Event: book launch and discussion

Sarah is a friend of a friend of mine and her work is thoughtful and contemporary. Recommend this event, the launch of her new book.

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Sarah Maddison
Black Politics: Inside the complexity of Aboriginal Political Culture
Published by: Allen & Unwin
In conversation with Tom Calma

Thursday, March 12, 2009 / 6.30 for 7pm
Venue: gleebooks, 49 Glebe Point Rd, Glebe
Cost: $10/$7 conc. gleeclub welcome

Drawing on extensive interviews with activists and politicians, Black
Politics explains the dynamics of Aboriginal politics. It reveals the
challenges and tensions that have shaped community, regional and
national relations over the past 25 years.

Why do Aboriginal communities struggle so hard to be heard in
mainstream politics? How do remote and urban communities respond to
frequent dramatic shifts in federal and state Aboriginal policies?

Since the early 1990s Aboriginal Australia has experienced profound
political changes with very real and lasting implications, from the
Mabo land rights case in 1992, to the abolition of the Aboriginal and
Torres Strait Islander Commission (ATSIC) in 2005, to more recent
attempts to reduce the autonomy of remote communities. Sarah Maddison
identifies the tensions that lie at the heart of all Aboriginal
politics, arguing that until Australian governments come to grips with
this complexity they will continue to make bad policy with disastrous
consequences for Aboriginal people.

Based on original interviews with influential Aboriginal leaders
including Mick Dodson, Tom Calma, Alison Anderson, Jackie Huggins,
Warren Mundine and Larissa Behrendt, Black Politics seeks to
understand why Aboriginal communities find it so difficult to be
heard, get support, and organise internally. It also offers some
suggestions for the future, based on the collective wisdom of
political players at all levels of Aboriginal politics.

'Sarah Maddison has brought together a formidable range of Indigenous
voices and sources and placed their narratives within an analysis to
show the depth and complexity of Indigenous cultural and political
expression.' - From the foreword by Pat Dodson

Sarah Maddison is Senior Associate Dean in the Faculty of Arts and
Social Sciences at the University of NSW. She is coeditor of Silencing
Dissent and coauthor of Activist Wisdom.

Mr Tom Calma is Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice
Commissioner and Race Discrimination Commissioner

Mr Calma is an Aboriginal elder from the Kungarakan tribal group and a
member of the Iwaidja tribal group whose traditional lands are south
west of Darwin and on the Coburg Peninsula in Northern Territory,
respectively. He has been involved in Indigenous affairs at a local,
community, state, national and international level and worked in the
public sector for over 35 years.

Mr Calma has broad experience in public administration, particularly
in Indigenous education programs and in developing employment and
training programs for Indigenous people from both a national policy
and program perspective.