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While there is much scholarship deconstructing 'mainstream' Australian perceptions of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, there has been little attention to how Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples perceive non-Indigenous Australians. Yet such perceptions are telling of cultural difference and the circulation of power in a neo-colonial state. In this paper, we focus on Bininj/Yol people in and around the remote town of Maningrida in the Northern Territory, where the term 'Balanda' denotes non-Indigenous Australians, particularly of European descent. Exploring themes of work, time, material accumulation, and Country, we ask how Bininj/Yol people construct Balanda; how their understandings of Balanda shape their understandings of Self and vice versa; and how their constructions of Self are refracted through Balanda discourses about Aboriginality. Bininj/Yol portraits of Balanda are seldom flattering and frequently serve as a counterpoint to local Aboriginal ideals of Self. Balanda seem bafflingly deficient in traits proper and natural: they flout appropriate relations with other people, land and cosmos, and appear obsessed with work, clock time, rules, and material accumulation. Drawing on the concept of the gaze as a force that both objectifies and subjects, we then consider the influence of asymmetric 'looking relations' on local Aboriginal senses of Self. This was especially apparent during the Northern Territory 'Intervention' when the people of the Maningrida region suddenly saw themselves through Balanda eyes, and beheld a shockingly different image than the one they held of themselves. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The idea that freedom should be an explicit goal of development schemes has become popular over recent decades. In this article we consider ways in which the concept is applied to remote Indigenous Australia, such as in Noel Pearson's invocations of Amartya Sen's concept of 'development as freedom'. We draw on the work of governmentality theorists that critically probes the notion of freedom and the ways in which it is tied to its seeming antonym, discipline. We ask what understandings of remote Indigenous Australian life, what ways of thinking about Indigenous futures, may be eclipsed by approaching development aspirations through this (neo-)liberal prism of freedom. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The New Poverty Agenda is said to represent a break with the past and to offer a rationale for aid that is built on partnerships towards a common and realizable goal – the elimination of poverty. However, recent critiques have highlighted problems with the practice of poverty policy, and particularly limitations identified from its association with global actors which stand accused of contributing to poverty. For some, there is no new agenda; a poverty focus merely represents a different path to the same ends (i. e., political reform and economic adjustment). This paper investigates the implications for smaller donors, such as Australia and New Zealand, of adopting poverty policy as defined by the World Bank and others. It argues that certain contexts, such as the Pacific, demonstrate the weaknesses of an all-encompassing policy that remains muddled and contradictory. In terms of effective partnerships, much more could be gained by first seeking to learn more about the nature of poverty in the immediate region and its underlying causes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]