A.B. Original’s "Reclaim Australia" is ensuring Australians can no longer say “I just didn’t know” about Aboriginal issues

Reclaim Australia is the debut album of hip hop duo A.B. Original that surged the voices and issues of Aboriginal Australia onto the airwaves and into the minds of the public. Fronted by Yorta Yorta man, Briggs (aka Adam Briggs) and Ngarrindjeri man, Trials (aka Daniel Rankine), A.B. Original stands for Always Black Original and their 12-track album released late in 2016 geared up political talks for the upcoming controversies of January 26th, known as Australia Day by some and as Invasion or Survival Day by others.

Introduction to Special Indigenous Issue

It is a pleasure to guest edit this special edition of Critical Social Work. The process of reviewing the thoughtful works of diverse contributors reminds me that we are in a time of incredible shifts, changes, opportunities, and uncertain futures. Aboriginal people in Canada are facing multiple challenges to treaties, land rights, and funding at all levels, while, paradoxically, we experience unprecedented opportunities in politics, business, education, and economic and social development. Hence, this edition illustrates that there is no “single story” (Chimamanda Adichie,TED Talks) that articulates the Aboriginal experience. The articles comprising this edition indicate that our attentions, as Aboriginal social work educators, practitioners and students, are invested in diverse directions, and we are concerned with many issues, historical and contemporary, that intersect and interface. I’m so pleased to present a small but robust collection of articles attending to contemporary social work issues and it is promising that several of these articles are written by Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal social work students who are sturdy allies who are invested in Aboriginal issues. In many Indigenous cultures, artistic expression is a medium through which traditional knowledge, culture and worldview are disseminated and contemporarily, artistic media have astonishing ways of making painful subjects more palatable. Therefore, I am pleased to include a work of fiction and two works of prose which highlight pressing concerns via creative mediums.

'I still remember your post about buying smokes': a case study of a remote Aboriginal community-controlled health service using Facebook for tobacco control

Many Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Services (ACCHS) embrace Facebook as an organisational tool to share positive stories, which counter the negative narrative surrounding Aboriginal issues. However, the Facebook algorithm prioritises posts on personal pages over organisations. To take advantage of the algorithm, this project paid three Yolŋu employees of a north-east Arnhem Land ACCHS to share quit smoking messages on their personal Facebook pages. Smoking prevalence among Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians is nearly three-fold higher than non-Indigenous Australians, and previous research has identified the need for culturally appropriate communication approaches to accelerate the decline in Indigenous smoking. This research found Yolŋu participants nurtured healthy behaviours through compassionate non-coercive communications, in contrast to fear-inducing health warnings prevalent in tobacco control. Cultural tailoring of tobacco control messages was achieved by having trusted local health staff sharing, and endorsing, messages regardless of whether the content was Indigenous specific. This research also revealed online Facebook activity does not reflect the reach of posts, which may extend beyond social media users to individuals who do not have a Facebook profile.

A historical analysis of the economic marginalisation of Aboriginal people and the ruralisation of Aboriginal issues

This essay examines the complex geographical, economic and political motivations that have resulted in the framing of Aboriginal participation in Australia as a predominantly rural issue.

10. A Discursive Monopoly: The Role of the Canadian Mainstream Media in the Social Dislocation of Aboriginal Peoples

This poster investigates the Canadian mainstream media’s power and participation in discourses of subjugation surrounding contemporary Aboriginal issues in a manner that discriminates against the realities of Aboriginal cultures and peoples and the historical context of the inequitable Aboriginal social location in Canada. I examine the ways in which the Canadian media has engaged in “reality construction” whereby a particular ideological perspective is imposed on the public that constructs Aboriginal peoples through stereotypes, omission of historical fact, and appropriation of identity. This is demonstrated by an analysis of the portrayal of Aboriginal peoples as a monolithic “problem people” for the Canadian nation in four prevalent categories: 1) as a threat to Canada’s national interests; 2) as a risk to Canada’s social order; 3) as an economic liability; and, 4) as a problem for the criminal justice system (Fleras and Elliot 2003:327). This was evident in reporting on the Kaschewan Reserve water contamination in 2000, the Marshall Decision court ruling in 1999, and the Oka Crisis protests in 1990. The discourses analyzed here are derived from particular power relations that produce stereotypical reporting in support of the dominant interests, thus manufacturing public opinion that divides Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal citizens by reducing the complexities of Aboriginal concerns. This reporting serves to justify the biased prescriptions of the Canadian federal government that discriminate against the values and realities of Aboriginal peoples. Finally, I identify the potential for resistance to these discourses through evidence of expanding Aboriginal media control and expression.

Lawyers and Judges on Circuit in Canada’s Northwest Territories in the Twentieth Century

This article presents a few selected vignettes of lawyers and judges on criminal court circuit in Canada’s North during the last century. It seeks to provide a discrete historical database that may be useful to counsel and judges when discharging their northern court duties. It also captures some of the Aboriginal issues that continue to arise in the Northwest Territories and Nunavut.

Native Americans: a visual exploration by S. N. Paleja

Paleja, S.N. Native Americans: a visual exploration. Toronto: Annick Press, 2013. Print. This book is a non-fiction text using graphics to cover topics as diverse as Aboriginal arrival, culture, language, food, housing, and the environment to present-day Aboriginal issues. It is chock-full of information using a variety of non-linguistic representations, such as graphs, pictographs, and a variety of graphic organizers in the form of timelines and other visuals. The colourful pictures help to draw children’s interest and they also help reluctant readers access the content. A major drawback of the text is that too much information is covered, which means that many of the facts have been overgeneralized and can result in children applying the content to all aboriginal groups. There are occasional problems with diction, such as using the word “tribes” instead of “First Nations”. Also, there should have been more focus on their culture, what issues they face, and how those issues are dealt with in their communities. The book is intended for children ages 9-12 but too often, the language used is difficult for readers at this age. In an attempt to include a vast amount of information the graphics become confusing and are difficult to interpret. This book is a good starting point for those interested in this topic and is certainly recommended reading for an elementary school. The timelines and information capture some of the most important points in the historical development of the Aboriginal Peoples. Recommended: 3 out of 4 stars Reviewer: Alicia OdeenAlicia worked for 5 years in a high school library before getting her dream job at the Bruce Peel Special Collections Library. She now spends most of her time reading stories about dinosaurs, robots, and trains with her 3 year old son William.

FROM “INDIANS” TO “FIRST NATIONS”: CHANGING ANGLO-CANADIAN PERCEPTIONS OF THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIAN IN THE TWENTIETH CENTURY*

A look at three university-organized conferences, the first in 1939, the second in 1966, and the most recent in 1997, reveals an increasing awareness of Aboriginal issues — particularly in the 1990s. From the mid- to the late twentieth century, Indians, now generally known as the First Nations, moved from the periphery into the centre of academic interest. The entrance of Aboriginal people, “the third solitude,” has altered completely the nature of Canada’s unity debate. Section 35 of the Constitution Act, 19821 affirms the existence of Aboriginal and treaty rights. The definition of “Aboriginal peoples of Canada” in the new constitution of 1982 now includes the Métis, as well as the First Nations and Inuit. Today, no academic conference in Canada on federalism, identities, and nationalism, can avoid discussion of Aboriginal Canada.