Archives
'Merging' the Aboriginal Population
Welfare, justice, power and the separation of Aboriginal children in Victoria
David McCallum
School of Social Sciences, Victoria University, Melbourne, VIC
Abstract
This paper sets out some of the parameters of social intervention in the family in Australia around the turn of the 20th 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.
Keywords
Aborigines, family, child removal, sociology, history
References
Argus (1894) January 29.
Argus (1908) January 10.
Dean M (1999) Governmentality. Power and Rule in Modern Society. London: Sage.
Donzelot J (1979) The Policing of Families New York: Pantheon.
Ewald F (1990) Norms, discipline and the law. Representations 30:138-161.
Foucault M (1979) Discipline and Punish: the Birth of the Prison [trans. A Sheridan]. Harmondsworth: Penguin.
Foucault M (1991) Governmentality [trans. P Pasquino]. In G Burchell, C Gordon and P Miller (eds) The Foucault Effect. Studies in Governmentality. London: Harvester Wheatsheaf: 87-104.
Hacking I (1986) Making up people. In T Heller, M Sosna and D Wellbery (eds) Reconstructing Individualism. Stanford: Stanford University Press. pp. 222-36.
Herald (1899) January 20.
Hindess B (2000) Democracy and the Neo-Liberal Promotion of Arbitrary Power' CRISPP 3(4):68-84.
Hindess B (2001) The Liberal government of unfreedom. Alternatives 26:93-111.
Hirst PQ (1981) The genesis of the social. Politics and Power 3 London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.
Hunt A (1992) Foucault's expulsion of law: Towards a retrieval. Law and Social Inquiry 17(1):1-38.
Hunt A and Wickham G (1994) Foucault and Law. Towards a Sociology of Law as Governance. London: Pluto.
Jaggs D (1986) Neglected and Criminal: Foundations of Child Welfare Legislation in Victoria. Melbourne: Centre for Youth and Community Studies, Phillip Institute of Technology.
McCallum D (1982-3) Eugenics, psychology and education in Australia. In R Teese and G Wickham (eds) Melbourne Working Papers 4. University of Melbourne: 17-33.
McCallum D (1993) Problem children and familial relations. In D Meredyth and D Tyler (eds) Child and Citizen. Genealogies of Schooling and Subjectivity. Nathan: Institute for Cultural Policy Studies Griffith University: 129-152.
McCallum D (1997) Mental health, criminality and the human sciences. In A Peterson and R Buntine (eds) Foucault, Health and Medicine. London: Routledge.
McCallum D (2004) Law and norm. Justice administration and the human sciences in early juvenile justice in Victoria. Newcastle Law Review 7(2):62-71.
Pepper P (1980) You Are What You Make Yourself To Be. The Story of a Victorian Aboriginal Family 1842-1980. Melbourne: Hyland House.
Powell R and Kennedy B (2005) Rene Baker. File #28/ EDP. Fremantle: Fremantle Arts Centre Press.
Public Records Office of Victoria (1898-1946) VPRS 1694: Central Board for the Protection of Aborigines-Correspondence Files.
Reiger K (1985) The Disenchantment of the Home. Modernising the Australian Family 1880-1940. Melbourne: Oxford University Press.
Rose N (1985) The Psy Complex. Politics, Education and Psychology 1850-1990. London: Routledge.
Rose N (1990) Governing the Soul. The Shaping of the Private Self. London: Routledge.
Rose N and Valverde M (1998) Governed by law? Social and Legal Studies 7:541-551.
Rose N (2004) Governing the social. In N Gane (ed) The Future of Social Theory. London and New York: Continuum: 167-185.
Tyler D ( 1982-3) The development of the concept of juvenile delinquency in Victoria 1855-1905. In R Teese and G Wickham (eds) Melbourne Working Papers 4. University of Melbourne: 1-15.
van Krieken R (1991) Children And The State. Social Control And The Formation Of Australian Child Welfare. Sydney: Allen and Unwin.
Victoria (1864) Neglected and Criminal Children's Act.
Victoria (1872) First Report of the Royal Commission on Industrial and Reformatory Schools and the Sanitary Station. Melbourne: Victorian Government Printer.
Victoria (1886) The Aborigines Protection Act.
Victoria (1890) Crimes Act s. 333.
Victoria (1899-1900) 35th Report of the Board for the Protection of the Aborigines, Victorian Parliamentary Papers (VPP), Session 1899-1900, vol 4.
Victoria (1900) 36th Report of the Board for the Protection of the Aborigines, VPP, Session 1900, vol 3.
Victoria (1901a) 37th Report of the Board for the Protection of the Aborigines, VPP, Session 1901, vol 3.
Victoria (1901b) Department for Neglected Children and Reformatory Schools. Report for the Year 1900. VPP, Session 1901, vol 3.
Victoria (1902-3) 38th Report of the Board for the Protection of the Aborigines, VPP, Session 1902-3, vol 2.
Victoria (1906) Report of the Inspector General of Penal Establishments and Gaols for the Year 1905. VPP, Session 1906, vol 2.
Victoria. Children's Court Act 1906 s.9
Victorian Children's Aid Society (1895-1901) Minute Book of Sub-Committee 1895-1901, MS 10051 Victorian Childrens Aid Society Collection, MS 10051 Box 4/1, La Trobe Collection, State Library of Victoria.
eContent Home