The empire of political thought: civilization, savagery and perceptions of Indigenous government

Buchan, Bruce

doi:10.1177/0952695105054179

Cited by 18 publications

(9 citation statements)

References 24 publications

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“…As the articles by Romano, Fur, and Sebastiani in this issue of History of the Human Sciences demonstrate, the concept of savagery had long been understood to apply to categories of human populations deemed to be in want of more historically advanced ‘civilisation’. We argue here that rather than a conceptual shift from one term to a newer one, there was a complex overlay of race onto the older notion of savagery (Buchan, 2008). The two early European voyages around Australia illustrate this messy mixing of terminology, even as race was gradually acquiring ever-greater explanatory weight.…”

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confidence: 83%

Knowing savagery: Australia and the anatomy of race

Buchan

Burnett

2019

History of the Human Sciences

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When Australia was circumnavigated by Europeans in 1801-02, French and British natural historians were unsure how to describe the Indigenous peoples who inhabited the land they charted and catalogued. Ideas of race and of savagery were freely deployed by both British and French, but a discursive shift was underway. While the concept of savagery had long been understood to apply to categories of human populations deemed to be in want of more historically advanced 'civilisation', the application of this term in the late 18th and early 19th centuries was increasingly being correlated with the emerging terminology of racial characteristics. The terminology of race was still remarkably fluid, and did not always imply fixed physical or mental endowments or racial hierarchies. Nonetheless, by means of this concept, natural historians began to conceptualise humanity as subject not only to historical gradations, but also to the environmental and climatic variations thought to determine race. This in turn meant that the degree of savagery or civilisation of different peoples could be understood through new criteria that enabled physical classification, in particular by reference to skin colour, hair, facial characteristics, skull morphology, or physical stature: the archetypal criteria of race. While race did not replace the language of savagery, in the early years of the 19th century savagery was re-inscribed by race.

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confidence: 83%

Knowing savagery: Australia and the anatomy of race

Buchan

Burnett

2019

History of the Human Sciences

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“…46 Throughout their imperial enterprise, Europeans and especially the British came to rely upon understandings of 'government' and sovereignty as concomitants of relations of private property. 47 The ubiquity of traffick in Cook's peregrinations across the Pacific thus echoes the framework of ideas linking sovereignty (and treaty) to property via engagement in traffick or trade. Well before Cook entered the Pacific, these concepts, and the connection between traffick, consent and subjection had been employed in North America.…”

Section: Cook Consent and Colonisationmentioning

confidence: 89%

Traffick of Empire: Trade, Treaty andTerra Nulliusin Australia and North America, 1750–1800

Buchan

2007

History Compass

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It will be argued in this article that British colonial authorities in Australia employed a framework of concepts, ideas and assumptions then current in European thought in their efforts to translate the difference of the Indigenous inhabitants to the terms of European familiarity. This framework was also buttressed by a previous extensive experience of colonial diplomacy and trade in North America. By drawing on these intellectual and experiential sources, colonisers in Australia sought to represent the Indigenous inhabitants as ‘savage’– lacking their own property rights or sovereignty. Some historians in Australia have focussed most attention on the concepts of legal thought – notably terra nullius– in seeking to explain the colonial dispossession of Indigenous peoples. A more potent if long neglected source for this dispossession, I argue, lies in the ways that Europeans thought about and practiced trade or ‘traffick’.

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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).…”

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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The empire of political thought: civilization, savagery and perceptions of Indigenous government

Cited by 18 publications

References 24 publications

Knowing savagery: Australia and the anatomy of race

Knowing savagery: Australia and the anatomy of race

Traffick of Empire: Trade, Treaty andTerra Nulliusin Australia and North America, 1750–1800

The sovereign citizen superconspiracy: Contemporary issues in native title anthropology

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