Thick hides: whipping, biopolitics and the white soul of power

Abstract

Whipping or flogging is synonymous with the convict history of Australia; indeed, in many respects it is deeply sewn into folklore of white Australian identity. But flogging has also been used against Aboriginal people since invasion. Aboriginal people arguably were subject to an exceptional use of flogging: many whippings were administered outside the juridical norms that ordinarily applied to the white convict. This was reinforced by the reintroduction of whipping in Western Australia as a punishment specifically for that state's indigenous population. The paper explores the way in which this exceptional use of flogging illustrates both the biopolitical relationship of Aboriginal people to white sovereignty, and the way in which constructions of whiteness may be said to evolve from these practices, in body and “soul”.