate, the worst
health and housing, the lowest educational, occupational,
economic, social and legal status of any identifiable sector
of the overall population in Australia (National Population
Inquiry Report, 1975:455).
*

The majority of Aborigines in the city are better housed,
better educated, better employed, in better health, and
less liable to mental illness or criminal behaviour, than
are their rural counterparts. However, to say that city
Aborigines are better off than rural Aborigines is not to
say that they are adequately housed, well educated, fully
employed or properly cared for either medically, legally
or socially ... they still suffer disadvantage in almost
every respect by comparison with the general population
(Gale, 1972:261).

It has been posited that any particular socially,constructed,
socially maintained world offers a choice of identities. Within
this world a psychological model is structured and maintained and
predicates (though does not determine) particular responses,
φ-
*
*                                       4

V

It has been shown, for example, that Strelley offered a
psychological model where the Law was paramount, calling forth
certain identities and certain patterns of behaviour.

The ’worlds'* of Pt. Augusta and Adelaide, the ’objective reality’
in which identity is situated, will now be examined. Sorokin’s
framework, used to discuss the world of Strelley, will again be
used to give coherence to the analysis.

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