Aboriginal youth, work, and aspiration in Sydney's Redfern-Waterloo region

This chapter investigates the lives of young Aboriginal men living in the Redfern-Waterloo (RW) district of inner Sydney, where urban renewal programs are taking place around them, and pays particular attention to their relationship to paid employment. RW has long been the symbolic centre of the Aboriginal community in New South Wales and a central base of the pan-Aboriginal political movement that emerged in the second half of the twentieth century. However, it has long been a place of intense social disadvantage (particularly for young men), with very high rates of unemployment, crime, addiction, and family breakdown. While similar conditions exist for most Aboriginal people in rural and remote areas (where there are also usually fewer opportunities), the experience of living in a deprived neighbourhood in a prosperous global city sharpens a sense of relative disadvantage. In addition, RW's history as a centre of Indigenous protest culture has encouraged the formation of resistant identities among the are's young Aboriginal people. Public authorities guiding RW's renewal have stated their intention to preserve its Indigenous character and to provide economic and cultural opportunities for existing residents. However, the experience of traditional communities and disadvantaged groups in places that have undergone similar processes of regeneration does not provide grounds for optimism.