AIATSIS Seminar Series

Venue: Mabo Room, AIATSIS Building, Acton Peninsula, Canberra

Time: Monday lunchtimes 12.30-2pm during academic semesters

Schedule of presenters

If you are unable to attend the seminars in person, you can view the webcast live from the seminar, or access audiovisual recordings which are made available shortly afterwards.

Seminar Series 2, 2011: Housing and homelessness

This series will look at the broad scope of issues surrounding housing and homelessness for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. Overcrowding, poor quality housing, low levels of home ownership, discrimination in the public housing system, homelessness, relationships to health, employment and education, are some of the issues facing Indigenous people in remote, regional and urban areas.

Questions raised include: What are the barriers to addressing Indigenous housing need in the private, public and community sectors? How can ideologies of housing and wealth creation, prevalent in the private and government sectors, be adapted to remote areas? What does Indigenous housing need look like? How can provision of quality, sustainable, durable housing with appropriate design be achieved? What styles of housing provision have and haven't been successful, i.e. regional providers, social housing, tenancy arrangements? What are the collateral issues associated with housing: health, employment, education? How does housing relate to wellbeing - of individuals and communities? What are the relationships between land tenure and housing? How do understandings of mobility and movement impact the government's approach to addressing Indigenous homelessness?

Housing and homelessness have been part of government policy objectives for some time, however a continued failure to address housing need for Indigenous people highlights the significant need for targeted research. There are clear gaps in the research, which can be recognized by:

        - the low number of Indigenous authors and researchers contributing to the research

        - a heavy focus on remote and very remote Australia, with a failure to account for issues facing Indigenous people in major cities and regional towns

        - very little attention has been given to Torres Strait Islander housing and homelessness

        - little focus being paid to the 'collateral' issues associated with housing and homelessness: namely health, employment and education

Through a multidisciplinary approach this seminar series aims to open pathways for addressing the research need, and consolidating housing and homelessness research at AIATSIS.

References:

Long, S., Memmot, P. & Seeling, T., 2007. An audit and review of Australian Indigenous housing research, AHURI Final Report No. 102, AHURI, Queensland Research Centre.

For more information about this series contact:

Claire Stacey

Native Title Research Unit, AIATSIS

(02) 6261 4209

claire.stacey@aiatsis.gov.au

Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed by speakers during the AIATSIS Seminar Series do not necessarily reflect those of AIATSIS, and the Institute accepts no responsibility for them.