This research uses a number of methodologies commonly used in anthropological research. In Wiluna, participant observation and interviews are the main research methods. Research with regional, state and national agencies will be undertaken primarily through informal and structured interviews and an analysis of documents. The research with organisations and government agencies will have an ethnographic component through which the role of culture in determining governance arrangements, including bureaucratic culture, will be explored and analysed.
It is accepted that long-term solutions to service delivery in communities geographically distant from capital cities will require creative solutions that go beyond debates about administrative economy.
The aim of this research is to contribute to those solutions.
A significant issue for research on Indigenous community governance in Wiluna is that it is not a discrete Aboriginal community; it is a Shire under the Local Government Act, albeit one in which a large percentage of the resident population is Aboriginal. The town of Wiluna is the seat of local government for the Shire of Wiluna; and it is the only commercial centre in the Shire. The town is approximately 1,000 km northeast of Perth; the closest regional centre is Kalgoorlie, 550 km south.
The Shire of Wiluna is predominantly mining and pastoral land covering an area of 184,000 square kilometres. Mining and pastoralism are part of the ‘culture’ of Wiluna and they have a number of implications for governance and service delivery which will be explored as part of this research. The Shire covers a large geographic area but is sparsely populated. It is difficult to obtain accurate information about the resident population of the Shire from ABS figures. The 2001 Census puts the population at 1640; 357 of whom identified as Aboriginal. However, these figures are skewed by the transience of both the non-Aboriginal and Aboriginal population. The non-Aboriginal population figures include mining staff, resident in Wiluna on the night of the census but employed on a fly-in-fly-out basis. The data also reflects a common problem of the under-representation of Aboriginal people in census figures. For instance, data collected by the Aboriginal medical service in Wiluna shows that it treated almost 800 individual Aboriginal clients in 2003-2004, suggesting a significantly larger, but also transient, Aboriginal presence in the Shire.
The high mobility of the Wiluna population is a factor which has to be considered in discussions about the real ‘service’ population. Mobility can also have an effect on the governance arrangements of local and regional organisations.
The first period of intensive fieldwork in Wiluna was undertaken from April–November 2005. Further fieldwork in Wiluna will be undertaken through visits of shorter duration throughout 2006. Research with government and non-government agencies in Wiluna, Kalgoorlie and Perth has also commenced and will continue in 2006.
Papers arising from this research include:
'Local governance in remote regions—Models & issues: Governance and service delivery in Wiluna',
ICGP Occasional Paper No. 7, by Christina Lange.
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