Where's All the Community? Aboriginal Melbourne Revisited maps the social and spatial history of Aboriginal Melbourne across nearly two centuries, tracing kinship networks, urban neighbourhoods, regional missions, and the organisations that have sustained community life from within.
About This Book
Built from extensive interviews with community members, anthropological research, and Andrews's own family history, this book is a social history with deep roots in place. It moves through inner-city Fitzroy and Collingwood, out to regional missions, and across interstate First Nations connections, charting how Aboriginal Melbourne has been shaped not by absence but by persistent, adaptive community-making. Andrews addresses kinship and geographic mobility alongside the structural realities of health, housing, and education — and the Aboriginal-led organisations that have driven genuine outcomes. Central, too, are the ongoing campaigns for land rights, self-determination, and social justice. For architects and urbanists, it is a necessary account of the communities that have always shaped this city.
Key Features
- 288 pages of interview-based social history spanning 1835 to the present
- Author: Julie Andrews, drawing on anthropological research and personal family history
- Published by Black Inc., ISBN 9781760645960
What You'll Discover
- How kinship networks and geographic mobility have defined and sustained Aboriginal community life in Melbourne across generations
- The role of inner-city neighbourhoods — particularly Fitzroy and Collingwood — as centres of Aboriginal urban identity and organisation
- How Aboriginal-led organisations have been central to delivering health, housing, and education outcomes on community terms
- The history and continuing momentum of campaigns for land rights, self-determination, and social justice in Victoria and beyond
About the Author
Julie Andrews brings to this book a background in anthropology alongside her own family's connection to Aboriginal Melbourne. Her research draws on extensive interviews with community members, grounding the history in lived experience rather than external observation.
Specifications
- Format: Softcover
- Pages: 288
- Dimensions: 15.3 x 23.4 cm
- Language: English
- ISBN: 9781760645960
- Publisher: Black Inc.
- Publication Date: [Details available upon request]
Perfect For: Architects, urban designers, and planners engaging with Country and community in Melbourne; students of Indigenous studies, urban history, and social policy; and anyone seeking a grounded, place-specific account of Aboriginal Melbourne's past and present.