Contesting Assimilation.

Gray, Geoffrey

Contesting Assimilation

Tim Rowse (ed.) 2005

API Network, Perth, x+352 pp, ISBN 1 920845 15 1

This volume arises from a conference, 'Assimilation--Then and Now', held at the University of Sydney in December 2000. At this conference it was apparent that most of the Indigenous audience profoundly disagreed with the underlying assumption that assimilation was a product of post-war Australian Aboriginal policy. They asserted that assimilation, which was understood as absorption, was practised from the moment of invasion. At the same time, Rowse is not wedded to a homogenous view of assimilation and has set out a series of introductory essays which 'undermine the certainty' about the meaning of assimilation.

'Assimilation' has been a contested term whose importance today, like 'reconciliation', is evidenced by the lack of agreement about what it actually means. Like John Maynard, an author in this volume, I think it hardly matters whether we consider the means of this incorporation assimilation or absorption; the aim of the policy makers and administrators was to undermine, if not eradicate, Aboriginal culture. For example, early in 1939, after some years of pressure from various humanitarian groups, John McEwen, the Minister of the Interior, declared that assimilation was a way to incorporate Aboriginal peoples into the Australian nation as 'full' citizens. Their preparedness for citizenship would be determined by white officials, however. Aboriginal Australians were always in the waiting room of history.

In the present political climate, Rowse's volume is important because it illuminates the various attempts by Australian governments, both state and commonwealth, to incorporate Indigenous peoples into the state. The attempt by the Howard government to do the same makes sense historically. It is a further attempt to move Aboriginal Australians into the mainstream by eliminating, or the very least, modifying culture, and the ways that Indigenous Australians are able to live in cultural spaces, like outstations.

In an attempt to show the breadth of viewpoints, Rowse has assembled fifteen scholars including himself. Assimilation differed in its application across jurisdictions despite Commonwealth Minister for Territories Paul Hasluck's wish to encourage all states to adopt his vision. The period the book covers, narrowly focused as it is, illuminates the 'assimilation' policy at its most infuential--when it was planned, implemented, abandoned and debated. It underscores the elusiveness of assimilation as an historical category.

Most of the states and the Northern Territory are covered. Corinne Manning writes about housing policy in Victoria, Anna Haebich and Fiona Paisley on aspects of West Australian policy, Julie Martinez and Julie Wells focus on Darwin, John Maynard and Gaynor McDonald on New South Wales, while Alison Holland writes about South Australia. Other contributors are Robert van Krieken, Bob Broughton, Russell McGregor, Marilyn Lake, Bain Attwood and Sue Taffe, who take a broader view of assimilation practice. Significantly, Queensland is not covered.

At the conference there was considerable discussion about acculturation and the way assimilation was often conflated with acculturation. Russell McGregor has attempted to unravel this in his paper on AP Elkin, Professor of Anthropology at the University of Sydney, and an architect of assimilation in both New South Wales (the Welfare Act of 1940) and the Commonwealth. He was also most notably an author of the McEwen statement in February 1939. It is a finely nuanced paper which should be required reading for all who are interested in understanding assimilation as a social and cultural policy and practice.

The essays collected here are, with few exceptions, about non-Indigenous Australians, their social ideals, their racial theories, their policies and programs. The voices of Indigenous persons and their responses, both intellectually and the way that assimilation affected their lives, is largely absent. The other criticism is that there is too much repetition, but it is hard to see how this could be avoided. This is a weakness, but criticism aside, it is a commendable volume. Contesting Assimilation should be on everyone's list of books dealing with assimilation: it is an invaluable source of information on the history of assimilation as a post-war policy, practice and opinion, which is strengthened by the thoughtful and insightful introductions to each section by the editor.

Reviewed by Geoffrey Gray

AIATSIS

<geoffrey.gray@aiatsis.gov.au>