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Article: Youth work Aboriginal young people and ambivalence: the broad range of ways that Aboriginal youth are represented in Australian society creates challenges for non-Indigenous youth workers but also allows for flexibility in practice and for greater involvement of Aboriginal people in youth work practice with Aboriginal youth.(Peer Reviewed Paper)
- Article from:
- Youth Studies Australia
- Article date:
- December 1, 2003
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2003 Australian Clearing House for Youth Studies. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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The post-colonial theorist Homi Bhabha (1997, p.40) begins his essay, 'The other question', emphasising the importance of not assuming colonial stereotypes are always fixed or straightforward. He reminds us that, "the colonial stereotype is a complex, ambivalent, contradictory mode of representation, as anxious as it is assertive" (1997, p.40). Reformulating ideas about ambivalence taken from psychoanalytical theory, Bhabha argues that colonial discourse is often in two minds about its treatment of the indigene, pushing away but pulling towards, simultaneously repulsed and attracted to its Other (Ashcroft, Grifffiths & Tiffin 1998, p.12). For Bhabha (1997, p.51) colonial ...