Taking it to the Street: Reclaiming Australia in the Top End

ABSTRACT

Since Cronulla, racism and the resurgence of White ethno-nationalism is again contesting the diversity of Australian national imaginaries. This paper argues, however, that encounters with Aboriginality and connection to Country provide fresh perspectives that affirm difference. The paper focuses on Broome and Darwin, two urban centres in northern Australia with a visible Aboriginal population that have been the focus of little contemporary research on intercultural relations compared to southern cities. Such an optics from the Top End is necessary, given its unique histories of Aboriginal and ethnic minority contact that predate White settlement, as well as the ongoing resistance to dehumanising, interventionist and racially discriminatory practices and policies. This paper places affirmative ‘events of commoning’ at the core of emancipatory politics. Such a politics is informed by the theoretical conceptualisation of commoning as a relational process of ‘being-in-common’ that unfolds in cooperative practices and collective action. We focus on two events – a protest event in Broome as response to the closure of remote Aboriginal communities and a ‘celebration walk’ through the streets of Darwin during NAIDOC week. These ‘noisy’ and ‘quiet’ struggles reclaim the street and provide the possibility to think about how a common world can be recomposed through embodied potentiality.

KEYWORDS:

• Embodied potentiality
• events of commoning
• commons
• intercultural encounter
• intercultural contact
• whiteness
• Broome
• Darwin
• aboriginal

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

David Kelly is a PhD Candidate at the Alfred Deakin Institute for Citizenship and Globalisation. His research, conducted primarily in Broome, Western Australia, maps affective attunements to place that resource activisms in the service of protecting country and forge connections across difference between Aboriginal and environmental activists. His research interests emanate from a critique of settler-colonialism and incorporate theorisations on difference, encounter and alternative ethical imaginaries. He has published in the media on homelessness in Melbourne.

Michele Lobo has gained national and international recognition for scholarship in the field of affect, difference and encounter in white majority societies. Michele has co-edited 2 books, authored 1 book, published 19 peer-reviewed journal articles and held 2 prestigious Australian Research Council grants. She serves as Editor for Social & Cultural Geography and Book Reviews Editor for Postcolonial Studies Journal. She was nominated for the Paul Bourke Award for Early Career Research (Academy of Social Sciences in Australia, 2015).

Notes

1. Pejorative terms for Lebanese Australians and Australians of Southern European migrant descent, respectively.

2. The Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) broadcast a Four Corners report on 25 July 2016 that highlighted the abuse of youths, primarily of Aboriginal background, in the Northern Territory corrections system. The broadcast triggered nationwide protests and a Royal Commission into Juvenile Detention in the Northern Territory. Available from: http://www.abc.net.au/4corners/stories/2016/07/25/4504895.htm

3. Noted by protest organisers.