Writing off Indigenous sovereignty: The discourse of security and patriarchal white sovereignty

Abstract

Judith Brett, Andrew Markus and Ghassan Hage offer compelling arguments in their analysis of John Howard's politics, but they overlook or understate the role that Indigenous sovereignty plays in shaping the body politic through its relationship to patriarchal white sovereignty. One of the ways in which the possessive investment manifests itself is through a discourse of security, which supports the existence, protection and maintenance of patriarchal white sovereignty. The discourse of security involves prioritising economic, military and cultural protection, which are central elements of Howard's investment in patriarchal white sovereignty. Thus the unfinished business of Indigenous sovereignty continues to psychically disturb patriarchal white sovereignty and shape the possessiveness of its foreign policy. The omnipresence of Indigenous sovereignty is part of the ontological condition that shapes patriarchal white sovereignty's investment in itself and its anxiety about dispossession. Race indelibly marks the politics of possessive investments in patriarchal white sovereignty, which are often invisible and unnamed in everyday discourse and academic analyses.

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