Indigenous Treaties and Titles (INDG20001)

This subject responds to the continuing legal and political moves by First Peoples here in Victoria; nationally across Australia; and, globally to hold on to, reclaim and maintain their lands amidst the ongoing desire of the settler-colonial state for Indigenous erasure. Students will consider with the historical and contemporary ways in which states, both in Australia and beyond, have denied and recognised Indigenous title and ownership of land through various agreements and titles, and more recently in Victoria through a formalised treaty process.

While throughout semester students will engage with legal studies scholarship, this subject is unique in its inter-disciplinary location in the School of Culture and Communication, and in its attempt to address issues of treaties and titles from a Indigenous and cultural studies perspective. In doing so, students will draw on and learn through story, cultural production, Indigenous politics and philosophies of place about Indigenous sovereignty, connection to Country and the ongoing assertion of First Peoples that their lands have never been ceded.