Western Australia, 2008
An Inside Look at Aboriginal Studies
I spent January 2008 traveling through Western Australia with a group of 30 students and 2 professors in an ethnographic study of the indigenous peoples. Our course began and ended in Perth where I discovered their society is 30-40 years behind ours as there is still much social segregation between Aboriginal and white peoples. Aboriginal people just recently received a public apology from the government, recognizing wrong doings from hundreds of years ago but offering few means of reconciliation. While in Perth we attended lecture at Curtin University.
Our course then brought us to the far less civilized cities of Albany, Hyden, and New Norcia where we spent a great deal of time with local Aboriginal people in their natural setting. From these authorities, we learned the brutal truths of the Aboriginal past which has unique parallels between our own Native American and African American peoples. Upon white European settlement, the Aboriginal people were viewed as less than human and soon lost their land, families, and familiar way of life.
As a student leader, these truths scared me. I began to question the untold history of my own country. I traveled to Alabama and Atlanta with my Leadership Fellows class last winter term studying civil rights and the knowledge gained during that course gave me much to compare during my experience in Australia. As a leader it is essential to realize that the popular, dominate way is not always the right way- we all must take time to learn and appreciate the differences of others before pushing our own ways onto others.
Our course concluded in Perth where we spent Australia Day on the Swan River attending both white celebratory festivities and Aboriginal Survival Day concerts and memorials. The distinction between the two groups on this holiday solidified my perception of Australia’s socially separated culture.
I would highly recommend this course to any students looking to explore the imense impact of dominate, white settlers on native peoples and the cutlure, territory, and livestyle they love.
