Camps, Cottages and Homes: A Brief History of Indigenous Housing in Queensland

Title: Camps, Cottages and Homes: A Brief History of Indigenous Housing in Queensland
Editors: Dr Timothy O'Rourke and Mandana Mapar
Publisher: The University of Queensland: Cornerstone Press (2022)

Camps, Cottages and Homes: A Brief History of Indigenous Housing in Queensland explores key ways that Queensland Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities have made homes in the twentieth century.

On missions and government settlements, the cottage was imposed as a policy instrument of control and assimilation. This model for state housing endured in Queensland well into the 1970s. In contrast, themes of resistance and self-determination across the State are documented here. Indigenous people constructed fringe camps, made additions to ill-considered government housing and rejected rigidly enforced structures developed in the early 1900s despite entrenched structural racism.

The systemic discrimination and neglect evident in planning schemes, housing designs and deficits in housing supply are ongoing problems not limited to the last century. Research undertaken by the Aboriginal Environments Research Centre towards this exhibition represents a counter narrative, one which examines flourishing industries such as the Cherbourg prefab workshop and some of the Indigenous housing co-operatives registered in Queensland.

This book was published in conjunction with the Camps, Cottages and Homes exhibition of held at The University of Queensland Anthropology Museum, August–October, 2022.