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Looking Back, moving forward: the place of evaluation at the Tangentyere Council Research Hub
| Content Provider | Semantic Scholar |
|---|---|
| Author | Campbell, Matthew Foster, Denise Davies, Vanessa |
| Copyright Year | 2014 |
| Abstract | Tangentyere Council is a very important organisation for Aboriginal people living in Alice Springs. The Tangentyere Council Research Hub has been going now for more than ten years, based on two core philosophies: ‘researching ourselves back to life’ and ‘no survey without service’. We rely on Aboriginal research practices and Aboriginal understandings of evaluation as part of this practice. In this paper we will talk about our organisation and its history as well as the research work we do. What we hope to do is to set out what evaluation means for us in terms of the work that we do, and how being aware of this helps us to keep our knowledge and organisation strong. We also hope that it might help others working with Aboriginal people to think differently about evaluation and maybe even approach it differently in the future. 145 Learning Communities International Journal of Learning in Social Contexts | Special Issue: Evaluation | Number 14 – September 2014 tangentyere council Tangentyere Council has a long history in Alice Springs. It began operating in the early 1970s and was first incorporated in 1979. It is the major service delivery agency for 17 of the 18 Housing Associations known as ‘Town Camps’ in Alice Springs (Tangentyere Council, 2014). Tangentyere Council was established by Aboriginal people from what were called the ‘fringe camps’, areas of Crown land around Alice Springs where Aboriginal people lived but to which they had no formal title. These fringe camps were as old as Alice Springs itself. Tangentyere was formed so that we could get legal tenure for the land we were living on in order to obtain essential services and housing. Since its incorporation in 1979, it has grown into an organisation with a workforce of 243, 61% of whom are Aboriginal. It is difficult to estimate the population of the Town Camps; the estimated population in Tangentyere’s 2005 Mobility Report was between 1,765 and 2,065 people (Foster, Mitchell, Ulrik & Williams, 2005). Given the expansion of Town Camp housing infrastructure, particularly since 85 new houses were built under the Strategic Indigenous Housing and Infrastructure Program (SIHIP), it is hard not to imagine there has been an increase. The service population is likely to be larger again, with people from remote communities all over central Australia coming into Alice Springs, which is the only large service centre in the region. Each Town Camp comprises an Indigenous community, based on language and kinship groups, which often had its origins prior to the formation of Tangentyere. The majority of Town Camps have Arrernte residents, who are the Traditional Owners of Alice Springs and its immediate surrounds. Many Town Camps also have residents who belong to language groups whose traditional lands are found across central Australia, but who have moved to Alice Springs over a period of time for various reasons. Town Camp residents often have strong links with remote communities and there is substantial mobility between bush and town. While Town Camps are located in Alice Springs, residents are often culturally and linguistically isolated from the services available. Provision of services by Tangentyere Council, often in partnership with government and other non-government organisations, means that Town Camp residents have access to services which they would otherwise miss out on. Tangentyere Council was set up to gain access to land and to provide housing and other vital infrastructure, and since its inception the management of this housing was a core function. However since the takeover of Aboriginal housing in 2007 by the Commonwealth government as part of the Northern Territory Intervention (Commonwealth Ombudsman, 2012), Tangentyere Council no longer has any role in the day to day management of housing. Today, Tangentyere Council runs a range of family and youth services, a night patrol, day patrol and youth patrol, a research hub, an art centre, an aged and community care program, a community banking facility and five not for profit enterprises. Aboriginal contributions to the evaluation of housing (and to postcolonial theory) | Christie & Campbell |
| Starting Page | 144 |
| Ending Page | 153 |
| Page Count | 10 |
| File Format | PDF HTM / HTML |
| DOI | 10.18793/LCJ2014.14.10 |
| Volume Number | 14 |
| Alternate Webpage(s) | https://www.cdu.edu.au/sites/default/files/the-northern-institute/10.18793-lcj2014.14.10.pdf |
| Alternate Webpage(s) | https://doi.org/10.18793/LCJ2014.14.10 |
| Language | English |
| Access Restriction | Open |
| Content Type | Text |
| Resource Type | Article |
