The perception of Australia’s indigenous people is that they live largely in deserts and other remote areas. And indeed, reflecting in part the necessity of Indigenous Australians to maintain strong physical links with traditional lands to retain native title, about four in 10 still live in traditional country, often remote from urban settlements.
But the flipside is equally telling: more than half of aboriginal Australians now dwell in the cities of the eastern seaboard. Long regarded as Australia’s indigenous capital, Sydney has been surpassed by Brisbane as host to the greatest number of Indigenous Australians (Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people) – as of 2011, there were 64,993 in Brisbane to Sydney’s 64,184.
Fifteen years from now, Nicholas Biddle of the Australian National University’s Centre for Aboriginal Policy Research predicts Brisbane’s aboriginal population will reach 133,189 compared with Sydney’s 88,371.
Does this make Brisbane Australia’s most indigenous city? Certainly, neither Sydney nor Brisbane, nor any other Australian urban capital, has gone to any significant lengths to accommodate indigeneity, into either urban planning or cultural identity.
For that, you might have to look at Broome, on the Kimberley coast. (Although, with a population of 14,500, it probably doesn’t quite qualify as a city.) In Broome, recognition of land custodianship and culture is central.
The Yawuru people are the recognised native title holders of semi-bicultural Broome (Rubibi); their language is taught in primary schools, and citizenship ceremonies are conducted in Yawuru. Tourism is largely built around continuing indigenous culture.
The country’s Mayans, despite numbering at least 6 million, have a long history of dispossession, cultural and political oppression. They are behind non-indigenous citizens on most social indicators: 73% of the indigenous population are poor, and on average they have markedly lower life expectancy and fewer people reach higher education.
The country’s Mayans, despite numbering at least 6 million, have a long history of dispossession, cultural and political oppression. They are behind non-indigenous citizens on most social indicators: 73% of the indigenous population are poor, and on average they have markedly lower life expectancy and fewer people reach higher education.
In some cases urban aboriginal people may as well not exist at all for all the recognition they get. In notoriously monocultural Japan, the indigenous Ainu, concentrated in Hokkaido, officially number more than 24,000 in a population of 127 million.
But Japan only recently recognised that its indigenous people exist at all, and centuries of oppression and aggressive assimilation policies are believed to have inspired many Ainu to deny their indigeneity. We don’t know how many there might be.
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One country that makes some attempt to celebrate a vibrant indigenous presence is Canada. Half of Canada’s First Nations, Inuit and Métis (a distinct culture of mixed-race descendants of indigenous people) people live in cities.
And more First Nations and Métis people live in Winnipeg than in any of the country’s other cities: compared to about 4% country-wide, indigenous people account for about one in 10 Winnepeggers (25,970 First Nations, or 3.6%, and 46,325 Métis, or 6.5%).
What’s more, their voices are heard in the cities. Canada recognises aboriginal rights and title in the constitution, and the urban shift of First Peoples and Métis has inspired new dimensions of indigenous cultural expression.
But the parallels with so many other countries – not least Australia – are acute: urban aboriginal people in Canada, despite their traditional associations, are seen and treated, culturally and sometimes officially, as less “traditional” than their rural countrymen and women.
And Winnipeg, despite official displays of pride in its significant aboriginal population, is still marred by racial tensions and indigenous disadvantage.
In New Zealand, the Maori have dramatically urbanised since 1936, when roughly 7% lived in urban areas. Now it is closer to 80%.
About a quarter (143,000) of the country’s Maori population live in the Auckland region. The British colonial occupiers struck the Treaty of Waitangi with the Maori in 1840, but mass indigenous dispossession and violence followed.
Despite New Zealand’s comparative biculturalism in Auckland and the capital, Wellington – whose national museum, Te Papa, boasts impressive celebrations of aboriginal culture – Maori access to traditional lands remains heavily contested and qualified, especially in cities. On major social indicators, including health, the Maori still lag behind the rest of the country.
One city, however, stands out. Nuuk, the capital of Greenland, has probably the highest percentage of aboriginal people of any city: almost 90% of Greenland’s population of 58,000 is Inuit, and least eight in 10 live in urban settlements.
Nuuk also celebrates Inuit culture and history to an extent that is unprecedented in many cities with higher total aboriginal populations. By proportion and by cultural authority and impact, it may well be tiny Nuuk that is the most indigenous city in the world.
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