Misrecognition: Australia's constitution and continuing colonisation of First Peoples
Creators: name: POLLOCK, David
Publisher: name: RMIT University
Year: 2024
Subjects: classificationCode: 440107
subject: Social and cultural anthropology
classificationCode: 440811
subject: Political theory and political philosophy
classificationCode: 451823
subject: Pacific Peoples sociological studies
classificationCode: 470213
subject: Postcolonial studies

description: In the years following the formation of the Expert Panel (2013), a significant number of First people began to express their opposition to constitutional recognition and the processes through which its proposals were developing. These expressions of dissent were made in virtual and physical spaces, and were particularly targeted at disturbing the dominant framing of constitutional recognition within mainstream media coverage and popular discourse: that all First people `supported the process' and `believed they needed' to be `recognised' in the Australian Constitution. This research engaged Indigenous knowledge-holders to understand why many First people have been opposing recognition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples in the Australian Constitution. This engagement produced a postcolonial critique of the viability of this `reconciliatory' mechanism and the settler-State's motivation for undertaking it. The research tracked how the settler State's push for constitutional recognition has impacted First people's politics, particularly within physical and virtual activist spaces. The research sought to contribute to the work of activists and other
First people in the spirit of solidarity politics, provoking debate and revealing the deeper flaws in constitutional recognition.

The knowledges of research partners and their positions on constitutional recognition were generously shared in yarning sessions. Auxiliary knowledge was produced from Critical Discourse Analyses of publicly produced texts. Results showed the form of `recognition' proposed should be
more accurately understood as misrecognition. This misrecognition, fostered by the settler-State, precludes acknowledgement of any aspects of Indigeneity which undermine the narratives of settlerAustralian histories and disturb the contemporary operation of colonial power. Misrecognition was a consistent feature across arguments described through three distinct yet overlapping argument `types'; political/pragmatic, legal/rational, and philosophical/ontological.

Misrecognition across all three categories of arguments reveals a pattern which is historically consistent with the settler-State's past coercive policies which sought to construct `Aboriginality' in a form compatible with and of little disturbance to its own colonial project. In this instance, First people
were constructed discursively and ideologically as `our First Australians', `unproblematically' reaffirming their place within the settler-colonial polity, indistinct from settler-citizens in terms of recognition of rights-claims. This drive to misrecognise was thus understood by many as a neoassimilatory process seeking to continue the settler-State's hitherto denial or obfuscation of internationally recognised Indigenous rights.

This research argues that the refusal of recognition comes first and foremost from the settlerState (and settlers), because genuine recognition requires an account of relationality which reveals the true nature of the settler-colonial relationship and its positions. The settler-State refuses to recognise Indigenous polities and their sovereignties because of what they reveal about the limitations of its own claims to sovereign legitimacy. This phenomenon is echoed in the subjectivities of settlers who refuse to recognise First people in their full cultural and political expression, as this requires introspection and confrontation with their own understandings of `belonging' and relating to place.

The research raises questions about the motivations of the State's expenditure of millions of dollars on a top-down `reconciliation' project, while maintaining its continuing disavowal of Indigenous rights enshrined in international law. The findings also reveal that by highlighting the settler-State's
refusal to authentically recognise First Peoples (and thus itself), self-determinist politics have been reinvigorated by their successful challenge to the authority and will of the settler-State. These politics were connected through the enduring philosophies and practices of generations of First Peoples who have never ceased their resistance to settler-colonisation nor ceded their sovereign claims to their Countries.