Good sports: Representations of Aboriginal people in Australiansports

Abstract

I was born and raised in Ballarat, a provincial city in Victoria with a history built on gold. My father's people were 'local'. They had participated in the gold rush of the 1850s and had made small fortunes as miners, mine owners and shopkeepers. These people had come from England. My mother was not a 'local'. She was born on the banks of Orange Creek in the Northern Territory about 100 kilometres south of Alice Springs. Her people were the Pitjantjatjara people; they had come from the Tjukurrpa (or 'The Dreaming'). As a small child, like small children everywhere, I was colourblind. I didn't notice that my mother had brown skin and I didn't know what people meant when they called her an Ab..