Australian political studies and the production of disciplinary innocence

ABSTRACT

While Australian political studies often appears to have neglected engagements with Indigenous peoples and politics, we argue this is not a simple question of omission. In fact, the discipline is deeply implicated in imperial knowledge production and the authorisation of racialised colonial governance. As non-Indigenous scholars working within Australian political studies, in this paper we reflect on our own discipline in light of several decades of critical scholarship, identifying the production of disciplinary innocence through a theoretical and institutional analysis of Australian political studies knowledge practices. We explore this production via canonical knowledges, institutional processes that contain Indigenous people and knowledge to subjects of policy, and the operation of disciplinary divisions which neutralise scholarship on policy and political institutions.

澳大利亚政治学研究似乎常常忽视与原住民及其政治的关系，这其实不是简单的疏漏。事实上，澳大利亚的政治学很深地涉足了帝国主义的知识生产并为种族主义的殖民统治提供权威性。作为澳大利亚政治研究的非原住民学者，我们借助过去几十年批判性的学术研究对本学科做了反思，通过对澳大利亚政治学知识实践的理论和制度分析，指出了学科清白是如何生产的。笔者通过经典知识探讨了这种生产、将原住民及其知识收入政策主题的过程、以及使学术中性化于政策及政治体制的学科分工的运行。

KEYWORDS:

• Australian political science
• colonialism
• racism
• politics of knowledge
• indigenous politics

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Alissa Macoun is non-Indigenous researchers based at the School of Political Science and International Studies at the University of Queensland. Her work covers the political dynamics of knowledge and policy in the Australian colonial context.

Kristy Parker is non-Indigenous researchers based at the School of Political Science and International Studies at the University of Queensland. Her work covers the political dynamics of knowledge and policy in the Australian colonial context.

Elizabeth Strakosch is non-Indigenous researchers based at the School of Political Science and International Studies at the University of Queensland. Her work covers the political dynamics of knowledge and policy in the Australian colonial context.

ORCID

Elizabeth Strakosch http://orcid.org/0000-0002-7607-8424

Notes

1. Here we acknowledge the extensive debate on the usefulness of the term ‘sovereignty’ when applied to Indigenous jurisdictions and political orders. Many Indigenous scholars, including Irene Watson (2015), Lyndon Murphy and Taiaiake Alfred, have criticised the term’s deep connection to Western political assumptions involving absolute, hierarchical territorial authority. However, others, such as Moreton-Robinson and Audra Simpson, use the term to refer to the profoundly different forms of political ordering generated by Indigenous lives, ontologies and practices. Here we do not describe the content or practice of Indigenous sovereignty or political orders – expertise about which, as Nicoll (2000) has noted, resides with Indigenous peoples – but instead use the term to indicate that Indigenous jurisdictions persist, carry primary political authority and directly challenge settler sovereignty, and to put the two political orders in the same analytical frame.

2. We are indebted to Distinguished Professor Moreton-Robinson for identifying the limiting impact of ANZSRC FOR codes. Our points here draw on her insight and advocacy as Founding Director of the National Indigenous Research and Knowledges Network (NIRAKN).

3. These narratives have been particularly acute in the Australian context, as denial of Indigenous political order and connection to country have been crucial colonial technologies given colonisation proceeded without the cover of treaty.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Australian Political Science Association [Workshop Grant].