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The Politics of Suffering: Indigenous Australia and the End of the Liberal Consensus
Combining original observation with deep emotional engagement, this provocative book argues that, despite claims to the contrary, the quality of life of indigenous Australians did not improve between 1970 and the year 2000. Debunking past attempts to improve the tragic situation of many Aboriginal communities, this record discusses the reforms that granted land rights and encouraged traditional cultures, in the hope that this empowerment would be beneficial. Erroneously, however, this same period saw a decline in safety, health, literacy, numeracy, and employment within the Aboriginal community. Groundbreaking and informative, this document offers fresh insight and hope for a new era in indigenous politics.
280 pages, Paperback
First published July 1, 2009
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161 people want to read
About the author
Peter Sutton
13 books10 followersPeter Sutton is an anthropologist and linguist who has worked with Aboriginal people since 1969. He speaks three Cape York languages and as an expert on Aboriginal land ownership he has assisted with fifty land rights cases. He has authored or edited twelve books, including Native Title in Australia: an Ethnographic Perspective, regarded as the most authoritative work in its field. He is a Fellow of the Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia, a Fellow of the Australian Anthropological Society, and Honorary Research Fellow, Institute of Archaeology, University College London.
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Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews
July 9, 2011
As an Aboriginal Australian and one of the people Peter has described as identifying as an urban mixed heritage indigenous Australian devoid of what he terms high culture and with a background in his cultural relativist suffering politics race separatist jobs I find myself strangely in agreement and only disagreeing on the point that as even he has put he has created a stick to beat people with but struggles to see how we can move forward practically without losing much of our traditional practices and benefits without the return to paternalism.
He sums up what is essentially the untouched fact of (my) Aboriginal traditions which basically set us up for failure our kinship relations that affect the functioning members of our community which are overwhelmed by dysfunctional members, our tendency to defend ourselves over any logical argument that we are right, our acceptance of intra violence as our business or tradition and for those people who by not learning how to successfully cope with modern lifestyles and our health are dooming themselves. I however feel he didn't elaborate on the cultural drift and the validity of Aboriginal identity once it has shifted and engaged many of the modernist lifestyle requirements of success but still successfully maintaining it's distinctiveness and pride as I feel it. The lack of this is where he ends up with A very negative tone and I can understand as he is a person who has seen many deaths of his friends and kin through basically what I agree is the unconscious cultural traits and and capitalist society, access to alcohol etc colliding.
I think too he could have emphasized how maybe something like extended family concepts which are successfully used by variety of minorities and exclusivist genetic lineages are basically what Jewish people use to identify who is a jew and who isn't. Maybe some of these could have helped him show how cultures can evolve to be successful and maintain traditions but a loss and gain is possible.
It is more philosophical with good anecdotal and deeper reading of statistics that I thought were valid points per percentage as many non-indigenous people die as indigenous in custody so it is not the custodial stage but the part which leads up to being arrested by police is important, many people if not drunk or choosing to avoid the obvious hotspots of police activity or choosing to do stupid petty crime repeatedly may avoid being arrested. By attending school you probably have abetted chance of learning than not attending. But teachers need to be confident in what is to be taught how to manage cross cultural issues and to make it clear that schools is a place to learn about how to work in the wider which in general is whiter world. My opinion it is easier for us to change than try to change all the ignorant white people that we meet and by change I mean learn to succeed using wider world strategies. My biggest fear and it has already partially happened is that I now meet many white people who were once described supporters but are now switching off into or switching to harder interventionist and mainstreaming positions or a continuation of the tokenism and poor fulla me attitude.
He sums up what is essentially the untouched fact of (my) Aboriginal traditions which basically set us up for failure our kinship relations that affect the functioning members of our community which are overwhelmed by dysfunctional members, our tendency to defend ourselves over any logical argument that we are right, our acceptance of intra violence as our business or tradition and for those people who by not learning how to successfully cope with modern lifestyles and our health are dooming themselves. I however feel he didn't elaborate on the cultural drift and the validity of Aboriginal identity once it has shifted and engaged many of the modernist lifestyle requirements of success but still successfully maintaining it's distinctiveness and pride as I feel it. The lack of this is where he ends up with A very negative tone and I can understand as he is a person who has seen many deaths of his friends and kin through basically what I agree is the unconscious cultural traits and and capitalist society, access to alcohol etc colliding.
I think too he could have emphasized how maybe something like extended family concepts which are successfully used by variety of minorities and exclusivist genetic lineages are basically what Jewish people use to identify who is a jew and who isn't. Maybe some of these could have helped him show how cultures can evolve to be successful and maintain traditions but a loss and gain is possible.
It is more philosophical with good anecdotal and deeper reading of statistics that I thought were valid points per percentage as many non-indigenous people die as indigenous in custody so it is not the custodial stage but the part which leads up to being arrested by police is important, many people if not drunk or choosing to avoid the obvious hotspots of police activity or choosing to do stupid petty crime repeatedly may avoid being arrested. By attending school you probably have abetted chance of learning than not attending. But teachers need to be confident in what is to be taught how to manage cross cultural issues and to make it clear that schools is a place to learn about how to work in the wider which in general is whiter world. My opinion it is easier for us to change than try to change all the ignorant white people that we meet and by change I mean learn to succeed using wider world strategies. My biggest fear and it has already partially happened is that I now meet many white people who were once described supporters but are now switching off into or switching to harder interventionist and mainstreaming positions or a continuation of the tokenism and poor fulla me attitude.
October 1, 2012
I want to begin by briefly comparing the style of this book with 'King Brown Country: The Betrayal of Papunya' by Russell Skelton (2010), that I read previously on a recommendation. The events of 'King Brown Country' are fascinating and make for absorbing reading, but Skelton is a journalist and he went out to Papunya to explicitly explore its recent history, not to write a memoir. He is an outsider who made himself thoroughly informed and has written an excellent piece of investigative journalism that exposes much of the murky workings of certain individuals and bureaucratic systems that have repeatedly failed this community. He states his position clearly and I respect him all the more for that. It is an excellent piece of writing, but I want to make the point that it is stylistically very different to 'The Politics of Suffering' (2009), which is crafted with much more personal feeling and literary sensitivity on the part of Peter Sutton. There is a logical reason for this too, Sutton has worked as an anthropologist, linguist and land rights activist with Aboriginal people for over 40 years. As much as he is an academic authority on many issues, he also has a deep understanding of cultural nuances. He was taken as a son into an Indigenous family at Aurukun, Cape York Peninsula in 1976 and has lived in communities for extended periods of time. His close relationships with many Indigenous people and the breadth of his professional experience allow him to mine the personal, to reflect on his own narrative and how it has changed over the years.
This is a deeply disturbing book. I mean that in the way that it challenges even what you might think are your most liberal, culturally sensitive attitudes. Sutton’s politics were forged in the heady days of 1970s left-wing idealism - self-determination, land-rights and post-assimilation, post-mission era confidence. But it is this very liberal consensus that Sutton interrogates, not its validity at the time, but its failure to result in the radical changes that him and his peers believed in so wholeheartedly. He charts the unravelling of communities as they were left to somehow fill the vacuum left by the abolition of mission control and supposed to function as some sort of hybrid blackfella/whitefella community without the traditional moorings they once had or the government management of recent times. The introduction of alcohol, decreasing employment levels, the migration of Indigenous people away from communities to outstations, closer to their traditional lands but further from resources, schools and jobs, the failures of government to hold individuals to account and stark cultural differences between European settler and Indigenous ways of life all contributed to catastrophic declines in life expectancy, employment and literacy and marked increases in infant mortality, disease and violence.
The thread that runs through this book, however, is a message of humanity. Sutton argues that if we are to consider anything such as a formal reconciliation or seriously ‘closing the gap,’ we need to re-frame our approach and start at the personal level. It is, he says, the relationships between humans that matter. Nothing really changes if it doesn’t establish roots in the ground first. All the policy and good intentions in the world, while necessary and beneficial, will not result in the major shifts needed unless Australians en masse can start communicating with each other as equals. This means simply making more connections, seeing people as individuals, not as part of a collective other, which makes it all too easy to simplify and ignore the complexities that characterise every human society. It was validating to read this well-articulated argument, as it accorded with what I already believed. I have just spent 10 weeks living and working in a remote Indigenous community, my first visit to Central Australia. I wrote in an email to my family, not long after I arrived, that making connections across what I had personally felt was a wide cultural gap, “is surely the key to greater understanding and empathy on both sides.”
The issues covered in this book are complex and Sutton traverses so much in his exploratory narrative. Ancient and recent history, policy, personal anecdotes; they all coalesce into a rich mosaic held together by a clear logic and a profound sensitivity. It is necessary reading if you are at all interested in the rights of every Australian to quality of life, safety from violence and neglect, access to opportunity and the freedom to dream - I really hope you are.
This is a deeply disturbing book. I mean that in the way that it challenges even what you might think are your most liberal, culturally sensitive attitudes. Sutton’s politics were forged in the heady days of 1970s left-wing idealism - self-determination, land-rights and post-assimilation, post-mission era confidence. But it is this very liberal consensus that Sutton interrogates, not its validity at the time, but its failure to result in the radical changes that him and his peers believed in so wholeheartedly. He charts the unravelling of communities as they were left to somehow fill the vacuum left by the abolition of mission control and supposed to function as some sort of hybrid blackfella/whitefella community without the traditional moorings they once had or the government management of recent times. The introduction of alcohol, decreasing employment levels, the migration of Indigenous people away from communities to outstations, closer to their traditional lands but further from resources, schools and jobs, the failures of government to hold individuals to account and stark cultural differences between European settler and Indigenous ways of life all contributed to catastrophic declines in life expectancy, employment and literacy and marked increases in infant mortality, disease and violence.
The thread that runs through this book, however, is a message of humanity. Sutton argues that if we are to consider anything such as a formal reconciliation or seriously ‘closing the gap,’ we need to re-frame our approach and start at the personal level. It is, he says, the relationships between humans that matter. Nothing really changes if it doesn’t establish roots in the ground first. All the policy and good intentions in the world, while necessary and beneficial, will not result in the major shifts needed unless Australians en masse can start communicating with each other as equals. This means simply making more connections, seeing people as individuals, not as part of a collective other, which makes it all too easy to simplify and ignore the complexities that characterise every human society. It was validating to read this well-articulated argument, as it accorded with what I already believed. I have just spent 10 weeks living and working in a remote Indigenous community, my first visit to Central Australia. I wrote in an email to my family, not long after I arrived, that making connections across what I had personally felt was a wide cultural gap, “is surely the key to greater understanding and empathy on both sides.”
The issues covered in this book are complex and Sutton traverses so much in his exploratory narrative. Ancient and recent history, policy, personal anecdotes; they all coalesce into a rich mosaic held together by a clear logic and a profound sensitivity. It is necessary reading if you are at all interested in the rights of every Australian to quality of life, safety from violence and neglect, access to opportunity and the freedom to dream - I really hope you are.
September 17, 2010
I was initially convinced .. but then realised he is all wrong. Jon Altman's review was convincing.
September 18, 2023
The plural of anecdote is not data. This is the “here be dragons” warning that should be on the box of this book.
I haven’t read a lot of anthropology and it seems to sit in this middle ground. On the one side are the hard sciences, aka objective truth-searching—the maths, physics etc. On the other side the touchy-feely subjects like philosophy, sociology—they definitely interact with the real world, but how one feels can be just as important, such as with debate about abortion. In the middle are these soft-sciences, like economics & anthropology, that attempt to bridge the gap between what is concretely observable and what we feel. I’ve studied, at university level, in all 3 areas, but never anything to do with anthropology (though I have read people like Pinker so …).
The upshot is, I’m surprised at how sloppy the reasoning in this book is handled. So much of the book contains random musings, lessons “learned” over decades of observation, but only intermittently does Sutton tie his thinking to hard data. Of course this is difficult in such a subject area, but he’s profligate with his silly opinions, such as at one point arguing that people without children were more likely to hold a view with which he disagreed. This kind of sloppy academic activity shouldn’t stand. It's such an important area, and he’s obviously willing to take a line not politically correct, such as by arguing against Pascoe’s Dark Emu theory of Aboriginal history.
When he delves into data, such as discussing that Aboriginals are no more likely to die in custody than non-Aboriginals, his arguments are persuasive.
It’s also a timely book to read just before The Voice vote. Here is him, in 2009 (p120):
If the answer to criticisms of the kind I make here is that Indigenous self-government and voice-power will deliver improvements by some kind of automatic rule, there is an obvious reply: conditions in remote Aboriginal communities, especially, but also in urban ghettos like Redfern in Sydney, have generally become worse, not better, since the transfer of power from church and government to locally elected bodies in the 1970s and 1980s.
Interesting when he’s thinking logically, poor otherwise.
I haven’t read a lot of anthropology and it seems to sit in this middle ground. On the one side are the hard sciences, aka objective truth-searching—the maths, physics etc. On the other side the touchy-feely subjects like philosophy, sociology—they definitely interact with the real world, but how one feels can be just as important, such as with debate about abortion. In the middle are these soft-sciences, like economics & anthropology, that attempt to bridge the gap between what is concretely observable and what we feel. I’ve studied, at university level, in all 3 areas, but never anything to do with anthropology (though I have read people like Pinker so …).
The upshot is, I’m surprised at how sloppy the reasoning in this book is handled. So much of the book contains random musings, lessons “learned” over decades of observation, but only intermittently does Sutton tie his thinking to hard data. Of course this is difficult in such a subject area, but he’s profligate with his silly opinions, such as at one point arguing that people without children were more likely to hold a view with which he disagreed. This kind of sloppy academic activity shouldn’t stand. It's such an important area, and he’s obviously willing to take a line not politically correct, such as by arguing against Pascoe’s Dark Emu theory of Aboriginal history.
When he delves into data, such as discussing that Aboriginals are no more likely to die in custody than non-Aboriginals, his arguments are persuasive.
It’s also a timely book to read just before The Voice vote. Here is him, in 2009 (p120):
If the answer to criticisms of the kind I make here is that Indigenous self-government and voice-power will deliver improvements by some kind of automatic rule, there is an obvious reply: conditions in remote Aboriginal communities, especially, but also in urban ghettos like Redfern in Sydney, have generally become worse, not better, since the transfer of power from church and government to locally elected bodies in the 1970s and 1980s.
Interesting when he’s thinking logically, poor otherwise.
August 31, 2023
Peter Sutton has much to say on the implications of changes to policies in regard indigenous or first nations peoples of Australia from the 1970s onwards. His focus is closely on the Aurukun settlement in north Queensland, however, through his vast experience with land claims across the country he touches on many indigenous leaders and other settlements. Sutton turns a sober eye to the implications for aboriginal people and at times is scathing of those who advocated change. Certainly, a book worth reading and making your own judgement as to the accuracy of his claims. Sutton pulls no punches and I imagine the book would have been controversial around the time of publication around 2010. In the afterward Sutton surveys some of the criticisms, including the one most obvious to me - in that he gives little weight to the incredible advances that have been made for aboriginal people over the last fifty years - the country is unrecognizable. Certainly there are intractable problems to be addressed and many are putting their faith in a positive outcome from the current Referendum that is setting out to find new ways forward.
January 1, 2024
Professor Sutton provides an excellent overview of the deep social problems and discord in Indigenous communities in Australia, supported by his decades of observation working as an anthropologist among the Wik people of the Cape York Peninsula. He strikes a very balanced and measured picture, detailing how a mixture of misguided 'progressive' policy from the 1970s, Indigenous cultural factors, liberalisation of alcohol laws and generalised mismanagement has led to widespread social disaster. Sutton's work is a great starting point for anyone wanting to understand Indigenous policy issues. Though it is more about naming the problems than offering solutions (as the solutions will be complex and difficult), Sutton at least breaks through the political correctness which has long marred this field, and smashes a lot of misguided progressive pieties espoused by city-based thinkers.
December 27, 2023
Very informative, often sad, but refreshingly honest. Often quite readable but a bit dense at times for me, and I don't know I agree with all of his remarks, but he includes so many and a range it seems.
July 9, 2025
Wow. I doubt that I could recommend a book more highly. An antidote for the simplistic &
the naive. Valuable insight for the ignorant and the well intentioned.
the naive. Valuable insight for the ignorant and the well intentioned.
October 8, 2023
Often makes its points with too much acridity, to my taste, but there are worthy insights to be taken out of it nonetheless. A different perspective that should try to be understood for its mostly-good intentions.
August 21, 2011
An interesting read; though I find much of it naive. And, it is a personal account rather than a scholarly critique. Sutton makes some interesting points about dysfunction in Aboriginal communities in remote Australia, and his honest style may "wake up" some colleagues and interested parties to the realities of Indigenous rural Australia. But these points are too frequently lost in a fogg of naive commentary, lacking rigorous analysis. Much of the text is reduced to little more than a collection of personal comments harping on about how bad things are, laced with disingenuous swipes at numerous unnamed opponents who all - seemingly - think in the same idiotic way.
It is sad that an anthropologist of his status could have written so poorly on a collection of related issues of such paramount importance. Reading the book, I can't help feeling that Sutton means well, but is overwhelmed by the extent of the social problems that continue to exist in Indigenous communities, races through a series of illogical conclusions and then, defeated and disallusioned, simply gives in; reduced to name calling.
Despite the poor quality critique, Sutton's better points are deserving of serious consideration. And certainly his negative polemic makes entertaining reading. I'm glad he has raised the issues, and hope that discussion at a more informed level can take place.
It is sad that an anthropologist of his status could have written so poorly on a collection of related issues of such paramount importance. Reading the book, I can't help feeling that Sutton means well, but is overwhelmed by the extent of the social problems that continue to exist in Indigenous communities, races through a series of illogical conclusions and then, defeated and disallusioned, simply gives in; reduced to name calling.
Despite the poor quality critique, Sutton's better points are deserving of serious consideration. And certainly his negative polemic makes entertaining reading. I'm glad he has raised the issues, and hope that discussion at a more informed level can take place.
March 14, 2010
This is a book that anyone interested in understanding the dysfunction in remote Aboriginal communities in Australia should read. Peter Sutton is an anthropologist, linguist and pre-eminent expert on native title rights and law in Australia. He has lived and worked with Aboriginal communities for nearly 40 years.
In this book, Sutton argues that the 'liberal' solutions to Aboriginal issues, such as heavy investments in land rights law and the white bureaucracies supporting such structures, has come as at the expense of basic human rights for Aboriginal people -such as the right to not be sexually assaulted as a child or a woman. He also argues that cultural relativism, i.e. the argument that traditional culture is always best, that every element of culture is valid even if it causes pain and suffering to individuals and therefore must be kept- has been used by some sections of the Left to turn a blind eye to the appalling conditions in which some Aboriginal people find themselves.
This is not a book for the faint-hearted. Nor is it a book for closed-minded people. It is a book for those with genuine compassion and a progressive attitude towards entrenched poverty and dysfunction in Indigenous cultures.
In this book, Sutton argues that the 'liberal' solutions to Aboriginal issues, such as heavy investments in land rights law and the white bureaucracies supporting such structures, has come as at the expense of basic human rights for Aboriginal people -such as the right to not be sexually assaulted as a child or a woman. He also argues that cultural relativism, i.e. the argument that traditional culture is always best, that every element of culture is valid even if it causes pain and suffering to individuals and therefore must be kept- has been used by some sections of the Left to turn a blind eye to the appalling conditions in which some Aboriginal people find themselves.
This is not a book for the faint-hearted. Nor is it a book for closed-minded people. It is a book for those with genuine compassion and a progressive attitude towards entrenched poverty and dysfunction in Indigenous cultures.
June 12, 2011
I read this book for book club, otherwise would not have chosen it as, while I am concerned about the plight of indigenous communities in Australia, I have sadly placed this issue in the 'too hard' basket. Reading this book has definitely re-engaged me in the topic, however, I can't help but feel it is ultimately in Sutton's 'too hard' basket too, as he has much to say about what doesn't work, without providing much hope as to what does work. Symbolic reconciliation (the apology, the bridge walk etc) is described as decent, but possibly harming as reinforces the divide - us and them; practical reconciliation in some respects is tarred with the same brush. Sutton points out irreconcilable differences, but then seems to argue for same treatment. Aarrrggghhh! Sometimes I felt he was very much of one view and critical of others. But I then read a transcript of him appearing on Q&A and he wasn't like that at all. Plus, the guy has lived and worked with indigenous communities for decades, speaks at least three indigenous languages. He's hardly the bad guy, and sure knows more than me on this issue. Still got me hot and bothered. Where is that silver bullet that will solve all this?
It will certainly make for interesting discussion at book club...
It will certainly make for interesting discussion at book club...
September 24, 2011
Sobering reading, gives us blow-ins a lot to think about, kindness isn't enough.
Read
January 12, 2017Challenging. Great anthropology
August 9, 2011
A hard read, because it makes me feel so emotional, but a book I am compelled to read.
April 7, 2018
This book was dense but even more challenging because of Sutton's own challenge to what he came to regard as 'lefty' orthodoxy. While I recognised so many of the things he described, and his experience is impeccable, I couldn't always go as far as he does in his analyses, where he wants to eschew rights agendas in favour of what he regards as practical ones. In some ways, I'm glad I read this book now (rather than when I was younger) when I am at least somewhat experienced, and also in these days of Trump when the rhetoric of canning the "liberal elites" looks like the hack I believe it is. And when the unquestioning cosying up to Uncle Noel's economic and educational strategies has revealed some weaknesses. Having said all that, it's very well worth reading for those who have (already!) worked with Aboriginal people especially in the north and west.
Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews