Indigenous sovereignty, self-determination, RAP

The White Possessive explores the links between race, sovereignty, and possession through themes of property: owning property, being property, and becoming propertyless. Focusing on the Australian Aboriginal context, Aileen Moreton-Robinson questions current race theory in the first world and its preoccupation with foregrounding slavery and migration. The nation, she argues, is socially and culturally constructed as a white possession. Moreton-Robinson reveals how the core values of Australian national identity continue to have their roots in Britishness and colonization, built on the disavowal of Indigenous sovereignty. Whiteness studies literature is central to Moreton-Robinson's reasoning, and she shows how blackness works as a white epistemological tool that bolsters the social production of whiteness--displacing Indigenous sovereignties and rendering them invisible in a civil rights discourse, thereby sidestepping thorny issues of settler colonialism. Throughout this critical examination Moreton-Robinson proposes a bold new agenda for critical Indigenous studies, one that involves deeper analysis of how the prerogatives of white possession function within the role of disciplines.

Some of Indigenous Australia's emerging and well-known thinkers offer a critical perspective on the most important political and cultural issues facing Indigenous people today and set the agenda for further action.

Histories of the colonisation of Australia have recognised distinct periods or eras in the colonial relationship: 'protection' and 'assimilation'. It is widely understood that, in 1973, the Whitlam Government initiated a new policy era: 'self-determination'. Yet, the defining features of this era, as well as how, why and when it ended, are far from clear. In this collection we ask: how shall we write the history of self-determination? How should we bring together, in the one narrative, innovations in public policy and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander initiatives? How (dis)continuous has 'self-determination' been with 'assimilation' or with what came after? Among the contributions to this book there are different views about whether Australia is still practising 'self-determination' and even whether it ever did or could. This book covers domains of government policy and Indigenous agency including local government, education, land rights, the outstation movement, international law, foreign policy, capital programs, health, public administration, mission policies and the policing of identity. Each of the contributors is a specialist in his/her topic. Few of the contributors would call themselves 'historians', but each has met the challenge to consider Australia's recent past as an era animated by ideas and practices of Indigenous self-determination.

Indigenous self-determination is the recognised right of all peoples to freely determine their political status, and pursue their economic, social and cultural development. "Unfinished Constitutional Business" offers fresh insights into the ways Indigenous peoples can chart their own course and realise self-determination. The right to self-determination remains the most hotly contested issue in the UN Working Group's Draft Declaration: because the history of colonisation is emotionally charged, the issue has been clouded by a rhetoric that has sometimes obstructed analysis. This book provides a comprehensive international exploration of Indigenous self-determination. It argues that patterns are emerging that point to effective strategies that will allow Indigenous peoples to realise their goals. The UN Working Group's definition of Indigenous peoples has been influenced by these different experiences of colonisation. Diverse jurisdictions are examined as it surveys both common law and civil law systems: from the Saami Parliaments of Scandinavia, to the Maori seats in the New Zealand Parliament, of the Australian Indigenous peoples struggle for native title and self-governance, to the Canadian experience in territorial governance. A selection of international authors challenge readers to (re)consider the meanings of self-determination and their implic-ations for Indigenous peoples in different contexts.

The Sami people of Northern Europe and Aboriginal Australians are literally a world apart in geographical terms, yet share a common fate as Indigenous minorities. Emerging from centuries of internal colonisation. Their ancient cultures and languages severely eroded by policies of forced assimilation, their traditional lifestyles and Economies damaged, and their political voices marginalised, recent decades have seen their struggles for collective survival rise to political prominence in national and international agendas, with the promise of Indigenous self-determination held out by national governments and the United Nations Declaration of Rights for Indigenous Peoples. Both the Sami and Indigenous Australians have won important new rights during these decades, yet the outcomes are very different. In this volume -- the only collection of essays specifically on the Indigenous peoples of Australia and Northern Europe -- the similarities and differences between the Indigenous experiences in the Nordic countries and Australia are explored by renowned experts in the field including Indigenous authors. Some of the contributions are explicitly comparative and based on research experience in both areas, and two essays on New Zealand and Canada provide external points of reference to the volume's focus on Northern Europe (Norway, Sweden, Finland, Russia) and Australia. As always in Indigenous Studies, issues of cultural identity and survival are prominent but there is a special emphasis in many of the chapters on issues of socio-economic development and political representation, and a substantial introduction by the editors sketches out a historical-theoretical framework for understanding Indigenous struggles in First World countries that is critical of some currently fashionable approaches.