Concept Map Week 13

By Rana Tabbara and Ahmad Karakira

The Ancestral Present of Oceanic Illusions: Connected and Differentiated in Late Toxic Liberalism

In the Seaside Conversations section, the author is describing her journey with Aboriginals in Australia and their struggle for land claims. Land claims happen when Aboriginal people demand land as they provide proof and evidence to the state that they have a historical continuous relationship with this land (Korff, 2020).

Settler colonialism: a type of colonialism that relies on replacing indigenous people with a settler society, which throughout time starts to develop its own identity (according to Global Social Theory).

The Aboriginals’ struggle was in explaining for anthropologists and lawyers how they are connected to this land throughout history. However, the decision for land claims was taken by a small group of people and not the majority, which created problems and opened the chances for private projects such as mining that Aboriginals across the world fought.

Perragut: They are settlers who have a white skin

Aileen Moreton-Robinson criticized “white possessive” where the settler state urged that indigenous people lose touch with the reality of Western liberalism, and the sovereign body.

Karrabing Film Collective in conversation with Tarek Elhaik

Translated from Emmiyengal to English, Karrabing means “tide out.” This film is made by a group of indigenous filmmakers in North Australis, who come from different generations.

Karrabing films come in different styles, but all touch on what the filmmakers call “improvisational realism.” This means that the artists shot the film through avalable devices like smartphones to depict not a scenario or script but everyday life routines and experiences. The plot is created and developed organically as they film their each other’s experiences, thus their unit and environment are at the bases of their films. These films are not considered documentaries, they rather encompass alternative history with realism and stories about aspiration. These films surpass Western depictions and constructs. The films are activist ones done in funny narratives using a lot of self irony, which gives them more power because according to the artists “how can you encourage anyone to do anything if it is not fun ?”

The films’ style includes sequences of images, where these visuals become disintegrated and the film material itself gets dissolved to portray a journey of deportation and displacement. The ancestors of these people were once moved by military vehicles to a donkey farm, and then they had to go home walking back all the distance.

References

Elizabeth A. 9 October (2020). The Ancestral Present of Oceanic Illusions: Connected and Differentiated in Late Toxic Liberalism. E-Flux Journal.

Global Social Theory. (nd.). Settler Colonialism. https://globalsocialtheory.org/concepts/settler-colonialism/

Korff, J., (2020). Aboriginal land claims. Creative Spirits. https://www.creativespirits.info/aboriginalculture/land/aboriginal-land-claims