Surviving School and “Survival Schools”: Resistance, Compulsion and Negotiation in Aboriginal Engagements with Schooling

Thomas, A; Marsden, B

Surviving School and “Survival Schools”: Resistance, Compulsion and Negotiation in Aboriginal Engagements with Schooling

Thomas, A

Marsden, B

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Publisher:: Liverpool University Press
Publication Type:: Journal Article
Citation:: Labour History: Volume 121, Issue 1, 2021, 121, (1), pp. 33-55
Issue Date:: 2021-11-01

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Field	Value	Language
dc.contributor.author	Thomas, A https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5460-5641
dc.contributor.author	Marsden, B
dc.date.accessioned	2022-01-18T01:06:21Z
dc.date.available	2022-01-18T01:06:21Z
dc.date.issued	2021-11-01
dc.identifier.citation	Labour History: Volume 121, Issue 1, 2021, 121, (1), pp. 33-55
dc.identifier.issn	0023-6942
dc.identifier.issn	1839-3039
dc.identifier.uri	http://hdl.handle.net/10453/153249
dc.description.abstract	<jats:p> In Australia, Aboriginal peoples have sought to exploit and challenge settler colonial schooling to meet their own goals and needs, engaging in strategic, diverse and creative ways closely tied to labour markets and the labour movement. Here, we bring together two case studies to illustrate the interplay of negotiation, resistance and compulsion that we argue has characterised Aboriginal engagements with school as a structure within settler colonial capitalism. Our first case study explains how Aboriginal families in Victoria and New South Wales deliberately exploited gaps in school record collecting to maintain mobility during the mid-twentieth century and engaged with labour markets that enabled visits to country. Our second case study explores the Strelley mob’s establishment of independent, Aboriginal-controlled bilingual schools in the 1970s to maintain control of their labour and their futures. Techniques of survival developed in and around schooling have been neglected by historians, yet they demonstrate how schooling has been a strategic political project, both for Aboriginal peoples and the Australian settler colonial state.</jats:p>
dc.language	en
dc.publisher	Liverpool University Press
dc.relation.ispartof	Labour History: Volume 121, Issue 1
dc.relation.isbasedon	10.3828/jlh.2021.17
dc.rights	info:eu-repo/semantics/embargoedAccess
dc.subject	1503 Business and Management, 2103 Historical Studies, 2202 History and Philosophy of Specific Fields
dc.subject.classification	History
dc.title	Surviving School and “Survival Schools”: Resistance, Compulsion and Negotiation in Aboriginal Engagements with Schooling
dc.type	Journal Article
utslib.citation.volume	121
utslib.for	1503 Business and Management
utslib.for	2103 Historical Studies
utslib.for	2202 History and Philosophy of Specific Fields
pubs.organisational-group	/University of Technology Sydney
pubs.organisational-group	/University of Technology Sydney/Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences
pubs.organisational-group	/University of Technology Sydney/Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences/Social and Political Sciences Program
utslib.copyright.status	open_access	*
utslib.copyright.embargo	2023-11-01T00:00:00+1000Z
dc.date.updated	2022-01-18T01:06:20Z
pubs.issue	1
pubs.publication-status	Published
pubs.volume	121
utslib.citation.issue	1

Abstract:

In Australia, Aboriginal peoples have sought to exploit and challenge settler colonial schooling to meet their own goals and needs, engaging in strategic, diverse and creative ways closely tied to labour markets and the labour movement. Here, we bring together two case studies to illustrate the interplay of negotiation, resistance and compulsion that we argue has characterised Aboriginal engagements with school as a structure within settler colonial capitalism. Our first case study explains how Aboriginal families in Victoria and New South Wales deliberately exploited gaps in school record collecting to maintain mobility during the mid-twentieth century and engaged with labour markets that enabled visits to country. Our second case study explores the Strelley mob’s establishment of independent, Aboriginal-controlled bilingual schools in the 1970s to maintain control of their labour and their futures. Techniques of survival developed in and around schooling have been neglected by historians, yet they demonstrate how schooling has been a strategic political project, both for Aboriginal peoples and the Australian settler colonial state.

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http://hdl.handle.net/10453/153249