Traversing ontological dispositions: The intersection between remote Indigenous communities and elite urban-based men's football organisation

Linda Tuhiwai Smith’s comment serves to succinctly remind ethnographic researchers that the colonial legacy is difficult to dislodge from those interwoven mechanisms and behaviours that guide contemporary practice. It also assists us in introducing the essence of our contribution to this volume. We are in the midst of undertaking a major ethnographic project that places significant emphasis on reconsidering the usual procedural and theoretical dimensions of fieldwork research concerning Australian Indigenous sports participation. Our aims in this chapter are to set out and explain the historical relations between the people of Papunya and sporting organisations; and to convey the research framework to be put in place to conduct an ethnographic investigation of the relationship that has developed between the remote Aboriginal community of Papunya and the Central Australian Football League (CAFL). Our project aims to understand the ontological dispositions and cultural meanings of Australian Football that are syncretically enacted across and between the intersections of sport in a social system in Central Australia. The primary emphasis of this chapter attends to ethnography issues and frameworks implemented when combining Organisational Studies and Australian sports studies. Secondarily, we briefly address and explain paradigmatic shortcomings pervading the contemporary analysis of Aboriginal participation in Australian football.