Case Study - Interconnections Between Kinship, Responsibilities, and Land: A Traditional Owner Organisation

Case Study 4.1

INTERCONNECTIONS BETWEEN KINSHIP, RESPONSIBILITIES, AND LAND: A TRADITIONAL OWNER ORGANISATION

Traditional owners groups are kinship groups that express native title rights and a custodian relationship with the land that they come from. In northern Queensland, nine traditional owner groups have joined together to become an incorporated organisation, which gives the groups the means to apply for funding for programs. The groups consider that land and community business are all intertwined and that ‘you can’t care for people if you don’t care for country’. One traditional owner explains the connections between land, kinship, and responsibilities and why it is important to get ‘back on country’.

‘There are a lot of problems with domestic violence and other problems and it is important for people to get back on country. Some of our children are getting into trouble and they should be coming here to our land and our old people should be teaching them. If you give them a bit more pride, then they won’t be doing those things. It is strength for those children to know who they are. In knowing their country, they know their responsibility and they know where they t in their Aboriginal world. Although we know that there is a dilemma in coming outside of their country and coming into our Western system, we must help our children know their ways.’

CRITICAL REFLECTION

1. What might be some ways in which Aboriginal people experience land business and community business as intertwined?
2. What do you think are some of the dilemmas for young people fitting into Aboriginal ways while being part of the white education and employment systems?
3. As a community worker do you think it is important to be given a place in the Aboriginal community you are working with and how might this happen?