From Underemployment to Unemployment: The Changing Role of Aborigines in a Rural Economy

The study of Aborigines in south-eastern Australia is a long neglected area of Aboriginal studies. This paper traces the labour history of the Dhan-gadi people of the mid-north coast of New South Wales. Particular stress is placed on the political and economic factors affecting change for the Dhan-gadi after colonial dispossession and the interaction which constituted labour relations between this Aboriginal Reserve community and the local European community.