The politics of identity: who counts as aboriginal today?

This thesis is an examination of the complexities surrounding Aboriginal identity as it has been discursively produced in the everyday, and is focused in a suburban area of New South Wales, Australia. The thesis draws from a range of historical and research literature, interviews, surveys, and an analysis of social network sites builds on a historical background to provide a contemporary overview of what it means to identify as an Aboriginal person today. The study draws on various theoretical approaches to explore Aboriginal understandings of Aboriginality in the everyday and the way these are produced and reproduced across a range of sites and contexts. It raises important questions about what constitutes and is constitutive of Aboriginal identity in contemporary times. The thesis does not offer solutions to the ‘identity problems’ but provides new foundations for re-engaging the intellectual scholarship on the politics of Aboriginal identity