The Indigenous theme has content connections to all the other areas of research that make up ECSA and as such offers an opportunity to provide a critique of these research areas from another perspective. Examples of such work could be the contribution to an analysis of public policy from the Aborigines Protection Acts to the present Commonwealth government’s ‘mutual obligations’ approach. Such critiques cover matters such as racism, self-determination and sovereignty as well as other related issues.
In relation to existing strengths of contributors from the three South Australian universities to the Indigenous theme perhaps the least explored is the science and technology area, and ECSA provides an opportunity to develop such explorations while sharing and developing conversations that have been going on for some time related to the other areas of research. The three Indigenous education centres, Yunggorendi First Nations Centre for Higher Education and Research at Flinders University, the David Unaipon College of Indigenous Education and Research (DUCIER) at the University of South Australia and Wilto Yerlo Centre for Australian Indigenous Research and Studies at the University of Adelaide, are the centres from which research in the Indigenous theme will emerge.