Bringing a Community Development approach to the utilisation of income flows from Aboriginal lands

Summary: CNTA’s brief, under its funding from the Attorney General Department, is to provide professional development to anthropologists working in the native title arena. One set of issues to which CNTA is giving attention is the role of anthropologists in the post-determination phase, and this is where the methodology and learnings of the CD Unit in working with groups and communities in managing income streams from their lands for wider benefit is of considerable potential interest to anthropologists. While, of course, many CD Unit staff are not anthropologists, there is much here for anthropologists to learn.

The work of the CD Unit offers an illustrative example of the intense, collaborative engagement that is necessary at this intersection of Aboriginal and wider value systems, where monies gained from activities on Aboriginal lands are invested into broader community benefit. For these reasons, there is much to learn which is relevant to the governance of compensation funds held in trust by Prescribed Bodies Corporate and other entities (such as those established under mining agreements with Aboriginal groups).

In this first of two podcasts on this topic, anthropologist David Martin (a member of the CDU Reference Group) interviews Ian Sweeney, the Unit’s Manager, and four of the Project Officers, Dave Howard, Cecilia Tucker, Dianna Newham, and Carl O’Sullivan.

This second podcast builds on the first, and involves a collaborative dialogue between David Martin and each of Cecilia Tucker, Carl Sullivan, Dave Howard, and Diana Newham, on ethical and political issues they all face as anthropologists working with Aboriginal groups on social change in a framework of self-determination.

Further information on the work of the Community Development Unit can be found on the Central Land Council’s website.