Albert Namatjira and the burden of citizenship (Australia, indigenous, aboriginal peoples)

Albert Namatjira (1902-59), an Arrernte (Aranda) born at Hermannsburg in Central Australia, is one of the best known of Australia's Indigenous artists. In the 1950s, many non-Indigenous Australians, concerned about the regime of discriminatory legislation that governed Aboriginal people and influenced by the assimiliationist discourse, wanted to create an opportunity for Namatjira to live 'like us'. This article examines the context in which settler Australians' ideas about citizenship were shaped and in particular the common conflation of equality with sameness, the events that lead to Namatjira effectively being made a citizen and why his citizenship finally was nothing more than a terrible burden to him.