ILPC 2027

Conformation to the disciplines of regular paid work is not a ‘natural’ state but the product of particular constructions of rationality and subjectivity. While analyses of resistance and control have often focused on industrial production processes and organised labour, the social construction of employment is nowhere more evident than in contemporary settler colonial societies. In these contexts, the dynamics of resistance and control can be particularly intense where there are pressures on Indigenous peoples—who may retain aspects of traditional livelihoods and attach very different meanings to paid work—to become fully incorporated into the capitalist labour process.  

This paper first explores this phenomenon conceptually and theoretically, comparing records of conflict and coercion in the early period of European industrialisation to recent ethnographic research into modes of Aboriginal engagement with, and resistance to, regimented work. It builds on an ongoing project at the Australian National University which seeks to understand the particular tensions associated with state efforts to increase Indigenous participation in the labour market, and situate these within the rich traditions of political economy and critical theory.

The author then explores two main conceptualisations of why some groups of Indigenous Australian peoples have remained only peripherally attached to the capitalist labour market, as well as the different policy implications of these approaches. The first view casts Indigenous disengagement from the labour market as associated with a ‘culture of poverty’ and personal dysfunction (cf. Mead). The attendant policy prescription is self-consciously coercive and has centred on punitive ‘work activation’ measures among welfare recipients. Newly-completed empirical research shows that this approach has not yielded the results governments have expected.

The alternate view draws on anthropological evidence of very different subjectivities among some Indigenous peoples in which relational obligations are prioritised over work commitments and the meanings attached to ‘work’ differ substantially from the mainstream. According to this perspective, increased Indigenous engagement with the labour market should be encouraged by promoting new forms of flexibility in paid work.

This paper documents the changing battle lines between these two policy perspectives over the last thirty years. It argues that, in line with international trends, coercive approaches to increasing Indigenous people’s participation in regimented paid work have come to dominate Australian policy. At the same time they have gained an aura of ‘moral authority’ in defining social norms despite their generally poor outcomes. Nonetheless, when confronted with the realities of enduring Indigenous resistance to external control, sympathetic employers have found ways to negotiate difference and institutionalise new forms of flexibility. Some of these—designed principally to accommodate Aboriginal sociality—can simultaneously benefit other workers.