Trapped in the Gap Doing Good in Indigenous Australia [Paperback]

In Australia, a tribe of white, middle-class, progressive professionals is actively working to improve the lives of Indigenous people. This book explores what happens when well-meaning people, supported by the state, attempt to help without harming. White anti-racists find themselves trapped by endless ambiguities, contradictions, and double binds  a microcosm of the broader dilemmas of postcolonial societies. These dilemmas are fueled by tension between the twin desires of equality and difference: to make Indigenous people statistically the same as non-Indigenous people (to 'close the gap') while simultaneously maintaining their cultural distinctiveness. This tension lies at the heart of failed development efforts in Indigenous communities, ethnic minority populations and the global South. This book explains why doing good is so hard, and how it could be done differently.?

Emma Kowalis Associate Professor of Anthropology at Deakin University, Melbourne. She has also worked as a doctor and public health researcher in Indigenous health settings. She has published widely on Australian postcolonialism, whiteness and anti-racism, is co-editor ofMoving Anthropology: Critical Indigenous Studies, and is an editor of the journalPostcolonial Studies.

Trapped in the Gaprepresents one of these rare studies, and comes at a particularly pertinent time; as the adage goes, the winds of change are blowing and we must be as cognisant as we ever have been of what impact, if any, we are having on the lives of Indigenous people in Australia. Anthropological Forum

A very interesting and useful book. The Asia Pacific Journal of Anthropology

Well written, widely documented and counter-intuitive,Trapped in the Gapis a brilliant book and a significant contribution to the study of aboriginal health, racial relations in post-settler states andl³ƒ