Colonial Goals Through Colonial Gaols: The Imperative of Indigenous Self- Centred Self-Determination for Indigenous Decarceration

Abstract

Indigenous hyperincarceration is a widely documented global phenomenon that continues to attract significant research attention. Much of this research, however, fails to accurately contextualise Indigenous imprisonment within the ongoing colonial project; instead, it frames colonisation as a historical event of only distal relevance to contemporary Indigenous incarceration levels. This article rejects this premise and scrutinises the coloniality of the modern prison. Drawing on illustrations from two case study jurisdictions, Australia and Kalaallit Nunaat (Greenland), this article frames the imprisonment of Indigenous people in colonial carceral systems as an ongoing violation of the right of Indigenous peoples to self-determination. Building on Fanon’s conceptualisation of ‘Self’ and ‘Other’, this article introduces the concepts of ‘Colonial Self-centred self-determination’ and ‘Indigenous Self-centred self-determination’. Colonial prisons, it argues, are part of so-called ‘justice’ systems that are imbued with the values and interests of the Colonial Self, not the Indigenous Self. Indigenous hyperincarceration in such institutions is inevitable and wholly consistent with the prison’s Colonial Self-centric episteme. Colonial gaols are repositories of colonial goals. This article concludes that addressing Indigenous hyperincarceration requires a fundamental shift in the terms upon which colonial states engage with Indigenous nations: that is, Indigenous decarceration requires Indigenous Self-centred self-determination.