Boyfriends, babies and basketball: present lives and future aspirations of young women in Ngukurr

In the rhetoric of Aboriginal communities, young people are frequently positioned by adults as the key to future improvements. They talk about a time when the young people will be trained to take over the important positions in the community and there will be no more need for outsiders. In community development women are often considered to be the most important facilitators of change, as Sen (1999:203) writes: Nothing arguably, is as important today in the political economy of development as an adequate recognition of political, economic and social participation and leadership of women. Young women, therefore, can be seen as having a double responsibility for the futures of their communities. This paper explores the aspirations and expectations of a group of young women aged thirteen to twenty-three in a remote Aboriginal community in the Northern Territory of Australia. It examines how these hopes and expectations are influenced and moulded by the reality of their everyday lives and the extent to which the young women consider that they are able to influence the course of their lives and become agents for change in their own communities