Fractional Identities: The Political Arithmetic of Aboriginal Victorians

Smith, Len; McCalman, Janet; Anderson, Ian; Smith, Sandra; Evans, Joanne; McCarthy, Gavan; Beer, Jane

doi:10.1162/jinh.2008.38.4.533

Cited by 33 publications

(32 citation statements)

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“…Full descriptions of the compilation and characteristics of the LIH Birth Cohort and of the KHRD have been published elsewhere (McCalman, Morley, & Mishra, 2008;Smith et al, 2008).…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…To resolve the financial dilemma and accelerate assimilation, the 1886 Half-Castes Act forced all Aboriginal people of mixed-ancestry to leave the reserves, live apart from their 'full-blood' relatives and make their own way in white society as 'legal whites'. Lacking skills, family support, and never recognised by white society as 'white', these 'fractional Aborigines' were caught in a twilight zone between two systems of entitlements: a psychologically and economically corrosive limbo that endured until the 1960s: too 'white' to be 'black' and too 'black' to be allowed to be 'white' (Broome, 2005;Smith et al, 2008).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Today, the Indigenous population of Victoria is entirely of part-Aboriginal descent. The destruction of Aboriginal Victoria between 1835 and 1885 must rate as one of the most rapid and catastrophic colonial dispossessions of the nineteenth century (Smith et al, 2008). See Fig.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Colonialism and the health transition: Aboriginal Australians and poor whites compared, Victoria, 1850–1985

McCalman

Smith

Anderson

et al. 2009

The History of the Family

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This paper presents the results of the first two longitudinal historical cradle-to-grave datasets constructed in Australia: the Aboriginal population of the state of Victoria, reconstituted backwards using genealogical research and vital registrations, 1835-1930; and an impoverished European population born at the Melbourne Lying-In Hospital, 1857-1900 and traced until 1985. It investigates the hypothesis that the health transition in indigenous people was different from that of the dominant non-indigenous population. Both of these studied sub-populations were highly stressed, resulting in high infant mortality and persistent tuberculosis mortality. The Aboriginal population suffered the additional burdens of racism and social exclusion, even though after the passage of the 1886 'Half-Castes Act', the majority of Aboriginal Victorians were legally 'white'. The impact of that legislation and the systematic exclusion of Aboriginal Victorians from federal entitlements in the twentieth century sent the Aboriginal health transition into reverse. The contrasting fates of poor whites and 'unofficial blacks' during the health transition demonstrate the health burdens of inequality and racial discrimination, and reveal that 'the gap' in life expectancy between Indigenous and nonIndigenous Australians is a historical product of long-term government policy and exclusion from citizenship and its entitlements.

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“…Full descriptions of the compilation and characteristics of the LIH Birth Cohort and of the KHRD have been published elsewhere (McCalman, Morley, & Mishra, 2008;Smith et al, 2008).…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Colonialism and the health transition: Aboriginal Australians and poor whites compared, Victoria, 1850–1985

McCalman

Smith

Anderson

et al. 2009

The History of the Family

Self Cite

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“…Thus it includes both 'official' Aboriginal people who were recorded by the government and their part-Aboriginal relatives who were merged with the white population, but who always considered themselves 'Aboriginal' and were discriminated against as 'unofficial' Aborigines (McCalman, Morley and Mishra, 2008;Smith et al 2008;McCalman, Smith, Anderson, Morley and Mishra, 2009). Survival analysis for the two populations divided into historical cohorts, revealed a difference between indigenous and poor white adult survival and infant mortality.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Survival analysis for the two populations divided into historical cohorts, revealed a difference between indigenous and poor white adult survival and infant mortality. While Aboriginal mortality was higher than the 'poor whites' in childhood and adulthood, Aboriginal babies did better than the LIH babies (Broome 2005;McCalman et al 2008;Smith et al 2008). See Fig.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Colonial health transitions: Aboriginal and ‘poor white’ infant mortality compared, Victoria 1850–1910

McCalman

Morley

Smith

et al. 2011

The History of the Family

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This paper presents results from the first two longitudinal historical cradle-to-grave datasets constructed in Australia: the Aboriginal population of the state of Victoria, reconstituted using genealogical research and vital registrations, 1835-1930; and an impoverished European population sample born at the Melbourne Lying-In Hospital, 1857-1900 and traced until 1985. It investigates the comparative infant mortality between these two severely disadvantaged population samples and finds apparently contradictory results. Aboriginal people had shorter survival at all ages apart from infancy. Infant mortality among the poor white women delivering in an urban charity hospital was extreme but their survival at all later life stages was superior to that of the Aborigines. Critical for both groups of babies and their mothers was the presence or absence of household support during pregnancy and the first year of life, and the poor whites' birth weights embodied a social gradient of degrees of family and breadwinner support. Aboriginal babies spent their first year of life, despite the community trauma of cruel government 'management' and exclusion from entitlements, in an ecology that protected them from the disorders of feeding and gastrointestinal disease that cut down so many of the poor white babies. The differences in both mortality and causes of death indicate very different relationships between babies and their mothers and fathers and with the state. The sudden fall in the Lying-In Hospital infant mortality from 1887 was effected by direct state and medical interventions. The equally sudden and continuing rise in infant mortality among the Victorian Aboriginal community can be traced to their expulsion from the support of the reserves and the commencement of decades of 'invisibility' and denial of state entitlements and medical care.

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Food Security and the Colonial Impact

Rhea

2016

Frontiers of Taste

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Fractional Identities: The Political Arithmetic of Aboriginal Victorians

Cited by 33 publications

References 1 publication

Colonialism and the health transition: Aboriginal Australians and poor whites compared, Victoria, 1850–1985

Colonialism and the health transition: Aboriginal Australians and poor whites compared, Victoria, 1850–1985

Colonial health transitions: Aboriginal and ‘poor white’ infant mortality compared, Victoria 1850–1910

Food Security and the Colonial Impact

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