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27.2 Implications for practice
Aboriginal identity takes a nascent form. It can be seen
in terms of locating the self in a group, in the sense of pointing
to one’s origins. ,I am proud to be an Aboriginal', is a statement
heard again and again. Aboriginality, in this context^ refers to
pride in the location of the self into a particular group. It is
an indication of the turning to advantage of exclusion from
mainstream society, and an interaction with the positive content
of contemporary theorizing.
In many ways, this identifying of 'non-practising' Aborigines
can be likened to the identifying of 'non-practising' Jews.
Freud analyses his own bond to the Jewish race:
What binds me to Jewry is neither faith nor
national pride. But plenty of other things
remained over to make the attraction of Jewry
and Jews irresistible - many obscure emotional
forces, which were the more powerful the less ∙ і
they could be expressed in words, as well as a і
clear consciousness of inner identity, the safe ‘
privacy of a common mental construction (Freud, quoted
in Erikson, 1966:148).
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4
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It is very likely that the emerging sense of Aboriginal identity
cannot be put into words because it consists of the feeling that
subjective internalization of Aboriginal identity ought to be
taking place; there is not yet a theorizing about the components
of Aboriginal identity. Rather, there is a subjective internalization
of one aspect of Aboriginal identity that is preferred to urban
people, namely the theorizing about identity offered by policies ;
of self-determination and self-management.
Allied to this belief in the possibility of self-determination
are the "many obscure emotional forces" described by Freud, which
act to bond an excluded people together.
The crucial issues which can be seized upon as part of a new
striving for identity are those of pride in Aboriginality, and self-
determination, a regaining of autonomy.