Between places: Indigenous mobility in discrete and rural settlements

Summary

This research examined the residential mobility of Indigenous people in selected discrete and rural communities in order to quantify and contextualise their mobility patterns. The research found that Indigenous households in the case study areas of Dajarra (North-West Queensland), Alpurrurulam (Northern Territory) and Mt Isa (North-West Queensland), while exceptionally mobile by Australian mainstream standards, are relatively stable in their customary attachment to their home community, local bush country and their cultural region. There is a need for a balance between locally meeting the housing and other service requirements of outlying communities and rationalising the appropriate aspects of service provision in the regional centre.

Project Number: 20260
Research Theme: Indigenous Housing
Project Leader: Memmott, Paul
Funding Year: 2004
Research Centre: Queensland

Description

This project proposed aims to carry out a combination of statistical and field-based research on the residential mobility of Indigenous people in selected discrete and rural communities in order to quantify and contextualize their mobility patterns; in particular to distinguish between circular regional mobility and extra-regional mobility. The study will contrast mobility scales both spatially and temporally, ie short-term versus long-term residential turnover will be compared, as will intra-regional mobility be compared with long-distance mobility between remote and metropolitan residential settings. It will examine the smaller intervals of time and space that have not been empirically addressed in the literature to date. Whereas the larger scales of mobility are analyzable to a reasonable degree using the statistical methodologies already in the literature and using the gross census units of Statistical Divisions (S.D.s) and ATSIC regions, it is the smaller-scale regional characteristics that will also receive attention in this study and which require new methodological approaches.

A key issue in Indigenous migration trend analysis is whether continual urban drift of the Indigenous population is occurring or whether any urban migration is being offset by homeward migration from cities. Understanding such patterns and trends should direct policy makers as to where settlement infrastructure maintenance and upgrading is required for the near future, and where special forms of transient accommodation may be required. Implications for housing management include the frequency in which the tenancies are destabilized, the necessity to provide for flexible household size and understanding the capacity of householders in managing mobile kin.

Reasons for movement are likely to provide indicators of a range of service access problems in the place of departure as well as a range of coping problems generated by the mobility itself. This analysis will be, by its nature, exploratory and will provide a broad understanding and background of trends in Indigenous mobility.

More Information

Research and Policy Bulletin: Issue 069: Mobility of Aboriginal people in remote and rural Australia
371 KB PDF Document

Final Report: No. 090: Indigenous mobility in rural and remote Australia - Appendices
4.94 MB PDF Document

Final Report: No. 090: Indigenous mobility in rural and remote Australia
1.41 MB PDF Document

Positioning Paper: No. 081: Between places: Indigenous mobility in remote and rural Australia
3.7 MB PDF Document

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