Indigenous entrepreneurship and indigenous employment in Australia

Abstract

This article investigates the theoretical underpinnings of Indigenous entrepreneurship and the disproportionate capacity for Indigenous enterprises to generate jobs for Indigenous peoples in Australia. It builds on the existing scholarship on Indigenous entrepreneurship - which has mostly focused on individual Indigenous entrepreneurs and the extent to which they generate employment and other benefits for the local community - to also examine the opportunities and constraints for Indigenous enterprises and employment within Indigenous economies, with reference to New South Wales. In this, we define Indigenous economies as referring less to individual Indigenous entrepreneurs or businesses and more to Indigenous people as a polity, for example as First Nations peoples who engage in the economy through their land estate. We are here exploring a distinction between Indigenous entrepreneurialism and the entrepreneurialism possible as First Nations people and thus an Indigenous economy.