Indigenous entrepreneurship: what, when, how and why?

Is this an area of legitimate academic endeavour, or has this become the social experiment of the business management minded scholar who perhaps sees it as a 'trendy - exotic' area of study? Correspondingly, do researchers view this as an area of study with a mythical bottomless bucket of government funding to support their academic conquest? Or is this a serious area of research that is desperately needed for government bodies, agencies and NGOs to understand economic alternatives that will improve the social standing of Indigenous people within what is stereotypically seen as a welfare dependant group within the greater Australian society. Existing literature will be reviewed. Do we understand Indigenous entrepreneurship? This paper will begin to tackle issues not normally discussed outside of Indigenous networks. These issues are broad and cover a wide range that are not politically motivated, however the contemporary political environment that faces Indigenous Australia, and the Indigenous Australian Entrepreneur is not one of certainty. The Indigenous Australian entrepreneur is not the exotic subject matter; the object of research. Rather; they are a member of Australian society whose economic, cultural and social well-being is ultimately the purpose of our research.