Rights or Containment? The politics of Aboriginal cultural heritage in Victoria

Abstract

Aboriginal cultural heritage protection, and the legislative regimes that underpin it, constitute important mechanisms for Aboriginal people to assert their rights and responsibilities. This is especially so in Victoria, where legislation vests wide-ranging powers and control of cultural heritage with Aboriginal communities. However, the politics of cultural heritage, including its institutionalisation as a scientific body of knowledge within the state, can also result in a powerful limiting of Aboriginal rights and responsibilities. This paper examines the politics of cultural heritage through a case study of a small forest in north-west Victoria. Here, a dispute about logging has pivoted around differing conceptualisations of Aboriginal cultural heritage values and their management. Cultural heritage, in this case, is both a powerful tool for the assertion of Aboriginal rights and interests, but simultaneously a set of boundaries within which the state operates to limit and manage the challenge those assertions pose. The paper will argue that Aboriginal cultural heritage is a politically contested and shifting domain structured around Aboriginal law and politics, Australian statute and the legacy of colonial history.

Keywords:

• Aboriginal cultural heritage
• postcolonialism
• Aboriginal identity
• land use planning
• land use management

Acknowledgments

The author would like to respectfully acknowledge members of the Wadi Wadi community and the Aboriginal community of Swan Hill for their participation in this research, without which this research and paper would not have been possible. She would also like to thank staff at DSE, DPI and AAV for their assistance, and the independent reviewers of this paper whose constructive comments were invaluable.

Notes

1. Country is an Aboriginal English word that refers to ‘the collective identity shared by a group of people, their land (and sea) estate’ (Palmer 2001). It includes all the ‘values, places, resources, stories, and cultural obligations’ associated with that estate (Smyth 1994).

2. The author respectfully acknowledges and gratefully accepts the permission of Wadi Wadi representatives to speak about Nyah Forest and its cultural and spiritual importance to Wadi Wadi people.

3. Aboriginal Affairs Victoria is a department of the Victorian government responsible for the administration of cultural heritage protection legislation, and a range of other Aboriginal welfare, employment and justice programs. The AAV Register is a database of all recorded Aboriginal cultural heritage sites in the state.

4. This is a reference to the archaeological study of Nyah Forest conducted by Coutts et al. where Wadi Wadi human remains were excavated from a large burial mound.