Aboriginalism: Representing Indigenous Peoples as “Un-Civil” and “Un-Civilized”

Abstract

Chapter Six explores the nascent conception of civilization and that of Aboriginality in parallel. In the first section, it shows the important role played by social contract theory, for many commentators, in shaping our modern idea of civilization. It retraces the etymology and shifting meanings of “civility” to show the late emergence of the word “civilization.” The second section explores the relevance of the neologism Aboriginalism to describe the use of the Americas in early modern social contract theory. Aboriginalism highlights the discursive and subject-forming role of Aboriginality and its potential role in genealogical enquiries about our modern senses of citizenship and political subjectivity.