Economics Essay: An Indigenous Perspective on Culture in Australia

This essay examines the perspective of an Indigenous Australian living in the Northern Territory, particularly in Alice Springs, who is actively involved in preserving indigenous culture. It highlights the challenges faced by Indigenous Australians, such as poverty, health issues, and welfare dependency, and how preserving language, art, dance, and ceremonies is crucial for maintaining cultural identity and self-esteem. The essay also discusses the economic aspects of harvesting wild resources and the lack of employment opportunities for indigenous youth, emphasizing the need for government support to improve cultural preservation and the standard of living for Indigenous communities. The essay concludes by underscoring the importance of preserving indigenous culture to maintain their identity and relationship with the Australian environment. Desklib provides access to this and other solved assignments for students.

Running head: ECONOMICS
ECONOMICS
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author’s Note

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Introduction
The essay provides an overview about the perspective of an Indigenous (Aboriginal)
Australian who has lived in the Northern Territories and is engaged in movement to preserve
indigenous culture in hometown. The indigenous Australians have settled in the Northern
Territory of Australia for near about 40,000 years. The second biggest indigenous community is
Arrernte people residing in Arrernte land. The town chosen for this study is Alice Springs. This
is the third biggest town situated in the Northern Territory of this nation. This region has been
renowned for harsh and remote environment. Due to this, this region has been less affected by
the European culture as compared with other regions of Australia. The culture of indigenous
Australians still flourishes in several parts of this region, thereby creating traditional
environment mainly for the visitors to explore (Dockery 2012). Indigenous (Aboriginal)
communities are considered as the vital element of this Northern territory.
Discussion
One of the main challenges facing this nation in recent decades has been raising the
standard of living of Indigenous Australians mainly in the remote communities of the Alice
Spring region. There are huge numbers of Australians residing in this communities characterized
by poor health, poverty, crime rates etc. Several people have been also caught in destructive
welfare dependency cycle, youth suicide mainly that have exacted suffering on Indigenous
people (Altman 2006). One of the indigenous Australian who has resided in Alice Springs has
engaged in preserving their languages in order to maintain their cultural identity (Pechová 2012).
This is because language being the basic marker of the indigenous Australians, it helps in
identifying as well as communicating with each other easily. However, engaging in this

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movement helps them in promoting social interaction. Moreover, the government schools
situated in this Alice Spring town also provides education to the students from remote locations
to speak indigenous language as first language. This Australian has also engaged with the
movement of implementing language specific programs in the schools as well as communities in
order to keep their people united. Furthermore, most of these programs such as Indigenous
Education Strategic initiatives program ( IESIP), Aboriginal Student Support and Parent
Awareness ( ASSPA) program and so on were mainly funded from the existing budget of the
schools. On the contrary, in some of the regions of young indigenous people rejects speaking
their language, which in turn isolates their community from others.
As art styles has been one of the pillars of the Indigenous cultures, this individual living
in this town has engaged in the movement to preserve this culture, self-esteem and diversity.
Historical evidences reflect that the indigenous people of this town have evolved as extremely
varied spectrum of artistry. According to the perspective of this Australian living in this town,
preserving art has been essential owing to several reasons (Alford and Muir 2004). Firstly, this
has been utilized as mark territory and recording history. In addition, one of the vital reasons of
engaging in this movement is to keep their traditional community alive. Apart from this, this
indigenous individual has also engaged in the movement in keeping their traditional method of
painting unchanged (Bandias, Fuller and Holmes 2012). The main reason behind this movement
is to share their history through paintings, sculptures, which are similar to that of their ancestors.
Regardless of several problems that occurred from engagement of this movement, the aboriginal
people tries to preserve this culture in order to preserve their self-esteem and maintain identity
(Balíková 2005).

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Contemporary Aboriginal dance has been considered as one of the cultures of the
Indigenous Australians as it embraces traditional stories as well as ritual and also helps in
interpreting their identity. The indigenous people living in Alice Springs who engaged in the
movement of preserving this culture in his hometown has stated that ritual dances were mainly
performed for bringing their families ad well as communities together for celebration (Altman
2006). In addition, their dance has also been considered as traditional ceremony since it
documents about the British invasion story as well as changes it has created. Moreover, the
British tunes, words and actions were also sometimes introduced in their traditional dances. In
the present years, the diversity of their culture is also expressed through their dance. In addition,
the Aboriginal dance theatre that was formed in the year 1970 also provides training to the
students from this community in various dance styles. This in turn also helps in promoting the
cultural exchange and keep physical as well mental health better (Biddle 2011).
The ceremonies also play vital part of the cultures of Aboriginal people in Australia. The
indigenous Australian who has resided in Alice Spring town is also engaged in several
movements of preserving these ceremonies as it has huge significance in educating the youth
people. For example, in different ceremonies these people usually wear headdress along with
distinguishing body painting for indicating the kind of ceremony that is being performed.
The Australian residing in this town also highlights that aboriginal people cultural and
economic interest is also to harvest wild resources. However, these people adopt innovative
approaches for preserving their culture as all these resources are mainly utilized for their
personal consumption. In addition, non- commercial utilization of these wild resources by
aboriginal people usually comprises of some productive activities, which are usually based on
the cultural continuity since pre-colonial period (Gray and Altman 2006). Some of the uses

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includes- fishing, hunting, gathering and several other activities namely biodiversity
maintenance, land as well as habitat management, species management and so on. The valuation
of economic benefits to indigenous people occurring from utilization of the wild resources has
been relatively simple. Conceptually, economic valuation of services or products is usually
estimated in account of what customers are keen to pay for specific product less the supply cost.
The figure below reflects that customers keen in paying for commodity is reflected by marginal
benefit (MB) curve while supply cost is reflected by marginal cost (MC) curve. As suggested by
economic theory that the product is produced as well as consumed in the unregulated market
until MC become equivalent to MB. Economic value is thereby generated by consumption of
output as shown by Q. However, the economic value attained from non-commercial resource
harvesting by aboriginal people can be explained as difference between consumption value and
production cost. As doing harvesting helps to gain economic surplus, they have engaged in the
movement to preserve this specific culture of harvesting resources until MB=MC.
Figure 1: Economic surplus from harvesting resources
Sources: (Gray and Altman 2006)

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The past Indigenous Australian culture in this specific town has led to lack of
opportunities of employment for aboriginal youth, who are mainly aged between 22 and 26 year.
Historical employment data reflects that near about 11-16000 adults as well as youth living in
this territory were either not employed or not participating in labor force . In fact, the indigenous
people unemployment rate was three times more than unemployment rate of non- Indigenous
people. Furthermore, the low rate of employment associated with uneven number of these
aboriginal Australians employed in low wage occupations signifies that the standard of living of
indigenous population has been lower as compared to non-indigenous population (Dalley and
Martin 2015).
The Australian government should provide fund for the ranger programs relating to
preservation of culture of indigenous people in order to improve their cultural preservation. In
fact, they should double their total funding for the programs for reinforcing culture.
Conclusion
From the above essay, it can be concluded that Aboriginal people have varied
relationships with the environment of Australia. This relationship mainly depends on cultural
practices that pass down through their generation. The indigenous Australian tries to preserve
their indigenous culture in order to place their identity before non- indigenous Australians. In the
present era, continuing practices of culture of aboriginal people reflects relationship diversity
that they have with this nation’s environment.

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References
Alford, K., Muir, J. (2004). Dealing with unfinished Indigenous business: The need for historical
reflection. Australian Journal of Public Administration, 63, 101–107.
Altman, J 2006, 'The future of Indigenous Australia', Arena Magazine, vol. August-September,
no. 84, pp. 8-10.
Balíková, J., 2005. Preserving and Restoring Identity in Traditional and Communities of
Aboriginal Australians; Assimilation Programs and Issues (Doctoral dissertation, Masarykova
univerzita, Filozofická fakulta).
Bandias, S., Fuller, D. and Holmes, S., 2012. Aboriginal Economic and Human Development in
the Northern Territory of Australia: To Work or Not to Work. A Clash of Non‐Indigenous
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Biddle, N. 2011. ‘Physical and mental health’, Measures of Indigenous Wellbeing and Their
Determinants Across the Lifecourse, 2011 CAEPR Lecture Series (Lecture 3), ANU, Canberra.
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Gray, M. and Altman, J., 2006. The economic value of harvesting wild resources to the
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