‘Merging’ the Aboriginal population: Welfare, justice, power and the separation of Aboriginal children in Victoria

Abstract

This paper sets out some of the parameters of social intervention in the family in Australia around the turn of the 20^th century in ways which permit interventions in Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal populations to be broadly compared and contrasted. It focuses on forms of intervention underpinned by the kind of liberal political reasoning that allowed administrators to intervene on the basis of assessments of the capacity of families to govern themselves (Hindess 2000, 2001). The paper draws on archival material in Victoria, and the evidence of interventions in Aboriginal populations focuses on the removal of Aboriginal children from their communities in various parts of the state during this period. ‘Race’ comes to be constructed in terms that allow legislators and administrators to make discriminations within Aboriginal populations in order to manage them.

Key Words:

• Aborigines
• family
• child removal
• sociology
• history