Indigenous incorporation as a means to empowerment

Formal incorporation statutes are arguably the single most important way that public policy gtves shape to Aboriginal governance. In much of what it does, the state addresses Indigenous Australians as individuals: recognising their rights as individuals to vote to receive welfare benefits, to hold property, to receive award wages. The standardisation of such individual entitlements was the single most important achievement of the policy phase that we refer to as assimilation: Building on assimilation, but also to some extent countering its individuating logic, public policy since the 1970s has encouraged collective action. Advances in public policy - including land rights and native title statutes - have addressed Indigenous Australians as members or clients of Indigenous corporations. The study of Indigenous corporations is thus a major theme in our ongoing reflection on Indigenous affairs.