‘I’m Not Even Making That Up’

Whose land is it?

“…In both Australia (Short, 2003) and South Africa (Boisen, 2017), part of the historical justification for colonization was that the land was either unoccupied or at most sparsely populated. Furthermore, actual evidence notwithstanding, there are people in Australia (Yaxley, 2015), Chile (Richards, 2010), New Zealand (Brett, 2020), and South Africa (AfriForum, 2019) who claim that Indigenous Peoples were either transient or that they themselves displaced the 'real Indigenous Peoples' . Furthermore, there are other contexts where the question of first arrival is more contested.…”

“…For example, the vacant land myth in South Africa posits that South Africa was settled by Europeans and Bantuspeaking Africans at roughly the same time (Crais, 1991); the Argentinian anthropologist Rodolfo Casamiquela claimed that Mapuche were not indigenous to Argentina because they killed and replaced the indigenous Tehuelche (Lenci, 2019); and in 2015, Australian senator David Leyonhjelm claimed that Aboriginal people were not the first to arrive in Australia (Yaxley, 2015). Although these narratives have been debunked as part of a broader decolonialization process, there are people in, among other places, Canada (Rotz, 2017), Chile (Richards, 2010), New Zealand (Brett, 2020), and South Africa (AfriForum, 2019) who continue to make similar claims.…”