Displacing Indigeneity and Whiteness

Abstract

This article re-examines complexities of Indigeneity in relation to whiteness, focusing on how residents of northwestern Adelaide manipulated the Indigenous-white boundary. Existing racial categories were displaced on both sides, while retaining the boundary. The concept “Indigeneity” was expanded or narrowed in accordance with the context while the range of whiteness fluctuated, thereby becoming entangled with the fluidity of Indigeneity. Displacement or reorganisation of the boundary was enabled by intergenerational face-to-face relationships among residents who experienced social exclusion. Thus, Indigeneity could be derived from a cohesion not premised on an essentialised identity and could overcome the conventional dualism: “Indigeneity” - “whiteness.”