This thesis focuses on processes of Aboriginal community-making in Redfern, an inner city suburb of Sydney, Australia. It addresses the ways in which the Australian state governs Aboriginal people by developing 'projects of legibility' (and illegibility) concerning Aboriginal community sociality. To address Redfern Aboriginal community-making requires focusing on the ambiguities arising from the contemporary policy of 'Aboriginal self-determination' and adopting an ethnohistorical approach to Aboriginal community-making that has arisen under this policy rubric. By ethnohistorical I refer to the engagement of Aboriginal people in Redfern in Aboriginal community-making policy practices and not a historiography of these policies. Attention will be paid to past and present negotiations concerning the (re)development of the Redfern Aboriginal community and their intersections in the state-led redevelopment process Aboriginal community- makers were engaged in during the course of my research in 2005-2007. These negotiations centre on attempts made to reproduce certain forms of sociality that both reveal and obscure Aboriginal social relations when inscribed in the category 'Aboriginal community'. This analysis is meant to contribute to the limited anthropological research that exists on urban Aboriginal experiences generally and research conducted on Aboriginal experiences in southeastern Australia. It addresses the complex social field of Aboriginal community-making practices that exist in Australia where Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal Australians are located within the bureaucratic structures of the state, institutional networks, as well as non-government community organisations. This research contributes to understanding 'the institutional construction of indigeneity' (Weiner 2006: 19) and how this informs the (re)development of urban Aboriginal communities.

Research Doctorate - Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) / Long-term independent travel is regarded by many commentators as an active quest for discovery, and has long been proclaimed by individuals and organisations, both within and outside the tourism industry, as having a social, cultural and educative role. As independent travel becomes an increasingly popular and important sector of the travel market, the guidebook as cultural text becomes a significant and powerful mediator of experience. Guidebooks have a prevailing capacity to define and represent places, peoples and cultures and, at the same time, present descriptive and prescriptive information that simultaneously constructs the traveller and shapes their perspectives and experiences. Independent travellers such as backpackers, in their quest for the ‘authentic’, often seek out experiences with other cultures and demonstrate a desire to learn about, and interact with, indigenous people and their cultures. This thesis is concerned with the complex process of the dialectic construction of the backpacker (the traveller) as a particular gazing and experiencing subject, and of places, peoples and cultures (the travelled) as objects of the gaze. Central to the thesis is a consideration of the role of the guidebook as an interpretative lens through which the constructed and mediated nature of both the traveller and the travelled can be examined and understood. Drawing on theoretical and methodological insights from the interdisciplinary fields of tourism studies and cultural studies, the thesis seeks to understand relationships between text, audience and culture in tourism. The interpretative method of textual analysis is married with qualitative interviews with a sample of backpackers to Australia to examine the interplay between travellers, guidebooks and experiences. An analysis of guidebooks published by Lonely Planet, Rough Guide and Let's Go reveals that representations of Aboriginal people and their cultures are central to constructing an ‘authentic’ experience for independent travellers to Australia. These representations are, however, not without contradiction, as traveller discourses of authenticity, cultural awareness, cultural sensitivity and responsible travel are mobilised concurrently with popular tourism imagery and stereotypes of Aboriginal Australia. For the backpackers interviewed, the discrepancies between discourses provided in guidebooks means that their engagement with texts is dynamic, and their experiences with, and understandings of, Aboriginal Australia are continuously negotiated and renegotiated throughout their travel experiences. I argue in this thesis that backpackers actively engage with narratives and representations of culture contained within guidebooks, and negotiate these textual contradictions to construct a particular type of experience and traveller-self to make sense of their travels in Aboriginal Australia. The findings of this thesis raise important questions about the role that the text plays as mediator between the traveller and the travelled culture, and the tensions, contradictions and negotiations between text and lived experience.

<b>Background</b>: Evidence-based policy making (EBPM) has become an article of faith. While critiques have begun to emerge, they are predominately based on theory or opinion. This thesis uses the 2008 case study of tobacco control policy making for Indigenous Australians to analyse empirically the concept of EBPM. <b>Research questions</b>: (1) How, if at all, did the Government use evidence in Indigenous tobacco control policy making? (2) What were the facilitators of and barriers to the use of evidence? (3) Does the case study augment or challenge the apparent inviolability of EBPM? <b>Methods</b>: Data were collected through: (1) a review of primary documents largely obtained under the Freedom of Information Act 1982; and (2) interviews with senior politicians, senior bureaucrats, government advisors, Indigenous health advocates and academics. <b>Results</b>: Historically, Indigenous smoking was not problematised because Indigenous people faced other urgent health/social problems and smoking was considered a coping mechanism. High prevalence data acquired salience in 2007/08 in the context of a campaign to reduce disparities between Indigenous and non-Indigenous health outcomes. Ensuing policy proposals were based on recommendations from literature reviews, but evidence contained in those reviews was weak; notwithstanding this, the proposals were adopted. Historical experiences led policy makers to give special weight to proposals supported by Indigenous stakeholders. Moreover, the perceived urgency of the problem was cited to justify a trial-and-evaluate approach. <b>Conclusion</b>: While the policies were not based on quality evidence, their formulation/adoption was neither irrational nor reckless. Rather, the process was a justifiable response to a pressing problem affecting a population for which barriers existed to data collection, and historical experiences meant that evidence was not the only determinant of policy success. The thesis proposes a more nuanced appraoch to conceptualising EBPM wherein evidence is neither a necessary nor a sufficient condition for policy. The approach recognises that rigorous evidence is always desirable but that, where circumstances affect the ability of such research being conducted, consideration must be given to acting on the basis of other knowledge (e.g. expert opinion, small-scale studies). Such an approach is justifiable where: (1) inaction is likely to lead to new/continued harm; and (2) there is little/no prospect of the intervention causing additional harm. Under this approach, non-evidentiary considerations (e.g. community acceptability) must be taken into account.

liv, 775 p. / Title page, contents and abstract only. The complete thesis in print form is available from the University Library. / Thesis (D.Litt)--University of Adelaide, 1971

The present thesis examines the themes of ‘shared history,' ‘place-making,' and ‘reconciliation' to assess how these come together in the establishment of an Aboriginal identity in Perth, Western Australia. Focusing on individuals who do not represent the common stereotypes associated with Aboriginal Australians, it will be demonstrated that these individuals are forced into an in-between place where they have to continually negotiate what Aboriginality means in the twenty-first century. Taking on this responsibility they become mediators, stressing a ‘shared history' in order to create a place for themselves in the non-Aboriginal landscape and to advance reconciliation between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal Australia by fighting the dominant discourse from within. Beginning with the State and Government's Native Title appeal premiss that Nyungar never existed, this thesis will examine this claim by first presenting an account of the history of southwest Western Australia to establish the place Aboriginal people have been forced into by the colonists during early settlement, and the processes of which extend into the present day. From there on in the focus will be on individual Aboriginal people and their careers and businesses, examining how they attempt to redefine what is perceived and accepted as Aboriginality through different interaction and mediation ‘tactics' with non-Aboriginal Australians. Finally, this thesis will take a closer look at the reconciliation movement in Australia and the people involved in it. It will determine different approaches to reconciliation and assess their possibility and meaning for the construction of a twenty-first century Aboriginal identity. The thesis will conclude that although Nyungar are forced into the dominant discourse, their resistance from within credits a new kind of Aboriginality that is just as valid as the ‘traditional' and ‘authentic' Aboriginality imagined by non-Aboriginal Australia.