Adult literacy, land rights and self-determination

Self-determination can be understood as a policy of the Australian settler state, in a particular period. But it is also a key demand of the social movement for Indigenous rights, and a set of practices within the organisations that comprise that movement. This chapter outlines a view of that movement’s history based on my work within it as a nonIndigenous activist, and as a practitioner and academic in the field of adult education and development. I began my activism in Sydney in the 1970s as a member of the New South Wales Aboriginal Land Rights Support Group. In the 1980s I worked for Tangentyere Council and the Institute for Aboriginal Development (IAD) in Alice Springs, and in the 1990s for Tranby Aboriginal College and the Federation of Independent Aboriginal Education Providers (FIAEP). Currently, I work with the Literacy for Life Foundation (LFLF), an Aboriginal organisation established in 2013 by three Aboriginal education leaders, Pat Anderson, Donna Ah Chee and Jack Beetson, to lead a national adult literacy campaign across Aboriginal Australia.