Beyond equality: The place of Aboriginal culture in the Australian game of football

• Main Authors: Judd, B, Butcher, T
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Published: Aboriginal Studies Press 2016
• Subjects: Language; Communication and Culture; Cultural Studies; Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Cultural Studies; First Nations
• Online Access: http://ecite.utas.edu.au/138542

This paper provides an overview of Aboriginal interventions in the sportof Australian (Rules) Football in the period since the formation of the AustralianFootball League (AFL) in 1990. Recalling several pivotal events that have definedand redefined the relationship between Aboriginal people and the Australian gameof football, this paper finds that the struggle to end on-field racial vilification inthe 1990s attracted widespread support from the overwhelmingly non-Aboriginalpublic because these actions were consistent with the political principle of equality. The key actions of Nicky Winmar and Michael Long gained general appealbecause they demanded that Aboriginal people be treated as though they wereAnglo-Australians. In this regard, the 1990s fight against on-field racism in the AFLwas a continuation of the Aboriginal struggle for rights associated with Australiancitizenship. As the 1967 Commonwealth referenda on Aborigines demonstrated,most Anglo-Australians understood and supported the political principle of equality even though the promise of citizenship in substantive improvements to socialand economic outcomes almost 50 years later remains largely unfulfilled.Nevertheless, in the recently concluded 2015 AFL season, Adam Goodes,the most highly decorated Aboriginal man to play the sport at the highest level,was effectively booed into retirement. Goodes became a controversial and largelydisliked figure in the sport when he used the public honour of being 2014 Australianof the Year to highlight the disadvantage and historical wrongs that continue toadversely impact Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and their communities. This paper argues that Goodes effectively sought to shift the paradigm ofAboriginal struggle beyond the sympathetic notions of racism and equal treatmentto issues of historical fact that imply First Nations rights associated with culturalpractice. Goodes career initiates a new discussion about the place that Aboriginalcultures, traditions and understandings might have in the sport today. His decision to perform an Aboriginal war dance demonstrates that the new paradigm wepropose is primarily about the political principle of difference, not equality.