
Protests, Land Rights, and Riots
Postcolonial Struggles in Australia in the 1980s
Barry Morris(Author)
Berghahn Books (Publisher)
1st Edition
Published on 1. December 2014
Book
Hardback
216 pages
978-1-78238-537-0 (ISBN)
Description
The 1970s saw the Aboriginal people of Australia struggle for recognition of their postcolonial rights. Rural communities, where large Aboriginal populations lived, were provoked as a consequence of social fragmentation, unparalleled unemployment, and other major economic and political changes. The ensuing riots, protests, and law-and-order campaigns in New South Wales captured the tense relations that existed between indigenous people, the police, and the criminal justice system. In Protests, Land Rights, and Riots, Barry Morris shows how neoliberal policies in Australia targeted those who were least integrated socially and culturally, and who enjoyed fewer legitimate economic opportunities. Amidst intense political debate, struggle, and conflict, new forces were unleashed as a post-settler colonial state grappled with its past. Morris provides a social analysis of the ensuing effects of neoliberal policy and the way indigenous rights were subsequently undermined by this emerging new political orthodoxy in the 1990s.
Reviews / Votes
"This small compact book was, for me, a most welcome read, especially since there has been something of a downturn in Aboriginal history in the academy more recently... How could such a book be a welcome read? It is a sober and somber read, yes, but one which exposes the lies and mumbo-jumbo of the neoliberal regime and its octopus apparatus, as well as its anxiety and fear, to contextualize and scrutinize its central tenets." ? American Historical Review"Morris deploys the incisive tools of anthropology to deconstruct the way neoliberal policies of the 1980s began to reverse the political gains Australian Aborigines had made in the 1970s...This work is of crucial relevance for thinking beyond the present neoliberal impasse." ? Gillian Cowlishaw, Sydney University
"Morris reveals the lie underpinning so much recent cant but more sets the situation of Aborigines in the context of larger global forces. This is a much overdue work that should contribute to new understanding and which breaks out of some of the enduring categories that continue to inhibit critical thought." ? Bruce Kapferer, University of Bergen
"Morris is not afraid to study systemic interrelationships; how history brings together structure and events in ways that might be unique but not random." ? Andrew Lattas, University of Bergen
More details
Language
English
Place of publication
Oxford
United Kingdom
Target group
College/higher education
Product notice
Library binding
Illustrations
11 Illustrations
Dimensions
Height: 235 mm
Width: 157 mm
Thickness: 16 mm
Weight
473 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-78238-537-0 (9781782385370)
DOI
10.3167/9781782385370
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions

E-Book
12/2014
Berghahn Books
€73.99
Available for download
Person
Barry Morris is the author of Domesticating Resistance, Race Matters and Expert Knowledge. He is a Senior Lecturer in Anthropology at the University of Newcastle.
Content
Foreword
Albert Bates
Acknowledgments
Map
Introduction
Chapter 1. Crisis of identity: Aboriginal politics, the media and the law
The Brewarrina riot: a summary
The media riot
The trial riot
Royal Commission and Indigenising crime
Chapter 2. Neoliberalism and Indigenous rights in New South Wales
The new political order
Repealing the Aboriginal Land Rights Act
A post-bureaucratic public service
Self-sufficiency, not dependency
The Perkins Report - strategic retreat
Removing land rights from the postcolonial landscape
Chapter 3. Firm government: state of siege
Law and order in New South Wales
Punishing crime
Law and order in north-western New South Wales
State of siege
Chapter 4. Postcolonial fantasy and anxiety in the North West
The North West as contested space
Policing cultural borderlands
Postcolonial subjects
Contingent jurisprudence
Chapter 5. Police testimony and the Brewarrina riot trial
Co-authored with Kerry Zubrinich
A prosecution account of the riot
What is a riot?
Power relations in the courtroom
Chapter 6. Aborigines behaving badly: legal realism and paternalism
The evidentiary effect of video
Bodies in pain and paternalism
Docile bodies and Aborigines behaving badly
Legal realism and paternalism
Abbreviations
Notes
Bibliography
Index
Albert Bates
Acknowledgments
Map
Introduction
Chapter 1. Crisis of identity: Aboriginal politics, the media and the law
The Brewarrina riot: a summary
The media riot
The trial riot
Royal Commission and Indigenising crime
Chapter 2. Neoliberalism and Indigenous rights in New South Wales
The new political order
Repealing the Aboriginal Land Rights Act
A post-bureaucratic public service
Self-sufficiency, not dependency
The Perkins Report - strategic retreat
Removing land rights from the postcolonial landscape
Chapter 3. Firm government: state of siege
Law and order in New South Wales
Punishing crime
Law and order in north-western New South Wales
State of siege
Chapter 4. Postcolonial fantasy and anxiety in the North West
The North West as contested space
Policing cultural borderlands
Postcolonial subjects
Contingent jurisprudence
Chapter 5. Police testimony and the Brewarrina riot trial
Co-authored with Kerry Zubrinich
A prosecution account of the riot
What is a riot?
Power relations in the courtroom
Chapter 6. Aborigines behaving badly: legal realism and paternalism
The evidentiary effect of video
Bodies in pain and paternalism
Docile bodies and Aborigines behaving badly
Legal realism and paternalism
Abbreviations
Notes
Bibliography
Index