Sovereignty: An Emancipatory Language or a Glass Cage?
One of the most prevalent debates in Australian political discourse concerns Indigenous claims to sovereignty. This is most strongly represented by social movements which align under the banner, “sovereignty was never ceded”. Although there is much popular support for claims to Indigenous sovereignty in Australia, academic discourse has also questioned their utility. This essay seeks to critically engage with the idea that sovereignty and related concepts of statehood and national unity are based on settler-colonial political history. They thus limit the Indigenous political goals to what is comfortable for and accepted by settler-colonial systems and institutions. In what follows, I, firstly, outline the historical context of sovereignty as a tool for colonial dispossession and position this as context which informs contemporary politics and understanding of sovereignty; secondly, I outline the view that using the language of sovereignty allows us to challenge settler-colonial history, a view which is prominent among the social movements aforementioned; thirdly, I challenge such views and argue that operating within the paradigm of sovereignty offers a tacit acceptance of settler-colonial politics and subordinates Indigenous political goals to settler-colonial ideals; finally, I draw on Mabo v Queensland (No 2) [1992] (henceforth, Mabo no 2) to demonstrate my contentions.
Before I move on, it is worthwhile addressing my use of the phrase ‘Indigenous political objectives’. My use of such a broad phrase is intentional and this is due to the inherent heterogeneity of the objectives which could be included under this banner. Without clarification this phrase could reasonably be interpreted as representing what I personally believe are the political objectives of Indigenous groups or signal that I believe there is a single group of objectives which Indigenous activism should be directed at. My intention is not to homogenise the interests of Indigenous groups nor is it to isolate a single program of political objectives as the most appropriate to pursue. Rather, I intend to remain distant from specific goals — whether these be land rights, constitutional recognition, judicial reforms, or other prominent concerns. Instead, I will ask whether sovereignty is useful in promoting these goals, whatever they may be. The central tension at hand is, as will be explored, whether sovereignty encourages or compromises the achievement of any political objective which is said to promote the interests of Indigenous people.
The Language of Sovereignty
Sovereignty is far from a stable and concise concept.¹ Nonetheless, our modern understanding of it derives from a tradition of political thought that originates with Thomas Hobbes.² With Hobbes begins a long line of political theory which grounds state authority in unity and indivisibility.³ While Hobbes is infamous for his broadly authoritarian political philosophy, the work of John Locke similarly grounds authority in unity. For Locke, societies can only be characterised as sovereign if they codify the subjection of individual will, or sovereignty, to the collective.⁴ In this political tradition, the concept of sovereignty becomes a characteristic of “a certain ordered association of individuals” or “civil society”.⁵
Early discourse on sovereignty is inextricably linked to the theories of state and society which emerge in the 17th and 18th century — Hobbes and Locke are only two prominent examples. This link between the two concepts creates a political context which simultaneously details the obligation of both state and individual.⁶ On the one hand, the state has a commitment to, and responsibility for, the individuals which constitute the foundation of its authority. On the other hand, those same individuals must recognise the state as the sole political authority and must only change it through legitimate means. Such a theory also allows states to become recognisable sovereign entities by the creation of legal and political institutions which codify the subjugation of the individual to the collective.⁷ Thus, over time, the nature of the state came to be associated with “exclusive jurisdiction [and] territorial integrity”.⁸ The relationship between the state and sovereignty as one marked by sole and exclusive authority over a territory and each individual that lives within it is recognisable as the foundation of the modern political system.⁹
This is important in a practical as well as ideational sense. Theories which explain and characterise sovereignty in the way outlined above inform and justify certain political practices: from the creation of founding documents like constitutions to the establishment of treaties with other polities. These same political practices, founded on principles of sovereignty, establish a means of signalling to other states authority over a designated people and territory, and form the basis of relations between political groups.¹⁰ In other words, the principles of sovereignty determined who had the legitimate authority to govern, and designated the spaces in which no such authority existed. Such principles were as prominent in the domestic practices they encouraged as in the colonial regimes they justified, and it is this latter point which I will now explore.
The Employment of Sovereignty
The aforementioned conceptions of sovereignty in the 17th and 18th centuries became fundamental to the colonial project. As Michel Foucault argues, the problem of sovereignty can be characterised as the problem of conquering new territory and maintaining old territory.¹¹ Given its association with territorial and jurisdictional authority, sovereignty constituted the criteria by which colonial powers could justify conquest and the dispossession of anyone who occupied land that they wanted.¹² In Australia, Captain Cook remarked in his journal that Indigenous people had not formed societies; this was a common observation made by colonisers.¹³ Indigenous people were “merely associated, there was no structure of authority, [and] no political ordering of a distinct society”.¹⁴
Observations such as these demonstrate that sovereignty was not only a characteristic of a theoretical, civil society but also a tool of colonial dispossession. For colonists, if Indigenous people had not reached the advanced stages of civil society or developed the practices which mark the existence of the state and ground its authority, then they were free to dispossess and impose their own political order. This project of colonialism saw the emergence of legal fictions like terra nullius which allowed the imposition of colonial societies on Indigenous land on the basis that the land was thought not to belong to anyone — or at least not anyone sufficiently civilised to be thought to have legitimate authority over it.¹⁵
Even if we assume that over time the explicitly colonial connotations of sovereignty have fallen to the wayside, it has become embedded as an organising principle of our modern political reality. “A system of sovereign states cannot exist without being intersubjectively acknowledged as such by its constituent parts”.¹⁶ This essential relationality is brought out by Jens Bartelson, who argues that a concept becomes central to political discourse when it becomes the basis of our understanding of other prominent concepts.¹⁷ It is unquestionable that many of the concerns of modern politics are derived from our varying understandings of the state and sovereignty and so questioning these concepts implicates much broader questions which go to the heart of politics. In the words of Hannah Arendt, “that old trinity of state-people-territory” is the foundational pillar of political organisation.¹⁸ For without such an organising principle how could we differentiate between the societies for which different states are responsible or the spaces within which said societies can legitimately exist?
The entrenchment of sovereignty and its related concepts in our political reality make it difficult to question the political history of our institutions without also questioning and implicitly challenging their foundations and legitimacy, as these concepts are interrelated.¹⁹ Thus, the colonial project, informed by notions of sovereignty which facilitated the imposition of political order, is foundational for the Australian polity, and is therefore difficult to dislodge from contemporary politics without also shaking said polity’s foundations.²⁰ Australian state sovereignty has been assumed and asserted by settlers in a process that has imputed national unity onto the polity and attempts to give legitimacy to the claim that Indigenous people are subjects of the Australian state.²¹ If the sovereignty of Indigenous people were recognised, then national unity and the legitimate bases of state authority would be threatened.²² This foregrounds both an incapacity to “contemplate two or more political societies existing in one place” and the centrality of sovereignty as an organising principle in modern politics.²³
The use of sovereignty as a tool for colonial dispossession has driven an ongoing refusal to acknowledge the sovereignty of Indigenous societies prior to colonisation lest this acknowledgement undermine the sovereignty of the settler-colonial state. This idea contextualises and informs the status quo. Differing perspectives on the relevance of Indigenous sovereignty to contemporary discourse are often based on a discontent with this status quo. Before putting forward my own case, I will explore the opposing view that is so prominent among contemporary activists. This view stems from a desire to challenge the assertion of colonial criteria of sovereignty, and it seeks to use the language of sovereignty to challenge and subvert colonial political ideals and reorient them such that they accommodate Indigenous political objectives. In my view, this can only reinforce the status quo and thus I will position my own argument as a response which identifies that the language of sovereignty cannot be used to challenge the authority of a colonial state. Participating in discourses on sovereignty serves only to reinforce the power and centrality of the colonial polity because the language of sovereignty cannot be separated from the colonial framework which foregrounded it.
The Emancipatory Language
Those who argue that sovereignty enables the pursuit of Indigenous political goals do so on the assumption that the colonial ideal of sovereignty can be challenged and redefined. Using the language of sovereignty is about drawing attention to its historical usage and arguing that this provides grounds to rethink its relevance to contemporary politics and disputes between Indigenous groups and the colonial polity. To this extent, Indigenous claims to sovereignty are not about adopting a Eurocentric political ideal, but about challenging “the legitimacy of non-Indigenous inhabitation and governance” on its own terms.²⁴ The assertion that Indigenous sovereignty was never ceded provides an opportunity for change; it “provides unearned but critical opportunities […] to engage in much needed, honest, and painful processes of conversation”.²⁵ Jennifer Harvey’s Whiteness and Morality (2007) offers an insightful argument that sovereignty is not a means of framing contemporary, political objectives, but a means of articulating what has been taken from Indigenous people. Using sovereignty as an expression of what has been , confers obligations on government to restore and maintain Indigenous political rights; rights which were extinguished by the arrival of colonisers.²⁶
The acknowledgement of Indigenous sovereignty provides a way to move past simplistic and unitary notions of sovereignty toward notions which are premised on “mutual partnership” and the capacity to “negotiate on equal footing”.²⁷ Implicit here is the possibility and necessity of expanding the definition of sovereignty such that it includes, or at least does not actively exclude, Indigenous people. This is a common point in the literature. For example, Strelein identifies that a fundamental and recurring issue in dialogues between the state and Indigenous people is that non-Indigenous people are not required to reflect on the nature of their institutions and political knowledge.²⁸ This sentiment is echoed by Watson who argues that Australian state sovereignty forcefully displaced Indigenous sovereignty, but that the burden of proof is with Indigenous people when it should be with the Australian state.²⁹ Thus, the assertion of sovereignty provides the capacity to challenge that which is assumed uncontroversial, resolved, and confined to the past by political actors who forcefully assert their knowledge and practices.³⁰ Joanne Barker focuses on the use of sovereignty post-World War II to demonstrate its capacity to reassert culture and identity “in opposition to erasures of sovereignty by dominant ideologies”.³¹ It is this oppositional perspective which gave sovereignty its importance; it distinguished Indigenous people from other minority groups which fall under the “administration of the state”.³²
The use of the language of sovereignty disrupts the stability that such a concept is assumed to possess, and from this works to expand its bounds. It challenges the legal history of settler-colonial nations and establishes a platform from which to reposition the pursuit of Indigenous political objectives as a negotiation between distinct political groups, as opposed to minority groups lobbying the state.³³ Indigenous groups can assert their sovereignty as a means of designating their status as a distinct polity, rather than simply one of the many political identities which are subjects of the state. Asserting this status, and doing so with the conceptual support of sovereignty, simultaneously asserts a right to self-determination which conforms to dominant political frameworks. Political claims which are made from within alternative paradigms are at risk of being rejected by a mainstream politics structured by sovereignty. Thus, the capacity to challenge existing arrangements, while conforming to their overarching paradigm, encourages a reformulation of the relationship between Indigenous and non-Indigenous polities on already accepted terms without comprising the priority of Indigenous political objectives. Those who argue in favour of the enabling capacity of sovereignty do so on the assumption that challenging and redefining dominant conceptions of sovereignty facilitates the pursuit of Indigenous political objectives. In Watson’s words, “in my truth reconciliation will not even begin to occur until there is a return of what has been stolen from us”; the return of sovereignty is fundamental to reconciliation and rectification for Indigenous people.³⁴
The Glass Cage
The preceding arguments assert that colonial concepts can be used to challenge colonial regimes; the language of sovereignty can be utilised to position Indigenous groups as distinct polities and provide a platform for equality in relations with colonial polities. Such a view underestimates the extent to which principles of sovereignty entrench colonial powers. That sovereignty limits the pursuit of Indigenous political objectives, is most succinctly articulated by Taiaiake Alfred: “sovereignty itself implies a set of values and objectives that put it in direct opposition to the values and objectives found in most traditional Indigenous philosophies”.³⁵ Moreover, the achievement of sovereignty has its importance foregrounded in a Eurocentric political tradition which “demands [Indigenous peoples’] inclusion within modernity on terms that [colonial powers] define”.³⁶ Sovereignty is, was, and will always be a tool for colonial dispossession and it is an inappropriate means of articulating Indigenous political objectives. The language of sovereignty is inherently limiting because it belongs to and operates on the logic of colonialism. In directing attention to the ways in which the status quo can be improved, it is assumed that change will be made by reform to the colonial state rather than by fundamentally challenging its legitimacy and utility. The problem is located in existing policy arrangements instead of the structure of politics and political knowledge and the latter is thus left untouched and unchallenged, when it should be considered the origin of the problem.
Where arguments which promote the assertion of Indigenous sovereignty seek to challenge the status quo on its own terms, Alfred argues that the adoption of sovereignty necessitates that the pursuit of other political objectives becomes “dependent and reactionary”.³⁷ It forces Indigenous political concepts to be redefined and rearticulated within a framework that does not acknowledge their validity. To advocate change from within a western system of hierarchical authority based on sovereignty is to implicitly accept this framework; it is to use sovereignty as a “bargaining chip, a lever for concessions within the established constitutional framework”.³⁸ While this may achieve short-term material benefits, it ultimately reinforces the subjugation of Indigenous people to the colonial state as it does not challenge the legitimacy of said state and simply places Indigenous groups alongside its already existing institutions.³⁹
Wherever Indigenous sovereignty is acknowledged by the colonial state, it must exist on terms set by the colonial state; its existence, protection, and recognition are contingent on the same regime which extinguished and subsequently denied it.⁴⁰ In the context of colonial domination and state power, Indigenous people are viewed “as the anachronistic remnants of nations” rather than as a distinct and continuous polity.⁴¹ Colonial powers have established a historical myth which equates their arrival with a simultaneous assertion of hegemonic sovereignty which continues unchallenged.⁴² Thus, to engage with colonial states without acknowledging that their claims to sovereignty are premised on a mythology which ignores centuries of conquest and domination reinforces the status of Indigenous people as the aforementioned anachronistic remnants.⁴³ “By agreeing to live as artefacts, such co-opted communities guarantee themselves a mythological role, and thereby hope to secure a limited but perpetual set of rights”.⁴⁴ Reconciliation can only be accepted on the state’s terms, and it will only be accepted when it fits the dominant ideological frame.⁴⁵ This meaning that the state will always prefer to incorporate Indigenous people into the system rather than allow them to pursue political objectives on their on terms.
The language of sovereignty limits the pursuit of Indigenous political objectives to that which fits the mythology and theoretical consistency of the colonial polity. The reinstatement of Indigenous sovereignty and government is thus necessarily embedded in the history and myth of conquest; it affirms that “Indigenous people do not today present a serious challenge to the legitimacy of the state”.⁴⁶ Beyond the tension and irony in being awarded rights by the same state which extinguished them in the first place, giving the state the option to do so ignores that a history of dispossession and conquest undermines the state’s legitimacy. It precludes the possibility of reflection on the foundations of the Australian state and its relationship with Indigenous people. Sovereignty, autonomy, and political rights which are awarded within the colonial order only serve to reinforce its continuing legitimacy and embeds it as the centre from which all power emanates.⁴⁷
It could reasonably be argued that rejecting sovereignty on the grounds that it conforms to damaging political ideals misses the point of using colonial concepts to challenge colonialism. How could a direct challenge to the legitimacy of setter-colonial sovereignty on its own terms be conceived as a reinforcement of its legitimacy? The answer lies in the fact that using sovereignty to articulate Indigenous political objectives implicitly legitimises sovereignty as a basis for state authority. The settler-colonial state is not challenged by competing claims of sovereignty because it maintains the capacity to accept or reject said competing claims. There is no recourse to a higher authority because sovereignty remains as the central concept in the structure of politics. The settler-colonial state remains as the arbiter of its own legitimacy and it is, unsurprisingly, unwilling to concede this.
The Practical Limits of Sovereignty
There are a variety of examples which can be drawn on to demonstrate either of the above cases. Fiona Nicoll points to the Tent Embassy in Canberra as evidence of the “value and hope of Indigenous sovereignty […] Rather than being a symbolic ‘performance’ of Indigenous sovereignty […] the Embassy created a working model of it”.⁴⁸ The Embassy thereby challenges those who view Indigenous sovereignty as “’dangerous’ or ‘simplistic’”.⁴⁹ On the other hand, the history of the colonial state is one which provides a litany of examples of state institutions reinforcing state power. Muldoon and Grose elaborate on the ways in which the legal system works as an institution which reinforces the jurisdictional authority of the colonial state.⁵⁰ A prominent example of this is the Mabo no 2 high court decision which represents the practical limits of using the language of sovereignty. Most prominently, the judges presiding over the Mabo case ruled that “the Crown’s acquisition of sovereignty over the several parts of Australia cannot be challenged in an Australian municipal court”.⁵¹ Justice Brennan argued in the decision that the application of British common law to Indigenous people was unjust.⁵² Nonetheless, he reaffirmed the difficulty of pursuing legal reform as he believed it could fracture “the skeleton of principles which gives the body of our law its shape and internal consistency”.⁵³ The aforementioned unity and indivisibility of the sovereign state becomes an excuse for why justified change cannot be pursued.
The Mabo no 2 decision also exemplifies Alfred’s argument that advocacy for Indigenous political objectives within the system makes Indigenous people reliant on the system. The Mabo decision may have removed terra nullius from Australian law, thus removing the basis of Australian state sovereignty, but it did not return land rights to Indigenous people unconditionally or recognise their sovereignty nor did it have the capacity to do this; it simply reified the authority of the Australian state by conferring on it the capacity to decide who is eligible for native title.⁵⁴ The Native Title Act of 1993, which followed the Mabo no 2 decision, does not fundamentally change the relationship between Indigenous people and the Australian state; “Native title applicants are required to prove the extent to which their nativeness has survived genocide”.⁵⁵
The capacity for the state to reject native title applications was wielded by the judges in the Yorta Yorta decision (which is pre-Native Title Act but nonetheless proves my point), which required the claimants to produce accounts of history and politico-cultural continuity which matched colonial records.⁵⁶ Buchan asserts that even if this had been done, the judge presiding over the case, Justice Olney, had set standards which even he acknowledged were excessively high.⁵⁷ The decision exemplifies the institutional capacity for reinforcing and codifying colonial political power when it is challenged. Authors like Nicoll may argue that the Tent Embassy represents possibility, but the Mabo no 2 decision affirms that when the colonial polity is challenged it utilises embedded institutional traditions to quell the challenge.
The Mabo case is reminiscent of two themes. First, it demonstrates that sovereignty is, in practice, not simply a political concept, but a tool of colonial domination. The Mabo no 2 decision, and subsequent legal battles like that of Yorta Yorta, recall Foucault’s characterisation of sovereignty as a battle over territory. Sovereignty delineates the legitimate bases for authority, and it excludes non-European ideas from contributing to such legitimation.⁵⁸ Second, it reinforces the politics of mythology outlined by Alfred; “the actual history of our plural existence has been erased by the narrow fictions of a single sovereignty”.⁵⁹ The Yorta Yorta decision was purely reliant on narratives: the narrative of the coloniser versus the narrative of the colonised. Mabo no 2 may have removed the legal basis for the assertion of Australian state sovereignty, but it could not displace the legal and political traditions which are built upon it. Even when terra nullius has been removed, sovereignty continues to limit the pursuit of Indigenous political objectives.
Conclusion
The language of sovereignty may present, for some, the opportunity to challenge the status quo and prompt change. However, more cynical views of using such language seem more relevant to the political reality. As the Mabo no 2 decision demonstrates, sovereignty operates as a means of reinforcing colonial political authority. It foregrounds and justifies the cynicism expressed by authors like Taiaiake Alfred and Aileen Moreton-Robinson who liken the adoption of sovereignty to the acceptance of the colonial paradigm. Sovereignty is a mechanism and a tool which is wielded as a means of overriding Indigenous claims to land and political autonomy; attempts to challenge this process must transcend its language in order to do so.
FOOTNOTES
[1] Cf. Hent Kalmo and Quentin Skinner, eds., Sovereignty: The Past, Present, and Future of a Contested Concept (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011).
[2] Jane Robbins, “A Nation Within? Indigenous Peoples, Representation, and Sovereignty in Australia,” Ethnicities 10, no. 2 (2008): 259; Paul Muldoon, “The Sovereign Exceptions: Colonisation and the Foundation of Society,” Social and Legal Studies 17, no. 1 (2008): 65; Peter Grose, “The Indigenous Sovereignty Question and the Australian Response,” Australian Journal of Human Rights 3, no. 1 (1996): 41.
[3] Robbins, “A Nation Within,” 259; Bruce Buchan, “Withstanding the Tide of History: The Yorta Yorta Case and Indigenous Sovereignty,” Borderlands e-Journal 1 (2002): 4.
[4] Bruce Buchan, “’Aboriginal Welfare’ and the Denial of Indigenous Sovereignty,” Arena Journal 1, no. 20 (2003): 102.
[5] Buchan, “Aboriginal Welfare,” 101.
[6] Joanne Barker, “For Whom Sovereignty Matters,” in Sovereignty Matters: Locations of Contestation and Possibility and Indigenous Struggles for Self-Determination, ed. Joanne Barker (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2005), 2.
[7] Barker, “For Whom Sovereignty Matters,” 4.
[8] Barker, “For Whom Sovereignty Matters,” 3.
[9] Elizabeth Strakosch, “The Technical is Political: Settler Colonialism and the Australian Indigenous Policy System,” Australian Journal of Political Science 54, no. 1 (2019): 120.
[10] Cf. Barker, “For Whom Sovereignty Matters,” 3, Barker discusses the concept of nationhood and its relation to the creation of constitutions and treaties between political entities.
[11] Michel Foucault, Security, Territory, Population: Lectures at the College de France, 1977–1978, ed. Michael Senellart, trans. Graham Burchell (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007): 64.
[12] Buchan, “Aboriginal Welfare,” 97.
[13] Buchan, “Aboriginal Welfare,” 104.
[14] Buchan, “Aboriginal Welfare,” 104.
[15] Irene Watson, “The Future is Our Past: We Were Once Sovereign, and We Still Are,” Indigenous Law Bulletin 8, no. 3 (2012): 12; Barker, “For Whom Sovereignty Matters,” 3.
[16] Jens Bartelson, A Genealogy of Sovereignty (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995): 47.
[17] Bartelson, A Genealogy, 13.
[18] Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism (San Diego: Harcourt Brace and Company, [1951] 1966): 282.
[19] Bartelson, A Genealogy, 239.
[20] Aileen Moreton-Robinson, The White Possessive: Property, Power, and Indigenous Sovereignty (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2015): 140.
[21] Strakosch, “The Technical is Political,” 120.
[22] Moreton-Robinson, The White Possessive, 138.
[23] Strakosch, “The Technical is Political,” 120.
[24] Fiona Nicoll, “De-facing Terra Nullius and Facing the Public Secret of Indigenous Sovereignty in Australia,” Borderlands e-Journal 2 (2002): 4.
[25] Jennifer Harvey, Whiteness and Morality: Pursuing Justice Through Reparations and Sovereignty (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007): 170.
[26] Harvey, Whiteness and Morality, 153.
[27] Buchan, “Withstanding the Tide of History,” 44.
[28] Lisa Strelein, “Missed Meanings: The Language of Sovereignty in the Treaty Debate,” Arena Journal 1, no. 20 (2003): 87.
[29] Watson, “The Future is Our Past,” 14; Irene Watson, Aboriginal Laws and the Sovereignty of Terra Nullius,” Borderlands e-Journal 1 (2002): 3.
[30] Nicoll, “De-facing Terra Nullius,” 43.
[31] Barker, “For Whom Sovereignty Matters,” 18.
[32] Barker, “For Whom Sovereignty Matters,” 18.
[33] Watson, “The Future is Our Past,” 13; Robbins, “A Nation Within,” 264.
[34] Watson, “Aboriginal Laws,” 13.
[35] Taiaiake Alfred, “From Sovereignty to Freedom: Towards an Indigenous Political Discourse,” Indigenous Affairs 3 (2001): 28.
[36] Moreton-Robinson, The White Possessive, 191.
[37] Taiaiake Alfred, Peace, Power, Prosperity: An Indigenous Manifesto (Ontario: Oxford University Press Canada, 1999): 59.
[38] Alfred, Peace, Power, Prosperity, 56.
[39] Alfred, Peace, Power, Prosperity, 62.
[40] Alfred, “From Sovereignty to Freedom,” 26.
[41] Alfred, “From Sovereignty to Freedom,” 30.
[42] Alfred, “From Sovereignty to Freedom,” 23.
[43] Alfred, “From Sovereignty to Freedom,” 30.
[44] Alfred, “From Sovereignty to Freedom,” 30.
[45] Haunani-Kay Trask, “Restitution as a Precondition of Reconciliation and Indigenous Human Rights,” Borderlands e-Journal 2 (2002): 26.
[46] Alfred, “From Sovereignty to Freedom,” 29.
[47] Muldoon, “The Sovereign Exceptions,” 72.
[48] Nicoll, “De-facing Terra Nullius,” 40.
[49] Nicoll, “De-facing Terra Nullius,” 42.
[50] Muldoon, “The Sovereign Exceptions”; Grose. “The Indigenous Sovereignty Question.”
[51] Grose, “The Indigenous Sovereignty Question,” 55.
[52] Grose, “The Indigenous Sovereignty Question,” 57.
[53] Grose, “The Indigenous Sovereignty Question,” 57.
[54] Watson, “Aboriginal Laws,” 29.
[55] Watson, “Aboriginal Laws,” 31.
[56] Buchan, “Withstanding the Tide of History,” 12.
[57] Buchan, Withstanding the Tide of History,” 15.
[58] Alfred, “From Sovereignty to Freedom,” 23.
[59] Alfred, “From Sovereignty to Freedom,” 23.
REFERENCE LIST
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Alfred, Taiaiake. “From Sovereignty to Freedom: Towards an Indigenous Political Discourse.” Indigenous Affairs 3 (2001): 22–34.
Arendt, Hannah. The Origins of Totalitarianism. San Diego: Harcourt Brace and Company, [1951] 1966.
Barker, Joanne. “For Whom Sovereignty Matters,” in Sovereignty Matters: Locations of Contestation and Possibility and Indigenous Struggles for Self-Determination, edited by Joanne Barker, 1–32. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2005.
Bartelson, Jens. A Genealogy of Sovereignty. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995.
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Grose, Peter. “The Indigenous Sovereignty Question and the Australian Response.” Australian Journal of Human Rights 3, no. 1 (1996): 40–68.
Harvey, Jennifer. Whiteness and Morality: Pursuing Justice Through Reparations and Sovereignty. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007.
Kalmo, Hent and Quentin Skinner, eds., Sovereignty: The Past, Present, and Future of a Contested Concept. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011.
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Muldoon, Paul. “The Sovereign Exceptions: Colonisation and the Foundation of Society.” Social and Legal Studies 17, no. 1 (2008): 59–74.
Nicoll, Fiona. “De-facing Terra Nullius and Facing the Public Secret of Indigenous Sovereignty in Australia.” Borderlands e-Journal 2 (2002).
Robbins, Jane. “A Nation Within? Indigenous Peoples, Representation, and Sovereignty in Australia.” Ethnicities 10, no. 2 (2010): 257–274.
Strakosch, Elizabeth. “The Technical is Political: Settler Colonialism and the Australian Indigenous Policy System.” Australian Journal of Political Science 54, no. 1 (2019): 114–130.
Strelein, Lisa. “Missed Meanings: The Language of Sovereignty in the Treaty Debate.” Arena Journal 1, no. 20 (2003): 83–96.
Trask, Haunani-Kay. “Restitution as a Precondition of Reconciliation and Indigenous Human Rights.” Borderlands e-Journal 2 (2002).
Watson, Irene. “Aboriginal Laws and the Sovereignty of Terra Nullius.” Borderlands e-Journal 1 (2002).
Watson, Irene. “The Future is Our Past: We Were Once Sovereign, and We Still Are.” Indigenous Law Bulletin 8, no. 3 (2012): 12–15.
