Sunanda Creagh, The Conversation and Nina Maile Gordon, The Conversation
Mukurtu: an online dilly bag for keeping Indigenous digital archives safe
The Conversation71.5 MB(download)
Mukurtu - Warumungu word meaning 'dilly bag' or a safe keeping place for sacred materials - is an online system helping Indigenous people conserve photos, songs and other digital archives.
The future lies not in better policy, or even a new government, but in the exciting resurgence of Indigenous nationhood.
Millenius/Shutterstock
For First Nations peoples to recover from the multiple harms of settler colonialism, they must take control of the services they need, free from the control and interference of the settler state.
Again this year, the Closing the Gap report delivered disappointment.
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There is little reason to think changes made to the Closing the Gap targets and partnerships with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander representatives will have much of an impact.
Children need to be able to see themselves in the books they read.
Cockburn Libraries/flickr
Children from minority groups rarely see themselves reflected in the books they read. This can negatively impact their sense of identity and their literacy levels.
Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull leaving during the Closing the Gap breakfast last week.
AAP/Mick Tsikas
The failed and continually failing political leadership on respect, relationships and reconciliation sets back the quality of current and future education for all Australians.
The average year nine Indigenous student in a very remote area scores about the same in NAPLAN reading as the average year three non-Indigenous city student, and significantly lower in writing.
Aap/Tracey Nearmy
Using equivalent year levels provides us with a clearer picture of the gap for Indigenous students, who can be up to an equivalent of 7.7 years behind their non-Indigenous counterparts in writing.
Native title - the legal recognition of Indigenous Australian land rights - is determined under domestic law, not international law.
AAP/Tracey Nearmy
In an article published in the lead up to Australia Day, WA Liberal Party policy committee chairman Sherry Sufi said “native title can only exist if Australia was settled, not invaded”. Is that right?
Sabbia Gallery - Alison Milyika Carroll working on a pot at Ernabella Arts ceramic studio, 2017.
Photo Ernabella Arts, Courtesy of Sabbia Gallery
Clay Stories, a travelling exhibition, showcases ceramic art from Indigenous artists across the country. It is a triumphant display of specific stories and Dreamings, standing against cultural and political amnesia.
Communities in Cape York are among those with restricted access to mains water.
NomadicPics/Flickr
If the government is to continue to spend millions toward sending Indigenous children away to boarding school, we need research into how effective this model is, and its impact on communities.
Why has such little progress been made over the past 50 years in Indigenous education?
Tracey Nearmy/AAP
Ken Thaiday Snr, an internationally-acclaimed artist from Erub Island in the Torres Strait, has been awarded a 2017 Red Ochre Award. Thaiday’s work draws on dance, the people and land of the islands to produce elaborate masks and headdresses.
There are many factors contributing to Indigenous suicide, occurring in a wide variety of contexts.
Dean Lewins/AAP
A new report recognises that no two Indigenous suicides are identical, then skilfully identifies common themes for informing responses that have the potential to save lives.
Policies and services designed to protect Aboriginal children’s cultural connections are not being properly implemented.
AAP Image/Dan Peled
Alwin Chong, University of South Australia and Fiona Arney, University of South Australia
New reports show a widespread lack of care for the cultural needs of many of the 19,000 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children in child protection and out-of-home care.
From a battle over an oil pipeline in the American mid-west to small Australian communities fighting for survival, Indigenous people are harnessing social media to take their stories global.
Joe Brusky/Flickr
Indigenous people make up small percentages of the population in many countries – but using social media, Indigenous voices can be heard worldwide. Here are a dozen deadly Australians worth following.
Has anything changed in the 30 years since the ALRC’s Recognition of Aboriginal Customary Laws report?
Mick Tsikas/AAP
The Recognition of Aboriginal Customary Laws examined the interaction between two legal systems – one based in British law and the other in the customary laws of the Aboriginal peoples of Australia.
Country provides a site where Aboriginal and mainstream forms of law can come together and have dialogue – an outcome made possible by Eddie Mabo (L).
AAP/NAA
The ALRC report made some useful recommendations about how settler law could deal more fairly with Aboriginal people by taking their traditions and customs into account.
For Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, constitutional change is about righting injustices inherent in the current recognition of difference, rather than promoting an agenda of sameness.
Michael Coghlan/Flickr
The process of constitutional recognition was initially to be completed by 2013, but is now being directed towards a referendum in May 2017 to mark the 50th anniversary of the 1967 referendum.
Director Monash Indigenous Studies Centre, CI ARC Centre of Excellence for the Elimination of Violence against Women (CEVAW), School of Philosophical, Historical & International Studies (SOPHIS), School of Social Sciences (SOSS), Faculty of Arts, Monash University
