Self-determination

Welcome to another edition of ‘Tips from the Toolkit’, where we share valuable tips and insight from the Indigenous Governance Toolkit to support you with your governance journey.???

This edition explores the concept of self-determination and how it applies to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.?

Understanding self-determination

The ongoing impacts of colonisation mean that self-determination is particularly important to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. With self-determination, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander groups can make their own decisions about their governance and the kind of group they want to build.?

For many Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, self-determination means having genuine decision-making power and responsibility about what happens:?

• on their lands and waters?

• in their affairs?

• in their governing systems?

• in their development strategies.?

When thinking about self-determination, it might be useful to consider these phrases:?

• ‘First Nations people in charge’?

• ‘We make the decisions’?

• ‘In the driver’s seat’ or ‘steering our own course’?

• ‘Being in charge of our own destinies’?

• ‘Community-controlled health organisations and other services’. [1]?

Murdi Paaki Regional Assembly and self-determination

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander viewers should be aware that this video may contain images and voices of persons who have passed.

Murdi Paaki Regional Assembly have encouraged and enabled self-determination in their approach to governance.

Former Murdi Paaki chair Sam Jeffries talks about self-determination and governance in Murdi Paaki Regional Assembly.

“Our mob believe that true self-determination is making the decisions about what you feel is important to you.”

– Former Murdi Paaki chair Sam Jeffries, Indigenous Governance Awards.

Defining self-determination

The word ‘self-determination’ itself is an important reflection on what it means – and has meant – for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples throughout history.?

Self-determination?

Before colonisation, there were Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander nations. The ‘self’ in self-determination was the nation as a collective and culturally based polity. A polity is a group of people who work together and operate as one political group.?

Self-determination?

With colonisation came efforts to terminate Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander nations. Settler-colonial states attempted to extinguish the collective identity of groups and remove their links with Country. In other words, they tried to reduce the ‘collective self’ of First Nations to ‘selfish’ (individualistic) determination.?

Self-determination?

Then followed an era where Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander nations fought for rights and recognition. They were able to determine their own collective identities and futures.?

Self-determination:?

Today, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander nations are working to implement the rights they have won. They are working to rebuild and exercise collective decision-making authority, to self-govern as nations again.?

– Adapted from Diane Smith, Developing Governance and Governing Development, 2021. [2]?

For more on self-determination for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, including the role of sovereignty, how groups are demonstrating self-determined practice in their governance, and what self-determination in action can look like, head to the Indigenous Governance Toolkit.

[1] Jackie Huggins, Karrina Nola, Larissa Baldwin and Kirsty Albion,?Passing the Message Stick?(Get Up, Original Power and Australian Progress, 2021), 78, [link]?

[2] Diane Smith, “Governing for Nation-Building, Thematic Introduction: Concepts, Issues and Trends,” in?Developing Governance and Governing Development: International Case Studies of Indigenous Futures, eds. Diane Smith, Alice Wighton, Stephen Cornell and Adam Vai Delaney (Maryland: Rowan & Littlefield, 2021), 111.?