Australian Studies

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Australian Studies

• Busan City Hall
• Autumn 2008

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(No Transcript)
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Indigenous Australia

• Origins, Culture and Stories

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Indigenous Australia

• Indigenous Australians are descendants of the
  first known human inhabitants of the Australian
  continent and its nearby islands.

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Indigenous Australia

• This includes both the Torres Strait Islanders
  and the Aboriginal People, who together make up
  about 2.6 of Australia's current population.

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Indigenous Australia

• The Aboriginal peoples traditionally inhabited
  mainland Australia, Tasmania, and some of the
  other adjacent islands.

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Indigenous Australia

• The Torres Strait Islanders are indigenous to the
  Torres Strait Islands between Australia and New
  Guinea.

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Indigenous Australia
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Indigenous Australia

• Black for Aboriginal people, red for the earth
  and ochre, used in ceremonies, and yellow to
  symbolise the sun.

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Indigenous Australia

• "Aborigine" is the noun and "Aboriginal" the
  adjectival form.
• The more acceptable and correct expression is
  "Aboriginal Australians" or "Aboriginal people.
• "Indigenous Australians" has found increasing
  acceptance, particularly since the 1980s.

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Indigenous Australia
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Indigenous Australia

• The green stripes at the top and the bottom of
  the flag symbolise the land, and the blue stripe
  in the centre represents the waters of the Torres
  Strait.
• The thin black stripes between the blue and green
  segments signify the Torres Strait Islanders
  themselves.
• The white five-pointed star at the centre of the
  flag represents the five major island groups, and
  the white headdress around it also symbolises the
  Torres Strait Islands people.

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Indigenous Australia

• The Torres Strait Islanders possess a heritage
  and cultural history distinct from Aboriginal
  traditions.
• Accordingly, they are not generally included
  under the designation Aboriginal Australians.
• This has been another factor in the promotion of
  the more inclusive term Indigenous Australians.

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Indigenous Australia

• A wide variety of languages and dialects.

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Indigenous Australia

• The general consensus among scholars for the
  arrival of humans in Australia is placed at
  40,000 to 50,000 years ago with a possible range
  of up to 70,000 years ago.
• Disease from Europeans killed many people.

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Indigenous Australia

• In traditional Aboriginal belief systems a
  creative epoch known as the Dreamtime stretches
  back into a remote era in history when the
  creator ancestors known as the First Peoples
  travelled across the land, creating and naming as
  they went.

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Indigenous Australia
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Indigenous Australia
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Indigenous Australia
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Indigenous Australia

• The didgeridoo is commonly considered the
  national instrument of Aboriginal people.

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Indigenous Australia

• Australia has a tradition of Aboriginal art which
  is thousands of years old, the best known forms
  being rock art and bark painting.

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Indigenous Australia

• The Stolen Generations were those children of
  Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander
  descent who were removed from their families by
  the Australian and State government agencies and
  church missions, under acts of their respective
  parliaments.

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Indigenous Australia

• Due to lack of access to medical facilities the
  life expectancy of an Indigenous Australian was
  59.4 years for males and, in 2004 - 05, 65.0
  years for females, approximately 17 years lower
  than the Australian average.

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Indigenous Australia

• Indigenous students as a group leave school
  earlier, and live with a lower standard of
  education, compared with their peers.

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Indigenous Australia

• An Indigenous Australian is 11 times more likely
  to be in prison, and in June 2004, 21 of
  prisoners in Australia were of the indigenous
  population.

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Indigenous Australia

• According to the 2001 Census, an Indigenous
  Australian is almost three times more likely to
  be unemployed (20.0 unemployment) than a
  non-Indigenous Australian (7.6).

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Indigenous Australia

• Many Indigenous communities suffer from a range
  of health and social problems associated with
  substance abuse of both legal and illegal drugs.

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Indigenous Australia

• Under Section 41 of the Australian Constitution
  Aboriginals always had the legal right to vote in
  Australian Commonwealth elections if their State
  granted them that right.
• Indigenous Australians gained the unqualified
  right to vote in Federal elections in 1962.

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Indigenous Australia

• The Tasmanian Aborigines are thought to have
  first crossed into Tasmania approximately 40,000
  years ago via a land bridge between the island
  and the rest of mainland Australia during the
  last glacial period.
• The original population, estimated at 4,000 to
  6,000 people, was reduced to a population of
  around 300 between 1803 and 1833 often due to the
  actions of British settlers.

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Indigenous Australia

• A woman named Truganini, who died in 1876, is
  generally considered to be the last Tasmanian
  Aborigine.

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Indigenous Australia

• In 1983 the High Court of Australia defined 'An
  Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander is a person
  of Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander descent
  who identifies as an Aboriginal or Torres Strait
  Islander and is accepted as such by the community
  in which he or she lives.

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Indigenous Australia

• As at June 2001, the Australian Bureau of
  Statistics estimated the total resident
  indigenous population to be 458,520 (2.4 of
  Australia's total), 90 of whom identified as
  Aboriginal, 6 Torres Strait Islander and the
  remaining 4 being of dual Aboriginal and Torres
  Strait Islander parentage.

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Indigenous Australia

• Mabo v Queensland (No 1) was a significant court
  case decided in the High Court of Australia on
  December 8, 1988.
• It found that the Queensland Coast Islands
  Declaratory Act, which attempted to
  retrospectively abolish native title rights, was
  not valid according to the Racial Discrimination
  Act 1975.

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Indigenous Australia

• Mabo v Queensland (No 2) (commonly known as Mabo)
  was a landmark Australian court case which was
  decided by the High Court of Australia on June 3,
  1992.
• The effective result of the judgement was to make
  irrelevant the declaration of terra nullius, or
  "land belonging to no-one" which had been taken
  to occur from the commencement British
  colonisation in 1788, and to recognise a form of
  native title.

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Indigenous Australia

• http//www.dreamtime.net.au/

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The End