Defacing Terra Nullius and Facing the Public Secret of Indigenous Sovereignty in Australia

Abstract

The study of sovereignty is the study of an idea … not the history of the "sovereign state". Before the sixteenth century, the idea of sovereignty was not established as a principle of the political communities and so international society. Only in the process of modernity did people consciously understand it as such. It was in this process that the idea of state sovereignty took shape in peoples’ minds and constituted their thoughts and behavior. (Shinoda 2000: 3&8) Rather than evade his or her position within the hegemonic culture, the western individual should display it, expose it, question it, and put it into relation to the "third world " culture he or she needs to hear. This is the first step toward unlearning the privileges of imperialist culture. (Spivak, 1998: 119) Whites can accept that Aboriginal people have politics (albeit not fully) but do not recognize that we equally have theologies, epistemologies, knowledge systems, pedagogy and history. These are all collapsed into mere "perspective", thus making actual the white fallacy of Aboriginal inferiority. (MontureAngus, 2000: 28)

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