453
Contemporary (post-1967) legislation and policy of Government,
government agencies and government supported bodies no longer acted
to nihilate the world of Aborigines. However, policy continued
to exelude Aborigines from mainstream society; af the same time
*
government theorizing gave positive recognition to an Aboriginal
•world’ (Chapter XI).
The awareness of politicians of the importance of the ’ethnic’
vote in the late seventies led to a reconceptualization of the
place of migrants in Australian society (p. 145).
This reconceptual-
ization of Australian identity also excluded Aborigines from mainstream
society (p. 146 ff.) but, at the same time, by excluding them,
gave prominence to the status of the Aboriginal population. Policy
*
from the seventies onward gave positive recognition to the ‘world’
of Aborigines.
The Federal Government set up the Department of Aboriginal
Affairs, which in its turn structured agencies which generated,
for Aborigines, jobs having status (p. 240)j even though these were
’closed’ jobs (p. 309).
The positive theorizing of the seventies, objectified, permitted
the possibility of the people interacting with positive typifications
of themselves.
Interaction between Aboriginal people and the psychological
models was shorn to result in a theorizing on the part of Aboriginal
people that constructed different ’worlds’ (Chapter VI).
r
*
Examples were given of
- a tradition-oriented world - Strelley (ChaptersXII-XVI)
a parallel world - Port Augusta (ChaptersxVIII-XIX)
- a world integrated into white society - Adelaide
(Chapters XVI11-XIX)
It was demonstrated that Aborigines are not a monolithic group.