Seeing Ms. Dhu: inquest, conquest, and (in)visibility in black women’s deaths in custody

Abstract

ABSTRACTThis article examines the politics of vision and invisibility in Aboriginal Deaths in Custody and Coronial Inquests into deaths in custody. Ms. Dhu, a 22-year-old Yamatji woman, died in police custody in August 2014, in South Hedland, Western Australia, after being locked up for unpaid fines. Ms. Dhu’s final hours were captured by CCTV cameras built into South Hedland’s Police Station and Hospital, and that footage played a central role in the inquest into Ms. Dhu’s death. The article presents an account of the Coronial Inquest into Ms. Dhu’s death – examining both the footage and the manner of its presentation – to argue that the inquest was a contested theatre of power for the imposition of colonial patriarchy and settler sovereignty. But it also suggests that the modes of seeing Ms. Dhu can be transformed from a politics of neglect and carceral control to an ethos of care, community-building, decolonization, and decarceration, with ties stretching across Australia and to the Black Lives Matter, Say Her Name, and Idle No More movements in North America.