Re-Centring First Nations Knowledge and Places in a Terra Nullius Space

Abstract

Indigenous law, philosophy and knowledges are core to our Indigenous past and they still hold our present worlds together, promising a future for First Nations peoples even in the face of colonialism which has done much to marginalise First Nations. This paper discusses the marginal position held by Indigenous peoples, one which is reflected in international law and which deems us as objects of colonial states. This is our political position even while First Nations continue to hold and centre our lawful obligations to care for country. I also critically review the impact of colonisation on the First Nations of Australia and consider the need to transform that colonial history to enable a less peripheral and more centred place for First Nations peoples’ laws, philosophy and knowledges to re-emerge. For the Australian colonial project the mechanism of terra nullius provided the legitimacy which imperial Britain needed to “lawfully settle” our lands and dispossess First Nations from our way of being in relation to the earth in the place now called Australia. Here I consider both the impact of colonisation on—and the challenge we face in re-centring—Aboriginal law, philosophy and knowledges.