Conference Description

From Columbus’ landing in the so-called "New World" to the expansion of the European Union and beyond, nations and nation-states have continuously preoccupied themselves with the problem of sovereignty. Which human groups should be recognised as possessed of sovereignty and who should be excluded? How do sovereign states accommodate the presence and competing claims of other sovereign states without compromising their own autonomy? Is there a higher power to which sovereigns can turn to have their disputes resolved or is sovereignty’s only ultimate sanction violence? Should nation-states refuse to interfere in each other’s affairs regardless of the treatment of non-national minorities? Can different sovereignties overlap and coexist or is sovereignty monolithic and exclusive? Are settler democracy and Native sovereignty compatible? In what ways are sovereignties gendered?

Questions such as these have driven Western legal, political and philosophical debates since the early sixteenth century. Some Native societies, particularly in North America and Aotearoa/New Zealand, engaged with this European colonial discourse by way of treaties, while others, particularly in Australia, did not. Ethno-racial or religious minorities, who may lack the regional specificity of Native peoples’ connections to their ancestral homelands, have distinct histories and degrees of cultural autonomy that compare with those of sovereign nation-states. Within these minorities, however, members of the dominant national community can themselves constitute a minority, presenting a national dilemma as to whose laws should apply to them.

Phenomena such as disease or climate change are impervious to national boundaries. So, it would seem, is the 'War on Terror'. Does the tendency to supranational aggregation, whether for economic, ecological or military reasons, pose a threat to national sovereignties? Do new concepts of sovereignty offer hopeful possibilities for Indigenous peoples in complex modern societies?

Our conference will address questions such as these with a view to bringing history to bear on the problems of the present. The conference’s standpoint will be from below. We will be focusing on sovereignty’s consequences for those whom the prevailing paradigm excludes or diminishes. We will be exploring the possibilities for change and redress. With this in mind, the conference will bring together distinguished international scholars, policy-makers and community organisations in an exchange of information that will make the fruits of specialised scholarship available to those responsible for delivering practical outcomes at the local level. At the same time, it will alert academics to the practical experiences and problems that should be informing our scholarship.

Thematic issues will include:

1. Indigenous concepts and practices of sovereignty
2. Historical genealogies of European concepts of sovereignty
3. Limits and contradictions of sovereignty
4. Sovereign subjecthoods – gender, human rights and the nation-state
5. Overlapping and coexistent sovereignties – Natives, minorities, and the nation-state
6. Sovereignty and the new global order
7. Sovereignty and the internet
8. Refugees, asylum seekers and national borders
9. Sovereignty regained

Nations and homelands will include:

1. Aboriginal Australia/Torres Strait Islands
2. Native North America
3. Palestine
4. Aotearoa/New Zealand
5. Hawai'i
6. Post-Soviet Europe
7. Kurdistan

Keynote speakers

Mrs Joy Murphy-Wandin (Wurundjeri/Australia, welcome to country)

Anthony Anghie, Australia/USA

Larissa Behrendt, Eualeyai/Kamillaroi

Tony Birch, Australia

Gary Foley, Goori of the Gumbarngirr

Ghassan Hage, Lebanon/Australia

Paul James, Australia

Marilyn Lake, Australia

Saree Makdisi, Lebanon/USA

Kent McNeil, Canada

Bob Miller, Eastern Shawnee/USA

Henry Reynolds, Australia

Ella Shohat, Iraq/Israel/USA

Nin Tomas, Aotearoa/New Zealand

Convenors:

• Julie Evans (University of Melbourne)
• Patrick Wolfe (La Trobe Univeristy)

Host organisations:

• Victorian Aboriginal Legal Service
• School of Political Science, Criminology and Sociology, University of Melbourne

Sponsor organisations:

• Monash University Centre for Australian Indigenous Studies
• Victoria University

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