Title: Challenging simplistic notions of outstations as manifestations of Aboriginal self-determination: Wik strategic engagement and disengagement over the past four decades
Abstract: This is a practitioners' chapter, focusing on outstations in the Aurukun region of western Cape York Peninsula, and based on our experience spanning nearly four decades.We are father and son: David Martin, now an anthropologist, who established and coordinated an outstation support organisation in Aurukun for some eight years from the mid-1970s; and Bruce Martin, whose mother is a Wik woman from Aurukun, and who in 2011 worked with his community to establish a community-based organisation, Aak Puul Ngantam (APN), focused particularly on developing productive livelihoods on country.The key aims of this chapter are to outline and critically evaluate the principles and practices 1 We wish to thank the anonymous reviewers of this chapter, and also Robert Levitus and David Hinchley, for their insightful comments and suggestions.We have incorporated them where in our view they lay within the scope and aims of this chapter, and where they went beyond that, set them aside for further consideration in future work.