James Cook University Subject Handbook - 2024

IA2023 - Indigenous Continuity: Agency, Adaptation and Resistance

Subject Description

This subject explores Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people's history of adaptation to change and resistance to oppressive colonial forces. Significant Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander defensive actions, letters, petitions, protests, labour strikes, Aboriginal societies, legal challenges, other principled actions, and political activism provide a context for investigating Indigenous agency and political standpoints from early contact to the contemporary era. Students will have opportunities to critically engage and analyse Indigenous people's struggle to change the terms and conditions of their colonised existence, in the face on changing government administrative regimes and persistent social, economic and political discrimination. This is a second year subject.

Learning Outcomes

• acknowledge and describe Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people's collective and personal agency
• identify and analyse significant events that exemplify Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people's role in challenging injustices and bringing about change
• apply productive dispositions and communication skills required to navigate complex knowledge intersections in professional and other everyday spaces, appropriate to Level 2 study
• review the pattern of official and public responses to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander's agency and resistance over time

Subject Assessment

• Participation > Class participation - (20%) - Individual
• Written > Essay (including multi-draft) 1 - (40%) - Individual
• Written Summary and Presentation - (20%) - Individual
• Written > Critical Analysis - (20%) - Individual

Note that minor variations might occur due to the continuous subject quality improvement process, and in case of minor variation(s) in assessment details, the Subject Outline represents the latest official information.

Availabilities