The social effects of native title: recognition, translation, coexistence

Abstract

Native title has had a profound social impact in Australia.Its effects have been felt from the local level through to the national level ever since the success of the Mabo No.2 case in the Federal Court.But despite the involvement of large numbers of anthropologists in the field of native title practice (alongside lawyers, historians, archaeologists and others trained in the social sciences and humanities) there has been surprisingly little reflection on the social effects of native title.Native title law and native title claims, negotiation of Indigenous Land Use Agreements (ILUAs) and other processes associated with the Native Title Act 1993 (Cth) (NTA) and its amendments all present themselves as candidates for analysis by social scientists.But although there is now an extensive literature on native title, almost all of this literature is concerned with Native Title practice.1 Far fewer scholars and practitioners-many of whom are publishing academics as well as consultants or employees of various agencies engaged in native title work-have engaged with native title as a social phenomenon potentially (we would argue necessarily) deserving of critical reflection.This collection seeks to make a contribution towards the study of the social effects of native title.Based on a workshop which took place in November 2005 at The Australian National University, convened by the Centre for Aboriginal Economic Policy Research, the collection includes papers by anthropologists, claimants and other practitioners and scholars dealing with the direct and indirect effects of native title on particular places and people.In particular the collection provides a range of responses to widespread complaints by Aboriginal Australians and Torres Strait Islanders that native title delivers little in the way of meaningful recognition of customary property rights (or the systems of 'law and custom' in which these rights are embedded), that where such 'recognition' occurs it 1 There is, however, a more developed anthropological literature-which includes a significant critical dimension-on Australia's various State and Territory Aboriginal Land Rights Acts; see, for example, Berndt and Berndt (1984);Hiatt (1984); Merlan (1998); Morphy and Morphy (2001); Rumsey (1989); Smith (2003).Although they maintain a focus on Native Title practice, Sutton (2003) and Toussaint (2004) both make valuable contributions to the anthropological theorisation of native title, whilst Povinelli (2002) contains a significant critique of the social effects of Native Title.A number of the papers in Sullivan and Bauman (2006) (in particular Bauman 2006a;Correy 2006;Langton, et. al. 2006) also discuss the social effects of native title.Likewise, much of the work undertaken by the Native Title Research Unit (NTRU) at the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies is relevant to the social effects of native title.In particular, the work of the NTRU's Indigenous Facilitation and Mediation Project has examined the conflict and unsustainable outcomes arising out of poor decision making and management within the native title process (see Bauman 2005Bauman , 2006b;;Bauman and Williams 2005).

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