Why do so many indigenous Australians turn to substance abuse?
A little over 10 years ago, as a young anthropology student, I arrived in the dusty, shrub-infested outback town of Alice Springs in a champagne-coloured Toyota Camry. It’s an extraordinary place: vast and dry and scorched. I planned to spend my summer break managing three local liquor stores there — given the town’s reputation for Aboriginal alcohol abuse, I thought it would make an interesting case study — and ended up living in Alice Springs for much of my early adulthood.
