Aboriginal laws and colonial foundation*. Issue 4 (2nd October 2017)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Watson, Irene
• Is Part Of: Griffith law review. Volume 26:Issue 4(2017)
• Page Start: 469
• Page End: 479
• Publication Date: 2017-10-02
• Subjects: Law -- Australia -- Periodicals; Law reviews -- Australia -- Periodicals; 349.94
• DOI: 10.1080/10383441.2018.1539893
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1038-3441

Abstract

ABSTRACT: First Nations Peoples of this continent we now call Australia experienced the violence of colonialism for longer than the coloniser and now the Australian state is prepared to admit. A more than 150-year frontier war has been passed off as peaceful settlement. This was a lie. Terra nullius was another lie, if terra nullius was the truth why was there a frontier war. This war enabled the invasion and colonisation of Aboriginal lands. While 'justice' remains overdue, this paper examines how it is the Australian state has mythologised the rejection of terra nullius. And at the same time normalising the Australian colonial project. This paper considers how it is we might move beyond the colonial matrix of impossibility and 'skeletal foundation.'