Reimagining National Identity through Reenactment in the Pacific and Australia

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Notes

1 For the purposes of this article ‘nation’ refers to the Australian state and the Native Hawaiian people who consider themselves as members of the overthrown Hawaiian Nation and not primarily/solely as American citizens. The comparison is made possible ideologically by the organised and political nature of the Native Hawaiian movement, which aims to realise an independent Hawaiian Nation. For further analysis of Native Hawaiian nationalism see: Noenoe K Silva; Haunani-Kay Trask.

2 Auē, auwē, meaning ʻOh! Oh dear! Oh boy! Alas!’ (Pukui and Elbert 31).

3 Schwarz’s analysis is drawn from performance theory and critiques of reconciliation narratives. Drawing on Diane Taylor’s insights into the possibilities of performance as ‘a means of thinking about the relevance of historical events for the present’ which might provide an understanding of ‘how memories other than those stabilized in hegemonic historical narratives are stored and transmitted over time’ (Schwarz 435) and Derrida’s theory of ‘hauntology’ (438), Schwarz argues that reenactment can be used to begin a process of decolonisation in Australia through the ‘reconciliatory task of summoning ghosts and of being claimed by the specters of the past’ (439–41).

4 The Mālama Honua Worldwide Voyage began in 2013 and is due to end in 2017.

5 Justice Olney’s comments have been described as symptomatic of the ‘frozen in time’ approach to tradition (Young 31). Criticism of this approach, in cases more widespread than Yorta Yorta, form a large body of critical legal, historical and anthropological research, a full assessment of which is beyond the scope of this paper.

6 The Yorta Yorta case was brought following the Mabo (No. 2) ruling in 1992 that inserted native title into Australian law and overturned the doctrine of terra nullis; the Native Title Act of 1993 followed from this ruling. The Native Title Act is based on common law; that is, ‘judge-made law that responds and seeks to resolve particular disputes and fact patterns that come before the courts’ (Bartlett 179). Following Justice Olney’s decision, which was upheld by majority vote (5 to 2) in the High Court appeal, criticism has been levelled that his judgement was not ‘adjudicated according to principles of the High Court’s decision in Mabo (No 2) and the body of common law of which it forms a part’ (Pearson 3). Justice Olney judged that when the Yorta Yorta people submitted a petition to the Governor for New South Wales seeking a land base in 1881, they fell foul of the doctrine of extinguishment established in Mabo (No. 2) (1992) and clarified in Ward (2002) and relinquished their right to native title (Ritter 112). This judgement and the subsequent acceptance of Justice Olney’s interpretation of the definition of native title in s 223(l) of the Native Title Act by the High Court Appeal judges has been critically analysed by Noel Pearson (4–5), who concludes their approach was wrong (4). Pearson does not presume to interpret a reason for the High Court Justices’s decision however, many critics of the ruling have done so. Moreton-Robinson offers a racial critique, Highland (361–64) and Young analyse the decision semantically, particularly with reference to the Justices’s interpretation of ‘tradition’ and Ritter offers a cultural approach that argues the fallacy of separating Native Title law from the cultural-political processes of historiography.