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Reimagining the Northern Territory Intervention : Institutional and cultural interventions into the Anglo-Australian imaginary
Churcher, Millicent
Churcher, Millicent
Author
Abstract
This paper draws on the example of the Northern Territory Intervention to examine the role of Australia's broader socio-cultural context in maintaining racist policies concerning Indigenous self-governance. Central to this paper is the claim that legislative, constitutional, and other structural reforms are limited on their own to prevent institutional practices of violence and exclusion that are bound up with popular ways of imagining Indigenous and non-Indigenous identities. In light of the potential limitations of top-down reforms to prevent the perpetuation of discriminatory policymaking in relation to Australia's First Peoples, this paper explores the value of bottom-up initiatives that constructively engage the imaginative, affective, and reflective capacities of individuals to facilitate a ‘critical re-imagining’ (The Epistemology of Resistance: Gender and Racial Oppression, Epistemic Injustice, and Resistant Imaginations, Oxford University Press, 2013) of Indigenous Australians as social and political actors. Developing and supporting such initiatives, on this view, is integral to the wider task of promoting and protecting Indigenous rights, interests, and entitlements.
Keywords
Aboriginal people, Aborigines and the law, mass media, racial discrimination, reform
Date
2018
Type
Journal article
Journal
Australian Journal of Social Issues
Book
Volume
53
Issue
1
Page Range
56-70
Article Number
ACU Department
Collections
Relation URI
DOI
Source URL
Event URL
Open Access Status
License
All rights reserved
File Access
Controlled