Media Constructions of Aboriginality: implications for engagement with coal seam gas development in Australia

Abstract

Recent neo-liberal policy frameworks in Australia advocate economic development opportunities for Aboriginal Australians as a viable strategy to redress the marginalisation and social disadvantage that appear to characterise many Aboriginal communities. In New South Wales (NSW), Aboriginal peoples are currently negotiating with industry for the chance to participate in coal seam gas (CSG) development opportunities. Based upon research focusing on CSG development in the Northern NSW region, this paper argues that certain constructions of Aboriginality inhibit successful Aboriginal engagement with the economic opportunities provided by CSG. This paper illuminates the role of the media in facilitating dominant discourse about Aboriginality and the implications of those constructions for Aboriginal engagement with the mainstream economy. Findings demonstrate that the media are complicit in constructing Aboriginal peoples in a way that could prejudice their attempts to engage in economic opportunities that do not align with the dominant constructions of Aboriginality.

Energy solution or future pollution? Applying an energy justice perspective to coal seam gas in New South Wales

“…Consultative processes entail their own limitations, such as the likelihood of all affected parties learning of the opportunity to add a submission, and further, the particular degree of confidence that is necessary to be able to come forward and express one's views (Ross, Buchy, and Proctor 2002). Perhaps these barriers are some of the reasons for the lack of Indigenous responses to public inquiries, particularly to earlier submission processes, even if groups have been involved in different aspects of the CSG industry or the opposition movement (de Rijke 2013c; Trigger et al 2014;Wheeler-Jones et al 2015 Howlett andHartwig 2017). This may also be attributed to a deeper cynicism among Indigenous groups who, despite some recent improvements, have been systematically marginalised by non-Indigenous decision-making and governance procedures for generations (Neale and Vincent 2017).…”

“…Recognition-based justice that values Indigenous knowledge is, however, far from straightforward. Common intraand intergroup Indigenous disputes complicate the romantic non-Indigenous portrayal of homogenous and harmonious Indigenous community politics (see Wheeler-Jones et al 2015;Norman 2016). Questions then emerge in Indigenous communities too about whose knowledge counts and how decisions might be informed by sometimes widely diverging positions on extractive industry developments.…”