Caribberre, doing business in the 21st century, Aboriginal way

Caribberre, in my mother's language, translates as "dancing." Metaphorically we now dance a new way, the dance of the "Australian Aboriginal entrepreneur," a dance that is "business enterprise." However, within a capitalist, free-market Australian economy, the bureaucracies that manage Aboriginal people cannot agree on a definition of what an Aboriginal business is. Abstract, faceless non-Aboriginal people in suits in Canberra fail to understand that an Aboriginal business is not based just on shareholding. The determination of an Aboriginal business involves much more, and at the end of the day should it not be that Aboriginal people define who is Aboriginal and also what businesses are Aboriginal? The High Court of Australia has already given Australian Aboriginal people precedence to confirm community identity; this chapter argues that the Aboriginal business community should also determine which enterprises are indeed Aboriginal. This chapter explores the concept of Aboriginal well-being and self-determination within the growing area that is Aboriginal business and enterprise, which in many ways is a special "dance" that is economic freedom.