Observing CDEP as a program and in various remote localities over thirty years, I have come to think of its greatest strength as the creation of a sociology of work.  The sheds and crafty classrooms of my title are the most usual public places where I have observed Aboriginal men and women CDEP participants respectively undertaking this and its replacement by the Remote Jobs and Communities Program (RJCP), will these sheds of activity and routine live on in some form of after-life, or will they and their sociology of work become another instance of loss for Aboriginal people and communities? This interpretive, observational account of CDEP's sociology of work will elide the issue of whether CDEP participants have been and should be counted as employed in Census statistics. That debate over statistical categories and data will be left for another, more quantitative discussion.

Dr Will Sanders is a Senior Fellow at the Centre for Aboriginal Economic Policy Research.