This paper was written immediately following an extensive period of fieldwork in the small Australian town of Alice Springs. It was deliberately written before most of the statistical results of various surveys were available in order to crystallise the less quantifiable impressions and features of the Aboriginal position in the town around a conceptual framework of societal relations. The few studies of urban Aborigines to date have been more descriptive than analytical. To this end, and based upon my own previous field experiences, I have borrowed from contemporary Third World studies the notions of marginality and marginalisation, and assessed the situation in Alice Springs in these terms. The reasons for this particular choice of concepts was partly because of the location of Alice Springs in ‘colonial’ Australia but primarily because of the etymological and philosophical links with the prevailing opinion of most Aborigines in Alice Springs as fringe dwellers—people on the margins of the town and its society. There have been few attempts to examine the position of Aborigines in contemporary Australia in conceptual terms and this effort will undoubtedly have many shortcomings. However, its purpose is not to be definitive but rather to stimulate further investigation and discussion.
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