1st Edition

Indigeneity: Before and Beyond the Law

By Kathleen Birrell Copyright 2016
    268 Pages
    by Routledge

    268 Pages
    by Routledge

    Examining contested notions of indigeneity, and the positioning of the Indigenous subject before and beyond the law, this book focuses upon the animation of indigeneities within textual imaginaries, both literary and juridical. Engaging the philosophy of Jacques Derrida and Walter Benjamin, as well as other continental philosophy and critical legal theory, the book uniquely addresses the troubled juxtaposition of law and justice in the context of Indigenous legal claims and literary expressions, discourses of rights and recognition, postcolonialism and resistance in settler nation states, and the mutually constitutive relation between law and literature. Ultimately, the book suggests no less than a literary revolution, and the reassertion of Indigenous Law.

    To date, the oppressive specificity with which Indigenous peoples have been defined in international and domestic law has not been subject to the scrutiny undertaken in this book. As an interdisciplinary engagement with a variety of scholarly approaches, this book will appeal to a broad variety of legal and humanist scholars concerned with the intersections between Indigenous peoples and law, including those engaged in critical legal studies and legal philosophy, sociolegal studies, human rights and native title law.

    PART I: NARRATIVES

    Introduction

             The Question of Indigeneity

             (Mis)recognising Indigeneity

    The Legal Indigene

             Performing Indigeneity

            Unsettling Indigeneity

    The Literary Indigene

           A Strange Play

           Puncturing the Horizon

    Positioning

           To Speak of the Other

           Synopsis

    PART II:  INDIGENEITY

    Introduction

           An Imperial Orientation

           Subjects of Empire

    An Impossible Object

           Return of the Native

           The Proper Indigene

    The Legal Archive

           An Originary Indigeneity

           An Essential Ghost

    Indigeneity as Other

           Desiring Indigeneity

           Before the Law

    PART III:  LAW

    Introduction

           Juridical Violence

           The Madness of the Decision

    Justice as Law

           An Idea of Justice

           Legitimate Fictions

    The Last Uncharted Continent

           The Colonial Gaze

           Origin and Content

    Mythic Indigeneity

           The Ancient Tribe

           Law as Literature

    PART IV:  LITERATURE

    Introduction

           A Fictive Institution

           The Postcolonial Project

    Mimetic Indigeneities

           Becoming Indigeneity

           (Re)imagining Indigeneity

    A Law of Alterity

           A Subversive Juridicity

           Recuperative Jurisprudences

    Decolonising Country

           Beyond the Law

           To Conclude

    Biography

    Kathleen Birrell is based at Melbourne Law School, Australia.