Counting, Health and Identity: A History of Aboriginal Health and Demography in Western Australia and Queensland 1900-1940.(Book review)

COUNTING, HEALTH AND IDENTITY: A HISTORY OF ABORIGINAL HEALTH AND DEMOGRAPHY IN WESTERN AUSTRALIA AND QUEENSLAND 1900-1940 Gordon Briscoe Canberra: Aboriginal Studies Press 2003, PB 420 pp, AUD 39.95/GBP 16.90/USD 30.20 ISBN 0-85575-447-8

While the elements of the title might seem a divergent combination, these seemingly disparate aspects are coherently presented within this text. The book's focus is on the process of counting Aboriginal populations between 1900 and 1940 in both Western Australia and Queensland. The health, disease and identity dimensions are explored through an analysis of the social nature of Indigenous health and its intimate connection with population structures. The picture developed from these three themes is one of a complex interaction. The author demonstrates how the nature and structure of the Indigenous population, especially the common and erroneous understandings of that population by Aboriginal administrations in both Queensland and Western Australia, were crucial in the shaping of policy and administrative responses to health and disease among Aborigines in the two states. Developed from the author's PhD thesis, the historical archival and documentary research detailed in the book is thorough and well-organised and the text is elegantly written.

The book develops chronologically and by state. Each chapter details an individual decade in the period 1900-1940, first covering the situation in Western Australia and then moving to Queensland. Although for practical reasons only two states are covered, the author notes that Western Australia and Queensland might be taken as generally accurate case studies for the period. Indeed, despite obvious differences in the timing and nature of Aboriginal and settler interactions in the two states, the similarities of both the counting processes and the health and identity outcomes for the Indigenous population are striking.

The demographic dimension is the centre of the book's story. Given the specific exclusion under s.127 of the Commonwealth Constitution of 1902 of 'Aboriginal natives' from official census counts, I was intrigued to learn just how much counting and estimating of Aboriginal populations was actually occurring during the early years of the 20th century. Aboriginal population data was still meticulously collected by state authorities but then removed from the formal census figures. Such counting inevitably raised the problematic issue of the variable and varying definitions of just who was an Aborigine and who was not: a numerical nuisance for the counters but a dilemma of lived identity for affected Aboriginal people.

Critically, these counting ...