Between ‘Two Worlds’: Examining the Aboriginal Care Circle Program as a Space of Indigenous Justice in Child Protection

The forced removal of Indigenous children from their families and communities was one of the most aggressive colonial strategies of extermination, ‘protection’ and assimilation in Australian history. Bringing Them Home made compelling recommendations for ways forward grounded in the right of Indigenous peoples to self-determination and in light of the failings of contemporary child protection systems. Nearly 25 years on, Indigenous children remain significantly overrepresented in all child protection jurisdictions across Australia The NSW Children and Young Persons (Care and Protection) Act (1998) recognises principles of Indigenous justice pertaining to participation (s11), self-determination (s12) and placement of Indigenous children within Kinship systems (s13). The Aboriginal Care Circle program aimed to give practical force to these Indigenous justice principles. This thesis is a critical socio-legal examination of Care Circles as a space of Indigenous justice. Concepts of hybridity, recognition and whiteness inform the study. An inductive, qualitative approach was utilised involving observations, interviews and discussion circles. Results reveal the inherent tensions arising from attempts to reconcile Indigenous justice principles with the ideologies underpinning the child protection system. Participant accounts showed how these ‘two worlds’ operate in opposition and the values of the mainstream child protection system are prioritised. Indigenous rights to culture and decision-making are simultaneously included and excluded and the authority of the state is reinforced. Specific social actors within this space advanced an Indigenous justice framework while others hindered the capacity of the Care Circle to balance the competing interests of these ‘two worlds’. The thesis concludes that models such as Care Circles do little to disrupt the power imbalances between the state and Indigenous families and communities. Given that Care Circles operate within a liberal regime of recognition in which whiteness is epistemologically privileged, demands for genuine self-determination and the valuing of Indigenous cultures in the child protection context remain aspirational. In order to overcome this, Indigenous control over Indigenous child welfare needs to be structurally recognised