Obliged to be Difficult
Nugget Coombs' Legacy in Indigenous Affairs

This book, first published in 2000, is an account of government policies and a biographical slice of an outstanding Australian.

Tim Rowse (Author)

9780521773539, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 3 February 2000

264 pages
22.9 x 15.2 x 1.6 cm, 0.52 kg

'… for those who want to understand how negotiations evolved between indigenous groups and successive Australian governments, or who want to draw useful comparisons with other such interactions, this volume offers real insights into the complexities of the process. It also paints a fine biographic portrait of an extraordinary man.' Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute

Since the 1967 constitutional referendum, Australian governments have moved towards policies of indigenous self-determination. Obliged to be Difficult, first published in 2000, presents the central issue of self-determination as seen by Dr H. C. Coombs, the most important policy maker since the referendum: through what political mechanisms will indigenous Australians find their own voice? Coombs was singularly influential within government in the years 1967 to 1976, and he remained a tireless critic and policy advocate from 1977 to 1996. Rowse's narrative of his work, drawing on many unpublished sources, illuminates the interplay of government policy with indigenous practice. This book is both an account of government policies and a biographical slice of an outstanding Australian. In attempting a critical celebration of Coombs' vision and methods, it invites informed reflection on the issues of land rights, sovereignty and reconciliation in these conservative, and highly anxious, times.

1. The modest mandate of 1967
2. 'Land ownership for Aborigines presents difficult problems'
3. Mediating the Yolngu
4. Voice and feet
5. North and South
6. A national Indigenous leadership?
7. Clans and councils
8. As nasty a piece of chicanery as I can remember
9. Effectively Aboriginal
10. An Indigenous public sphere
11. From James Cook to Eva Valley
12. The 1940s in the 1990s.

Subject Areas: Anthropology [JHM]