Old Aborigines Department, Perth WA, and a file created by this department

The Files Project is an examination of the administrative and personal files created by various state agencies of the Western Australian Government to control, manage, and document Indigenous peoples of Western Australia from 1897 to 1972.

Thousands of such files were created to manage and control Indigenous peoples within Western Australia, and it is only within recent years that researchers, Indigenous community members, and historians have been able access this vast archive.

This project does not engage in direct revelation of actual personal information of Indigenous community members documented in these files, but rather, is an investigation into their creation, their power, and their difficult legacy for Indigenous peoples.

By examining the creators of the archive, the types of files created, the sort of information held within them and contemporary debates surrounding access, this project draws similarities between Aboriginal personal and administrative files and international surveillance files of repressive regimes such as the Stasi in East Germany, and the Apartheid Government of South Africa. 

Recent, and impending court action in Western Australia (eg; Stolen Generations, Native Title, and wages disputes) has made this archive active in a legal context.  It is the undertaking of The Files Project to identify the specific characteristics of this archive, and to locate it within an international context of archives of repressive regimes. 

This project has received support from the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies, Canberra, Australia.  www.aiatsis.gov.au/