Psychotic Discourse: The Rhetoric of the Sovereign Citizen Movement

Matheson, Calum Lister

doi:10.1080/02773945.2017.1306876

Cited by 9 publications

(2 citation statements)

References 4 publications

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“…The broader discourse on Indigenous sovereignty challenges the validity of British colonisation given the pre‐existence of an Indigenous society, members of which observed laws and customs that gave rise to rights and interests in land (Buchan, 2015; Moreton‐Robinson, 2015). In contrast, sovereign citizen discourse challenges the validity of state and legal institutions on the basis of a global conspiracy (Matheson, 2018). Sovereign citizens relate sovereignty not to an Indigenous society, but to their personal identity.…”

Section: Sovereign Citizens In Australiamentioning

confidence: 99%

The sovereign citizen superconspiracy: Contemporary issues in native title anthropology

Taplin,

Holland,

Billing

2023

Australian J of Anthropology

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The Australian Native Title Act 1993 (Cth) provides for the recognition of rights and interests which arise from the traditional laws and customs of Australian First Nation peoples. Processing applications for a determination of native title can take many years and involves numerous stakeholders, presentation of evidence of ongoing connection with the land and sea within a claim area, negotiations with other parties including from industry and government, as well as negotiations between Indigenous groups. The process can be long, arduous, and often outcomes fail to satisfy the expectations of native title claimants. In this paper we investigate how individuals who either disagree with the premise underlying native title, or who have suffered negative impacts through the course of native title claims, may be either targeted by, or swept up in, Australian sovereign citizen rhetoric. We aim to contextualise presentations of sovereign citizen ideas in native title claim processes by providing an overview of the history of sovereign citizen thought, and examples of its contemporary expression in some Australian online forums. In doing this we aim to provide a broad foundation for future research into the issue. The dialogue in sovereign citizen online communities exposes people to extremism and superconspiracies. This article will provide a theoretical framework and historical context to the Australian sovereign citizen phenomena and describe online amplification of disinformation in Australia that has the potential to cause harm. We illustrate how stakeholders who are drawn to relatively moderate online content (such as opposing native title) may be radicalised through gradual exposure to extremist anti‐government sentiment and hate speech. This article highlights the need for further research into sovereign citizenry in Australia, and strategies for native title practitioners to engage claimants who subscribe to and disseminate sovereign citizen disinformation in native title processes.

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Section: Sovereign Citizens In Australiamentioning

confidence: 99%

The sovereign citizen superconspiracy: Contemporary issues in native title anthropology

Taplin,

Holland,

Billing

2023

Australian J of Anthropology

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“…The Sovereign Citizen movement and related American protest movements have a long history of cross-border adoption particularly in Canada, where Canadian anti-government and anti-tax protestors have made heavy use of the ideology and adapted it to the legal landscape of Canada—with mixed success. In the case of Mr. Kennedy, his redemptionist strategy in dealing with the Canadian government included a heavy reliance on the “UCC” or “Uniform Commercial Code” (Matheson, 2018 ), one of many proposed uniform acts designed to harmonize interstate commerce within the United States and which has no force or effect in the Canadian legal system. Unsurprisingly, Mr. Kennedy reported that none of the government agents he spoke with were familiar with the UCC and informed him that American laws had no weight in the Canadian legal system.…”

Section: Sovereign Citizens: Paper Terrorism and A History Of Violencementioning

confidence: 99%

The Sovereign Ascendant: Financial Collapse, Status Anxiety, and the Rebirth of the Sovereign Citizen Movement

Hodge

2019

Front. Sociol.

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As many scholars have noted, periods of economic or social unrest often bring about the growth or resurgence of extremist social movements on both the political left and the right. The 1990s saw the rise of the American militia movement, largely in response to the emergence of international organizations like the North American Free Trade Agreement, the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, and an increasingly internationalist American administration. Earlier still, during the agricultural depression of the 1920s, the chaotic social, political, and economic order proved to be fertile ground for the resurgent Ku Klux Klan. In the years immediately following the global financial collapse of 2008, the United States-and to a lesser extent Canada-saw the resurgence of the Sovereign Citizen movement, a puzzling, conspiratorial social, and political philosophy that sought to emancipate its adherents from the tyranny of an oppressive, dictatorial, and increasingly unstable system of corrupt and illegitimate states. This paper examines the origins of the Sovereign Citizen movement and illustrates the ways in which the movement's members deploy a radical concept of citizenship, rooted in conspiratorial thinking and often in direct conflict with the state to help manage status anxiety and uncertainty.

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Mogged by the Market: Science, Subjectivity, and the Rationalization of Sex

Matheson

2022

From Cogito to Covid

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Psychotic Discourse: The Rhetoric of the Sovereign Citizen Movement

Cited by 9 publications

References 4 publications

The sovereign citizen superconspiracy: Contemporary issues in native title anthropology

The sovereign citizen superconspiracy: Contemporary issues in native title anthropology

The Sovereign Ascendant: Financial Collapse, Status Anxiety, and the Rebirth of the Sovereign Citizen Movement

Mogged by the Market: Science, Subjectivity, and the Rationalization of Sex

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