Book Review
Counting, Health and Identity: a History of Aboriginal Health and Demography in Western Australia and Queensland 1900-1940
Gordon Briscoe
ISBN: 978-0855754471; 2003; 390 pages; Aboriginal Studies Press;
Maggie Walter
Senior Lecturer, School of Sociology and Social Work, University of Tasmania, Hobart TAS
While the elements of the title might seem a divergent combination, these seemingly disparate aspects are coherently presented within this text. The book’s focus is on the process of counting Aboriginal populations between 1900 and 1940 in both Western Australia and Queensland. The health, disease and identity dimensions are explored through an analysis of the social nature of Indigenous health and its intimate connection with population structures. The picture developed from these three themes is one of a complex interaction. The author demonstrates how the nature and structure of the Indigenous population, especially the common and erroneous understandings of that population by Aboriginal administrations in both Queensland and Western Australia, were crucial in the shaping of policy and administrative responses to health and disease among Aborigines in the two states. Developed from the author’s PhD thesis, the historical archival and documentary research detailed in the book is thorough and well-organised and the text is elegantly written.
The book develops chronologically and by state. Each chapter details an individual decade in the period 1900 – 1940, first covering the situation in Western Australia and then moving to Queensland. Although for practical reasons only two states are covered, the author notes that Western Australia and Queensland might be taken as generally accurate case studies for the period. Indeed, despite obvious differences in the timing and nature of Aboriginal and settler interactions in the two states, the similarities of both the counting processes and the health and identity outcomes for the Indigenous population are striking.
The demographic dimension is the centre of the book’s story. Given the specific exclusion under s.127 of the Commonwealth Constitution of 1902 of ‘Aboriginal natives’ from official census counts, I was intrigued to learn just how much counting and estimating of Aboriginal populations was actually occurring during the early years of the 20th century. Aboriginal population data was still meticulously collected by state authorities but then removed from the formal census figures. Such counting inevitably raised the problematic issue of the variable and varying definitions of just who was an Aborigine and who was not: a numerical nuisance for the counters but a dilemma of lived identity for affected Aboriginal people.
Critically, these counting exercises contributed significantly to the widely held belief of the time that the Aborigines were a ‘dying race’. Yet, as Briscoe ably demonstrates, estimations of the Aboriginal population of both states were erroneously based on an assumption of large numbers of uncounted Aborigines living ‘out bush’ and away from view. For example, the text (p50) cites early counts in Queensland that estimated a hidden Aboriginal population of up to 20,000 people. These flawed presumptions meant that the documented reduction of the Aboriginal population during this period was effectively a paper rather than an actual decline. Briscoe’s own analysis of these data, excluding the non-existent estimated bush population, shows a growth in the Aboriginal population during this period, not a reduction.
On the epidemiological side, the text chronicles the often shameful and heart-rending treatment of Aboriginal people affected by venereal diseases and leprosy. Primary evidence is provided of the differential treatment of Aboriginal peoples from that delivered to Europeans with the same diseases. For example, in Western Australia from 1908 to 1918, Aborigines suspected of having chronic infections were rounded up by police and incarcerated in notorious blacks-only, lock-up hospitals. Whites infected with sexually transmitted diseases went south to Perth for treatment. Despite the horrific outcomes for many Aborigines, Briscoe’s careful examination indicates that these were not necessarily the calculated results of deliberate strategies and policies. Rather the dire health outcomes and tragic life events of those affected were often the result of compromised policy, neglect, under-resourcing, discrimination at the local level and cost-cutting; combined with shifting the blame, cost and responsibility between Aboriginal administrations and local civil and health institutions. The picture depressingly echoes the individual/community tragedy and policy disaster that is Aboriginal health in Australia today.
The preface notes that Gordon Briscoe was a co-founder and principal activist of both the Redfern Aboriginal Health Service and Aboriginal Legal Service during the late 1960s. This pioneering background in community development and Aboriginal activism no doubt informs and adds passion to the author’s unique approach to the topic. While too detailed and specific for an undergraduate text, the book is a scholarly and valuable addition to our understanding of Aboriginal/settler relations in Australia, in both a contemporary and historical sense.
eContent Home
