Intervention or Inversion

Australian Indigenous affairs are underscored by a central tension between the rights of Indigenous peoples to self-determination, and assimilation policy premised on cultural homogeneity. This tension is most evident between the Northern Territory Government-commissioned Anderson and Wild (Citation2007) report, entitled Ampe akelyernemane meke mekarle: Little children are sacred, which recommends the continuation of community-led programs in response to childhood sexual abuse in Indigenous communities, and the Commonwealth's Northern Territory National Emergency Response Act 2007 (NTNER), commonly known as ‘the intervention’, which Altman and Hinkson (Citation2007) claim represents a ‘coercive’ attempt to dismantle Indigenous rights to manage their affairs. In her critique of cultural incompatibility (culturalism), McConaghy (Citation2000) observes that radicalism, or cultural difference policy in oppositional histories of power and control, seeks to invert colonial power relations. Instead, argues McConaghy, radicalism (much like assimilation) reinstitutes colonial relations of dominance. I draw on culturalism to explore the tension between Indigenous self-determination (a form of inversion), represented within the Little children are sacred report, and intervention, as a model not for coercive assimilation but for cultural integration (Sutton Citation2001a; Pearson Citation2007). I propose that cultural inversion, as a justificatory model for addressing dysfunction within Indigenous communities, displaces the needs and rights of individuals for mainstream intervention. Keywords: CultureIndigenousInterventionInversionAssimilation Notes [1] Acknowledgments: I am most grateful to the editors of Anthropological Forum both for allowing me a space within which to develop my thoughts in and around cultural difference frameworks through a reading of the emergency response to the crisis of abuse in the Northern Territory (‘intervention’) and for their editorial assistance. I am also grateful for the erudite comments and feedback of the anonymous reviewers, whose suggestions have helped me considerably to improve the original submission. Aspects of this article were earlier presented in a paper given to the joint Australian Sociological Association (TASA) and the Sociological Association of Australia & New Zealand (SAANZ) conference at the University of Auckland, 2–5 December 2008. [2] Dr Stella Coram's research interests are race formations and the changing significance of race in the contexts of Australian sport, education, social policy and media culture. She has published in peer-reviewed journals, such as International Review for the Sociology of Sport, Just Policy, Australian Journal of Indigenous Education, and British Journal of the Sociology of Education (forthcoming). [3] A national apology to the Stolen Generations was finally delivered by Prime Minister Kevin Rudd (Citation2008) on 13 February 2008 at an historic opening of the national Parliament

Colonialism · Culturalism · Indigenous · Political radicalism · Political science · Politics · Radicalization · Sociology · Anthropological Studies and Insights · Gender Studies · Indigenous Health, Education, and Rights · Law · Qualitative Research Methods and Ethics

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