Paper short abstract:

Organisations dealing with Aboriginal issues by employing Aboriginal workers play a significant role in the socialities of Aboriginal people in the suburbs. Exploring their role not only shows the two-way appropriation from the Aboriginal and State side but also questions this binary relationship itself.

Paper long abstract:

Not much discussion has happened on the role of organisations in Aboriginal people's socialities. In some studies of remote areas, the contrast between the government design of these organisations and Aboriginal peoples' mode of social operation is often pointed out. In urban contexts the dynamics are slightly different.

This paper will discuss the urban dynamics of Aboriginal people's socialities and identity by focusing on the role of organisations and their workers with Aboriginal designated positions in south western Sydney. South western Sydney has the second largest concentration of Aboriginal people in Australia. It is a low socio-economic working class suburb, where people are residentially dispersed in ethnic terms.　They do not have the characteristics of kinship, strong ties to the locality, or shared histories that one commonly encounters as the base of social relationships in rural and remote areas. In these areas organisations dealing with Aboriginal issues employing Aboriginal workers play a significant role in creating and maintaining Aboriginal peoples' social relationships. 　However, it is a double-edge sword. On one hand, Aboriginal people use these organisations to create their own 'Aboriginal space'. On the other hand, the government assumption of the concept of community and Aboriginality often distracts Aboriginal people from creating and maintaining their social relationships. Exploring this two-way appropriation will not only show how this confusion and ambiguity are the part of experience of being Aboriginal in urban areas but also question the boundaries between 'Aboriginal' and 'non-Aboriginal'.