Off-Reserve Aboriginals: A Comparative Analysis

Archaeologists believe that aboriginals first came to Australia about 45, 000 years ago and were the only population of humans in Australia until the British invasion. There are about 500 different aboriginal groups each with their own language and territory and usually made up of several separate clans. The aboriginals of Australia are marginalised in today society. This marginalisation began right back during the British invasion where they were evicted from their own country, the stolen generation occurred and their health care, education, employment and housing was severely limited. Aboriginals generally live in poor conditions and choose unhealthy lifestyle choices

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people have faced disadvantages in various areas, particularly housing. The disadvantages these people face now are the result of policies introduced by the European settlers, then the government. The policies introduced were protection, assimilation, integration and self-determination. It is hard to understand the housing disadvantages faced by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people if their history is not known.

Aboriginal women face disproportionate challenges throughout their incarceration which impacts their successful community reintegration. Over the last ten years, inmate assaults involving Aboriginal women have exponentially grown, almost doubling, while use of force incidents have more than tripled. Rates of self-injury involving incarcerated Aboriginal women are seventeen times higher than that of non-Aboriginal women. To agree with Baldry, Carlton, and Cunneen, using Indigenous women as a focus point is beneficial because their "experiences embody and exemplify the intersections between colonial and neocolonial oppression and the multiple sites of gender and disadvantage and inequality that stem from patriarchal domination." Cunneen highlights that Indigenous women actually live in "many prisons"; the prison of misunderstanding; the prison of misogyny; and the prison of disempowerment. Patricia Monture insists that one way women can resist oppression and facilitate social change is by telling their own stories. The Task Force for Federally Sentenced Women developed a report called Creating Choices, which attempted to relocate the power to make choices in womens' lives out of the hands of prison officials and back to the women themselves because, according to the findings of the Task Force, it is only when people are treated with respect and when they are empowered can they take responsibility for their actions and make meaningful decisions. Monture-Okanee reflects on the irony of the final report

Aboriginal land use practices centred on the sustainable use of the land. Aboriginal Australians practiced a form of agriculture known as ‘fire stick agriculture’. This involved utilizing fire to hunt animals, by setting fire to vegetation to draw prey into the open. Doing this also increased the availability of new grass and vegetation to feed animals. Minerals from the burnt vegetation are absorbed into the soil, increasing its fertility and therefore the abundance of vegetation in the area. Ensuring that there was enough feed for animals in the wild allowed Indigenous Australians to maintain population levels of the species they hunted in a sustainable manner for thousands of years.

As Beard recognizes, "Native peoples often serve as reminders of a place, an occasion, or, most often a mythic past, and they are expected to perform that identity in the present" (494), what this quote speaks to is a kind of conspicuous performance, a social construction of Aboriginal peoples that pivots around a variety of stereotypes and systemic racism. Writing from the position of a pre-service secondary English language arts (ELA) teacher, my motivations in this paper involve using Marilyn Dumont 's poetry as a way to address Beard 's concerns, "[building students '] capacity for intercultural understanding, empathy, and mutual respect" (Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada, 7), while simultaneously teaching them how to analyse poetry. More specifically, Dumont 's series of beading poems, in her collection The Pemmican Eaters, provides an opportunity to engage high school students in a discussion around the significance of cultural practices, while at the same time revisiting the interplay of Canadian histories, both Aboriginal and colonial. At the same time, I will also describe Dumont 's use of irony, which Andrews explains as a cultural ethos that is a unique element of Plains peoples’ Indigenous art (3). Introducing this uniquely First Nations brand of irony to students may work to give life to Aboriginal culture, bringing "Native peoples . . . [out] of the mythic past" (Beard, 494) and into the present. Finally, the act of beading itself ties directly to

Throughout Australian history, Aboriginal people have been displaced and mistreated through the course of time, through the separation from their from kinship groups, land and the stolen generation. This has resulted in the connection to their dreaming lost, misconnection and loss of their sacred sites and traditional food from their land. As a consequence of the stolen generation, many aboriginal children were deprived of their parents, families, spirituality, language from their land and their cultural identity. All of these aspects contribute to the continuing effect of dispossession on Aboriginal spiritualities.

This week’s learning has significantly developed my awareness of Indigenous origins, history and culture. I discovered the multiple recordings of Indigenous origins and events that occurred before and after European settlement. Before starting this unit I did not have proper knowledge of previous government policies of discriminating the lives of Indigenous Australians such as protection, assimilation, integration, self-determination, multiculturalism and the Howard Government’s mean-spirited practical reconciliation (Harrison & Sellwood, 2016); and how Indigenous Australians struggled to earn the equality (Miller, 2012) to reach the current policy of ‘Closing the Gap’. What this week’s learning have highlighted that today Australian classrooms acknowledge, respect and deliver Indigenous Australian histories more adequately than ever before. I now understand that Indigenous perspectives would help students to learn the interconnectedness of Indigenous histories and relate these to contemporary life for Indigenous Australians (The Department of Education, 2017). This understanding is essential for me to evaluate my own knowledge of Indigenous Australian histories and policies to develop a holistic approach to include Indigenous perspectives in classrooms.

The Discrepancy of life expectancy between aboriginal and non-aboriginal people sadly, I think is always going to be there. It is just the way things are. The improper living conditions for aboriginal people on many of these northern reserves in Canada. The lack of opportunity for aboriginal people to seek fulfilment in their lives and seek to grow as people. The racism that aboriginal people face on a day-to-day basis. The impact of the past of residential schools and segregations hospitals has on aboriginal people today. The impact that Segregation and assimilation of aboriginal people into western society had on aboriginal people is revisable. I think these conditions all affect the discrepancy between non-aboriginal people in Canada and

The Canadian Centre for Policy is a think tank policy institute providing social, economic, environmental policy advice to current situations and problems faced by Canada. The Income Gap between Aboriginal People and the Rest of Canada is a study by Wilson and Macdonald critiquing the common notions of thought, such as level of education, which cause economic gaps between Aboriginals and the rest of Canadian Society. References used by the authors comes from 1996, 2001, and 2006’s Canada Census (Daniel and Macdonald 2010:3). The main focus of the study surrounds the differences between Aboriginals and non-aboriginals, but the article does includes some extensive analysis about First Nations reserves. One of the leading points in Wilson and

Topic 3: Discuss the political struggle for recognition of indigenous rights to land. In your answer, consider the benefits and limitations of the Native Title Act and recent United Nations criticisms of the current Act.

The Changing Nature of Aboriginal and Non-aboriginal Relations in Australia from 1946-2000 Since the arrival of Europeans the Aboriginal population has suffered in terms of status, wealth, health and sense of identity. Although there have been steps towards reconciliation there is still a long way to go until Indigenous Australians enjoy the same status as non-indigenous Australians. A referendum was made in 1967, it was a hallmark in Aboriginal history. It was the beginning of the righting of the wrongs that had been committed against the Australian indigenous population since the arrival of white settlers.

Both Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal had valuable and reasonable arguments against the federal government’s decision. The technique the federal government should have used instead was to keep the rule that Aboriginal people have a right to fish when they wanted without a license and keep the fishing industry continuing their success. Since the fishing industry has been running for hundreds of years and Aboriginals come from a family of survival and fishing, then why not both work with each other in the same industry. This means that Aboriginals will still have a right to fish when they want and the fishing industry will still be running, therefore Aboriginals would find more employment.

Aboriginal Studies in British Columbia British Columbia has continued to experience a period of economic change, though acute shortages in skills are expected in the major sectors of the economy. However, the Aboriginal population of this region is increasingly dynamic, young, and growing, which results in tremendous likelihood to fill jobs in the future (“Aboriginal Post-Secondary Education and Training”, p.2). In order to position Aboriginal peoples to capitalize on the numerous economic opportunities, there is need to invest in their education and training to help in dealing with challenges in the labor market. Such investments have considerable impact on individuals, communities, and society resulting in improved or better outcomes.

Sport within the aboriginal community is definitely a key area that not only the government should be looking at but we as sports managers should focus on as well. There are many growing concerns for our first nation’s people, health being the greatest of all the concerns. Those from a aboriginal background have become more susceptible to health risk such as diabetes and cardiovascular disease, many of the aboriginal children living on the reserve are overweight and obese. What is alarming is that, 49% of aboriginal youth smoke, which is more than double the rate of young people in British Columbia. Something needs to be done about this alarming trend amongst the aboriginal community, one way to help lower the risk of diabetes is to help implement programs that promote physical activity and a healthy lifestyle. With the recent increase in funding organisations will be able to offer more programs that involve physical activity, sport and education. It is important to help raise awareness for the aboriginal community; there are so many gifted athletes that have not been given a chance due to the lack of programs, funding and access. With The North American Indigenous Games coming to Toronto in 2017, I hope this will help give a potential opportunity to help increase the awareness for sport and athletes in the aboriginal community.

Preserve distinctiveness or be open to cultural diversity and risk assimilation? This ever-increasing dilemma is affecting Aboriginal communities Canada-wide, since there is debate as to whether Aboriginal identity should be solely based on bloodline, or if culture should also be considered. As observed in the documentary Club Native¬ that specifically addresses this issue, the Aboriginal identity of the Mohawks of the Kahnawake reserve have a Membership Code that is uniquely based on bloodline, discriminating those who have broken the bloodline by having relationships with non-Aboriginals or whose ancestry is not completely Mohawk to a certain extent. Due to this dilemma being a very controversial one amongst the Aboriginal communities in