Law Commons^™

Mediatisation, Marginalisation And Disruption In Australian Indigenous Affairs, Kerry Mccallum, Lisa Waller, Tanja Dreher

Faculty of Law, Humanities and the Arts - Papers (Archive)

This article considers how changing media practices of minority groups and political and media elites impact on demo-cratic participation in national debates. Taking as its case study the state-sponsored campaign to formally recognise In-digenous people in the Australian constitution, the article examines the interrelationships between political media and Indigenous participatory media-both of which we argue are undergoing seismic transformation. Discussion of consti-tutional reform has tended to focus on debates occurring in forums of influence such as party politics and news media that privilege the voices of only a few high-profile Indigenous media 'stars'. Debate has progressed on the assumption that …

12 Deadly Indigenous Australian Social Media Users To Follow, Bronwyn Carlson

Faculty of Law, Humanities and the Arts - Papers (Archive)

No abstract provided.

Te Arewhana Kei Roto I Te Ruma: An Indigenous Neo-Disputatio On Settler Society, Nullifying Te Tiriti, 'Natural Resources' And Our Collective Future In Aotearoa New Zealand, Hemopereki Simon

Faculty of Law, Humanities and the Arts - Papers (Archive)

This practice-research based article explores the relationship between mana motuhake and white patriarchal sovereignty in Aotearoa New Zealand, focusing on Ngāti Tūwharetoa as a case study. It seeks to find the relevance of Aboriginal academic Aileen Moreton-Robinson's white possessive doctrine to the Aotearoa New Zealand context. In particular, it highlights the racist nature of the law and planning systems and their inadequacies to provide for hapū and iwi. It provides a key theoretical analysis regarding the nature of white patriarchal sovereignty in Aotearoa and the need of the state to appear virtuous, to continue the legacy that started with the …

Listening To Hear: Critical Allies In Indigenous Studies, Colleen Mcgloin

Faculty of Law, Humanities and the Arts - Papers (Archive)

This paper reflects on a particular class in an undergraduate seminar in Australian Indigenous Studies where anecdote played a crucial role and where both the teacher and learners were challenged to consider their implication as racialised subjects in the teaching and learning process. The paper argues that student anecdote can be a vital bridge between theory and practice in adult learning. It suggests that all learners in Indigenous Studies, and also in studies of race and difference more generally, need to undertake effective listening and hearing practices in order to consider, imagine and engage with experiences and worldviews other than …

Contemporary Indigenous Art, Ian A. Mclean

Faculty of Law, Humanities and the Arts - Papers (Archive)

A new exhibition of the NGV's collection of Indigenous and Torres Strait Islander art explores Indigenous art history and culture from the early nineteenth century to now. Situating this display within broader contemporary art issues, Professor Ian McLean sheds light on the art market's recent past and potential future.

Enduring Civilisation, Entangled Histories: Indigenous Australia: Enduring Civilisation At The British Museum, Ian A. Mclean

Faculty of Law, Humanities and the Arts - Papers (Archive)

With about 6200 artefacts, as well as photos and archival materials in its Australian collection, the British Museum (BM) is a rich mine for stories about Australia. However, while most of this collection can these days be seen online, it has featured little in the Museum’s headline stories of Mediterranean and Middle Eastern civilisations or been able to compete with its African galleries.

Applying The Critical Lens To Judicial Officers And Legal Practitioners Involved In Sentencing Indigenous Offenders: Will Anyone Or Anything Do?, Elena Marchetti, Janet Ransley

Faculty of Law, Humanities and the Arts - Papers (Archive)

In recent years there have been many attempts aimed at transforming the relationship between Indigenous people and the criminal justice system in Australia. Some of these attempts have been directed at policing relationships, including such measures as community and night patrols. Others have focused on prisons, including attempts at greater cultural accommodation, and even the building of Aboriginal prisons. The focus of this article, however, is on the relationship between Indigenous people and court processes, especially in regards to sentencing. In particular, the article explores innovative sentencing courts, practices and principles introduced across the Australian jurisdictions specifically aimed at Indigenous …

Tone It Down A Bit!: Euphemism As A Colonial Device In Australian Indigenous Studies, Colleen Mcgloin

Faculty of Law, Humanities and the Arts - Papers (Archive)

In a previous article discussing the politics of language in Australian Indigenous Studies teaching and learning contexts, my colleague and I stated our objective in writing that article was to ‘‘instill’’ a sense of the importance of the political nature of language to our student body (McGloin and Carlson 2013). We wanted to engage students in the idea that language, as a conduit for describing the world, is not a neutral channel for its portrayal or depiction; rather, that it is a political device that is often a contributing force to racism and the perpetuation of colonial violence.While reviews of …

Four Scholars Speak To Navigating The Complexities Of Naming In Indigenous Studies, Bronwyn Carlson, J Berglund, Michelle Harris, Evan S. Te Ahu Poata-Smith

Faculty of Law, Humanities and the Arts - Papers (Archive)

Universities in Australia are expanding their Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies programs to include Indigenous populations from around the globe. This is also the case for the Indigenous Studies Unit at the University of Wollongong (UOW). Although systems of nomenclature in Indigenous Studies seek to be respectful of difference, the politics of naming in the global context raises some complexities worthy of discussion. In this article, four scholars discuss the politics of naming in relation to teaching a joint Indigenous Studies subject at the UOW and Northern Arizona University.

Indigenous Australia's Diverse Memorialisation Of The Dead, Bronwyn Carlson

Faculty of Law, Humanities and the Arts - Papers (Archive)

Beliefs and ceremonies associated with death in Indigenous Australia are diverse. Death and the deceased are sacred to Indigenous Australians and ceremonies differ between communities.

They may involve lengthy ceremonies lasting several days with strict protocols around language, names, images and other possessions. Alternatively deaths might be marked by funerals that can include images and speaking the deceased person’s name, performances and other tributes.

Sovereign Bodies: Australian Indigenous Cultural Festivals And Flourishing Lifeworlds, Lisa Slater

Faculty of Law, Humanities and the Arts - Papers (Archive)

In 2008, I was an observer at a two-day workshop concerned with the future of the Laura Aboriginal Dance Festival. The delegates were Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples from across Cape York Peninsula, representing communities (Indigenous townships) that dance at this long-running event. There was an openfloor discussion; following cultural protocols, one by one elders got to their feet to speak for country. A highly respected elder told of how he and his family cared for country - walked, talked, sung, hunted, burned - to keep their ancestral lands healthy, as the land looked after them. He then passionately …

‘Calling Our Spirits Home’: Indigenous Cultural Festivals And The Making Of A Good Life, Lisa Slater

Faculty of Law, Humanities and the Arts - Papers (Archive)

Speaking about the problems affecting Wik youth of Aurukun, Cape York, a local community health worker, Derek Walpo, lamented that ‘their spirits have wandered too far. We need to call them back.’ The poignant reflection was made at a debriefing session following a social and wellbeing festival in Aurukun.1 The five-day event culminated in a Mary G concert, in which almost all the township gathered to laugh and cheer the indomitable Broome ‘lady’. It was not just Mary G’s ribald humour that vitalised and galvanised the crowd, but also her performance that playfully reflected back and validated some of the …

Well-Connected Indigenous Kids Keen To Tap New Ways To Save Lives, Bronwyn Carlson

Faculty of Law, Humanities and the Arts - Papers (Archive)

Tony Abbott is spending this week in North-East Arnhem Land, part of his long-held hope “to be not just the Prime Minister but the Prime Minister for Aboriginal Affairs”. We asked our experts: what stories does the PM need to hear while he’s in the Top End?

Two things are part of the everyday reality of life for many Australian kids, teens and 20-somethings. One is their avid use of social media to connect with friends and share their feelings via status updates, spending hours glued to their mobile phones. But, sadly, too often the other everyday reality is self-harm …

Emergent Identities: The Changing Contours Of Indigenous Identities In Aotearoa/New Zealand, Evan S. Poata-Smith

Faculty of Law, Humanities and the Arts - Papers (Archive)

This chapter explores the changing contours of contemporary indigenous identities in Aotearoa/New Zealand. It challenges essentialist notions that Māori have ‘‘…singular, integral, altogether harmonious and unproblematic identities’’(Calhoun 1994, 13). It will be argued that rather than conceptualising Māori identities as the continual transmission of fixed cultural essences through time, ‘‘being Māori’’ should be approached as part of a more discontinuous process in which culture and tradition are continually made and remade.

The ‘New Frontier’: Emergent Indigenous Identities And Social Media, Bronwyn Carlson

Faculty of Law, Humanities and the Arts - Papers (Archive)

The rapid rise in the use of social media as a means of cultural and social interaction among Aboriginal people and groups is an intriguing development. It is a phenomenon that has not yet gained traction in academia, although interest is gaining momentum as it becomes apparent that the use of social media is becoming an everyday, typical activity. In one episode of Living Black (an Australian television show featuring stories of interest to Indigenous people) entitled ‘‘Cyber Wars’’ (April 19th, 2010), several Aboriginal people commented on their Facebook use. Allan Clarke, one of the Aboriginal Facebook users featured, stated …

Indigenous Identities And The Politics Of Authenticity, Michelle Harris, Bronwyn Carlson, Evan S. Poata-Smith

Faculty of Law, Humanities and the Arts - Papers (Archive)

The very question of Indigenous authenticity, as Jeffrey Sissons reminds us, ‘‘…has deep roots within colonial racism’’ (2005, 43). Racialisation and the practice of creating and imbuing racial categories with seemingly impermeable boundaries and indestructible meanings has, after all, underpinned a range of colonial practices from the systematic alienation of Indigenous land and resources to child abduction. Regimes of biological and cultural authenticity continue to shape state policies and practices that regulate the everyday lives of Indigenous people around the world. Indeed, in some contexts, expectations of Indigenous cultural purity or environmental naturalness exist alongside the imposition of varying degrees …

Urbanizing Frontiers: Indigenous Peoples And Settlers In 19th-Century Pacific Rim Cities [Book Review], Frances Steel

Faculty of Law, Humanities and the Arts - Papers (Archive)

In Australia, classical notions of the frontier and its associated histories of invasion, displacement and violence would tend to point us towards the outback or the bush rather than the urban centres where most of us live today. Penelope Edmonds thoroughly unsettles this notion of a distant frontier by moving it back to the edges of the continent, to the port towns where Europeans first landed and where most of them remained. The frontier was not simply 'out there', synonymous with the unruly boundaries of an expanding pastoral economy, but very close to home. This reorientation recognises that our cities …

Indigenous Sentencing Courts (Brief 5, December), Elena Marchetti

Faculty of Law, Humanities and the Arts - Papers (Archive)

This brief focuses on Indigenous sentencing courts, which operate in all Australian states and territories except Tasmania. These courts have been established according to protocols and practices, and can be distinguished from more informal practices that occur in remote areas where judicial officers travel on circuit. The first court was established in Port Adelaide on 1 June 1999. Indigenous sentencing courts do not practise or adopt Indigenous customary laws. Rather, they use Australian criminal laws and procedures to sentence Indigenous offenders who have either pleaded guilty or been found guilty, but they allow Indigenous Elders and Respected Persons to participate …

Indigenous Women And The Rciadic Part Ii, E Marchetti

Faculty of Law, Humanities and the Arts - Papers (Archive)

In the previous issue of the Indigenous Law Bulletin, I discussed the extent to which the official reports of the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody (‘RCIADIC’) addressed the problems of Indigenous women.1 I concluded that although the official RCIADIC reports did not completely ignore Indigenous women, they did not sufficiently discuss the topics that had the most harmful impact on Indigenous women, namely family violence and police treatment of Indigenous women.

A Review Of A. Dirk Moses (Ed.), Genocide And Settler Society: Frontier Violence And Stolen Indigenous Children In Australian History, Lorenzo Veracini

Faculty of Law, Humanities and the Arts - Papers (Archive)

Genocide and Settler Society constitutes a successful exercise in deparochialization. Until now, discussions of genocides in an Australian context have centered on whether this category could be applied, accompanied by debated qualifications, to the experience of Indigenous people. On the contrary, Genocide and Settler Society ultimately and convincingly reverses this order. It is not a matter of testing the relevance of genocide studies to Australian history; rather, there is a need to explore the ways in which genocide studies at large can benefit from an appraisal of the Australian experience. In order to perform this intellectual recasting, Dirk Moses has …

Indigenous Courts And Justice Practices In Australia, E Marchetti, Kathleen Daly

Faculty of Law, Humanities and the Arts - Papers (Archive)

Indigenous participation in sentencing procedures has been occurring informally in remote communities for some time. During the late 1990s, formalisation of this practice began in urban areas with the advent of Indigenous sentencing and Circle Courts. Formalisation has also occurred in remote areas. The aim has been to make court processes more culturally appropriate, to engender greater trust between Indigenous communities and judicial officers, and to permit a more informal and open exchange of information about defendants and their cases. Indigenous people, organisations, elders, family and kin group members are encouraged to participate in the sentencing process and to provide …