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Indigenous rights in Australia are at a crossroads. Over the past decade, neo-liberal governments have reasserted their claim to land in Australia, and refuse to either negotiate with the Indigenous owners or to make amends for the damage done by dispossession. Many Indigenous communities are in a parlous state, under threat both physically and culturally.
In Sovereign Subjects some of Indigenous Australia's emerging and well-known critical thinkers examine the implications for Indigenous people of continuing to live in a state founded on invasion. They show how for Indigenous people, self-determination, welfare dependency, representation, cultural maintenance, history writing, reconciliation, land ownership and justice are all inextricably linked to the original act of dispossession by white settlers and the ongoing loss of sovereignty.
At a time when the old left political agenda has run its course, and the new right is looking increasingly morally bankrupt, Sovereign Subjects sets a new rights agenda for Indigenous politics and Indigenous studies.
List of contents
Series editor's foreword (Jon Stratton)
Acknowledgments
Contributors
Introduction (Aileen Moreton-Robinson)
Part I: Law matters
1. Settled and unsettled spaces: Are we free to roam? (Irene Watson)
2. Misconstruing Indigenous sovereignty: Maintaining the fabric of Australian law (Phillip Falk and Gary Martin)
3. Indigenous sovereignty rights: International law and the protection of traditional ecological knowledge (Henrietta Marrie)
Part II: Writing matters
4. Dancing with shadows: erasing Aboriginal self and sovereignty (Philip Morrissey)
5. The sovereign Aboriginal woman (Tracey Bunda)
6. Writing off Indigenous sovereignty: The discourse of security and patriarchal white sovereignty (Aileen Moreton-Robinson)
Part III: History matters
7. 'The invisible fire': Indigenous sovereignty, history and responsibility (Tony Birch)
8. The Australian Labor Party and the Native Title Act (Gary
About the author
Aileen Moreton-Robinson is a Geonpul scholar and Professor of Indigenous Studies at Queensland University of Technology. She is author of Talkin' Up to the White Woman and editor of Whitening Race.
Summary
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.
