Cultural Competence – Aboriginal Sydney MOOC Glossary

Aboriginal: First Nations Peoples from the continent of Australia.

Acknowledgment of Country: is an important statement of recognition and respect for the Traditional
Owners of the land and other Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples. An Acknowledgement of
Country can be given by an Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander person or a non-Aboriginal or non-Torres
Strait Islander person and is a statement of respect and an acknowledgment of the ongoing link to
Country held by Traditional Owners, past, present and future.

Activism: the praxis or action of using vigorous campaigning to bring about political or social justice
change.

Assimilation: an official Australian policy that sought to absorb Aboriginal Peoples into white society and
erode their cultures, languages, identities and ways of being, doing and knowing. Assimilationist policies
have contributed to genocide, historical denialism and a culture of silence around the treatment of
Aboriginal Peoples.

Aunty: a title of respect given to an older Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander female or Elder.

Ceded: to give up power or territory. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander land has never been ceded to
a foreign power. This means that Aboriginal Peoples never came to any formal agreement or treaty that
conceded their land.

Clan: an Aboriginal family group that is part of a larger Nation that holds custodianship over a particular
area (i.e. the Gadigal Clan of the Eora Nation). Because Aboriginal Peoples have been colonised in
different places at different times, there are a variety of terms which are used to describe family,
political or language groups.

Colonisation: the action and process of establishing control over First Nations Peoples and their lands
through the use of violence and dispossession.

Coolamon: an Aboriginal carrying vessel made from the bark of a tree.

Cultural Competence: Cultural competence is the ability to participate ethically and effectively in
personal and professional intercultural settings. It requires being aware of one’s own cultural values and
world view and their implications for making respectful, reflective and reasoned choices, including the
capacity to imagine and collaborate across cultural boundaries. Cultural competence is, ultimately,
about valuing diversity for the richness and creativity it brings to society.

Custodianship: protecting and maintaining land and resources of a particular area. Custodianship is
based on reciprocity and encompasses the responsibilities groups and individuals have to one another
and to the land in a way that prioritises sustainability and balance.

Dispossession: the act of removing Aboriginal Peoples from their land and depriving them of all access
to their land and resources.

Elder: a wise senior member of an Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander community who is recognised by
the community and is a keeper of knowledge, law and lore.

Eora: There are twenty nine Clans that make up the Eora Nation. These groups are bordered by four
distinctive landmarks; the Hawkesbury River to the north, the Napean River to the West, the Georges
River to the South and the Pacific Ocean to the east. It was these groups which bore the brunt of the
British invasion which eventually spread across the whole continent of Australia. Aboriginal Peoples
have always resisted invasion and the descendants of these groups maintain their connections Country
and people; past, present and future. In Gadigal, the word ‘Eora’ means ‘People’.

First Nations: in Australia, First Nation’s refers to the sovereign heterogeneous groups of Aboriginal and
Torres Strait Islander Peoples that have lived in Australia for upwards of 60,000 years. These Nations
represent the oldest continuing cultures on Earth.

Frontier Wars: the wars that occurred between Europeans and Aboriginal Peoples across the continent
of Australia from 1788 until the 1930s. For Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples, these Wars
perpetrated against them never fully ended and are now carried out through government policy such as
the Northern Territory Intervention, over incarceration and child removals.

Gadigal: one of the Clans of the Eora Nation where the Sydney’s central business district is now located.

Genocide: the deliberate killing of a large group of people, especially those of a particular nation or
ethnic group. This also includes the forced removal of people from one group to another as in the case
of the Stolen Generations.

Goorie: a collective term for Aboriginal Peoples of the North Coast of New South Wales.

Indigeneity: ways of knowing, being and doing from a First Nations perspective. This encompasses
maintenance of relations with land, languages, people, ancestors, animals, stories, knowledges,
medicine, cultures, ceremonies and the spiritual environment.

Indigenous: used to describe First Nations Peoples, Indigenous has an international dimension (i.e.
Indigenous Peoples of North America), but most Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples prefer to
be referred to by their Nation, language or family group as distinct heterogeneous Peoples.

Invasion Day/Survival Day/Australia Day: a national holiday in Australia on January 26 each year to
mark the day the British arrived in Sydney cove. It is also known as Invasion Day or Survival Day by
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples.

Koori: a collective term for Aboriginal Peoples of New South Wales.

Koorie: a collective term for Aboriginal Peoples of Victoria.

Mob: a collective term for a group or extended family of Aboriginal Peoples.

Murri: a collective term for Aboriginal Peoples of Queensland.

Reconciliation: the building of relationships, respect and trust between the wider Australian
community and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples. The ongoing removal of Aboriginal
children from families, over incarceration, structural racism and the impact of government policies
which affect the social, economic, political, spiritual and emotional wellbeing of Aboriginal and Torres
Strait Islander Peoples are some of the roadblocks which stand in the way of reconciliation.

Redfern: a suburb in Sydney’s inner city where the contemporary Aboriginal self-determination
movement took form in the 1960s and 1970s. It is still an important place for Aboriginal and Torres
Strait Islander Peoples and is known to many as the Black Capitol of Australia.

Self-determination: the right of groups to freely determine their political status and pursue their social,
economic and cultural development. In Redfern, this meant the development of Aboriginal controlled
organisations such as the Aboriginal Medical Service, Aboriginal Housing Company, Aboriginal Legal
Service, Murwina Childcare Centre and many others. These organisations were all part of ongoing waves
of a movement that sought to combat the systemic racism Aboriginal Peoples encountered in their daily
lives and to gain access to the services they needed.

Shell Midden: Shell middens are places where the debris from eating shellfish and other food has
accumulated over time. They can contain shellfish remains, bones of fish, birds, and land and sea
mammals used for food. Sydney is home to many pre-colonial Aboriginal shell middens which can tell us
much about what people ate, where they lived, how they lived and the kinds of tools they developed to
survive.

Social justice: all humans are born free and equal in dignity and rights. However, due to the impact of
ongoing colonisation, many Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander Peoples are born into an unequal society.
The theft of lands, removal of children from Aboriginal families, criminalisation of speaking Aboriginal
languages, massacres, wage theft, discrimination, over incarceration and many other advents of the
colonial process have created conditions of social injustice that continue to affect the social, economic,
spiritual, political and emotional wellbeing of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples. Social justice
is the attempt to address these issues and many others to create equity and opportunity for Aboriginal
and Torres Strait Islander Peoples.

Socialisation: the transmission or reproduction of culture from one generation to the next. It captures
the way in which human beings learn to develop patterns of behaviour, experiences and identities
relevant to their culture (adapted from van Krieken et al., 2014).

Sovereignty: the authority of a Peoples to govern themselves. Although Australia is part of the British
Commonwealth, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander sovereignty has never been ceded. We see
Aboriginal sovereignty in a myriad of different ways in Australia, including speaking Aboriginal
languages, practicing Aboriginal cultures, running community-controlled organisations, protests, art,
music, Welcome’s to Country and many other assertions of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander identity.

Stereotype: a widely held and oversimplified perception of something or someone; for example, an
oversimplified perception of Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander Peoples.

Stolen Generations: the forced removal of generations of Aboriginal children form their communities
by successive Australian governments. Between 1910 and 1970 the Australian government took around
100,000 Aboriginal children away from their homes. This policy was enacted to deliberately erode
Aboriginal cultures and identities and has been seen as a tool of genocide. The rates of Aboriginal child
removal are higher now than they have ever been and many Aboriginal organisations such as
Grandmother’s Against Removals (GMAR) have formed to resist this process and fight for children in out
of home care to be returned.

Terra Nullius: a Latin term meaning ‘land belonging to no one’ which was the basis used by the British to
justify the theft of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander land. This justification was illegal and Aboriginal
and Torres Strait Islander Peoples have been fighting for land rights and native title ever since. In a
landmark High Court decision in 1992, the notion of ‘terra nullius’ was overturned for the first time,
recognising the Meriam People of Murray Island in the Torres Strait as native title holders.

Torres Strait Islanders: First Nations Peoples from the Torres Strait Islands off the north coast of
Queensland.

Treaty: a formal agreement between nations. Unlike many other countries, there has never been a
treaty between the First Nations Peoples of Australia and the Australian Government. Many groups and
organisations are currently seeking to address this and see it as an essential component of Aboriginal
and Torres Strait Islander sovereignty.

Uncle: a title of respect given to an older Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander male or Elder.

Welcome to Country: a formal welcome onto Aboriginal Land performed by an Elder or person of that
land. A Welcome to Country is performed to ensure safe passage across the land and enables visitors an
opportunity to learn from Traditional Owners. Welcome to Country is also about recognising First
Nation’s sovereignty through ongoing links to Country and is about creating a safe and welcoming space.