Paper short abstract:

Cultural issues are too troublesome to mention in policy recommendations even where they could undermine the emphasis placed on northern development as a solution to Aboriginal social and economic problems.

Paper long abstract:

In the Politics of Suffering, Peter Sutton has a chapter titled, ‘The trouble with culture’ the purpose of which is to point out that cultural issues that impinge on how things are going in remote Aboriginal communities are too troublesome to mention in reports, government documents and policy recommendations, even though there is widespread recognition of the role tradition and values play in social life. With the current emphasis on developing the north, this wilful blindness to the relevant social and cultural issues raises problems for the future envisioned by policy makers and government for these remote communities. Faced with worlds without work it might be argued that people in remote communities are pre-adapted to the future. That is, we are in an Australian version of the Comaroff’s ‘Theory from the south’ (2012), only it's the north of the country for us, in which as the Comaroffs have argued the future of Europe can be seen in Southern Africa rather that the other way round. Thus for us in settled Australia, is our future being foreshadowed in the north? Are there desirable long-term forms of dependency, forms of dependency that do not demoralise or deprive people of valued purpose in life?