One People

Abstract

This article uses a series of Commonwealth government assimilation propaganda booklets published between 1957 and 1963 as the starting point for an exploration of the relationship between Aboriginal assimilation policy and changing conceptions of Australian nationhood. It argues that the ethnic nationalism that provided the foundations of the White Australia policy in the federation era, and of Aboriginal policy for much of the interwar period, was giving way in the 1950s and 1960s to a stronger emphasis on civic nationalism; and that the Commonwealth promoted this shift in the interests of securing the national inclusion of indigenous Australians.

This article has been peer-reviewed.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Russell McGregor

Russell McGregor is Associate Professor of History in the School of Arts and Social Sciences at James Cook University, Townsville. He has published extensively on the history of settler Australian ideas about Aborigines, including the award-winning book Imagined Destinies (1997). His more recent publications focus on post-World War II assimilation policies, leading into his current research project on the place of Aborigines and Aboriginality in settler imaginings of Australian nationhood.