Waging Paperfare: Subverting the Damage of Extractive Capitalism in Kakadu

Abstract

Drawing on campaigns waged and administrative burdens managed by the Gundjeihmi Aboriginal Corporation (GAC) in Kakadu National Park to manage the effects of existing uranium mining and further proposed mining, this article draws attention to some of the techniques and coalitions that GAC has created to manage its would-be managers. It uses the case of monitoring the operations and particularly the rehabilitation of the Ranger Uranium mine and of halting the opening of a second mine, known as Jabiluka, to consider the less conspicuous paperwork battles that take place amid and in the aftermath of these public battles. In considering these contests, we argue that the double valency of holding to account needs to be considered, to avoid dichotomising Indigenous people as either coopted by or opposed to administration, a bifurcation which fails to recognize the complexity and inevitability of contemporary Indigenous management regimes. This is neither a celebration of Indigenous counter-administration, nor a false positing of Aboriginal alternatives to institutionalized worlds. Concluding, we note that when the organizational toil of drawing the locus of power in decision-making towards Aboriginal interests is made apparent, the notion that there is an alternative to institutionalized forces of settler colonialism, represented by Indigenous resistance, is complicated. We mark this organizational work as evidencing the unrelenting nature of administrative violence under active colonization.

Understanding Indigenous values and priorities for wetlands to guide weed management actions: Lessons from the Nardab floodplain in northern Australia’s Kakadu National Park

“…There is a critical need to ensure Indigenous-led and holistic drive conservation activities to empower Indigenous values and rights, and the knowledge and practices in the places that sustain them. leased to the Australian Government based on legal frameworks set in place by Australia's Environmental Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 (Cth) and the Aboriginal Land Rights (Northern Territory) Act 1976 (Cth) (Lea et al 2018). Through the Plan, there is commitment for Bininj Traditional Owners and Park staff to decide on: the most important values to recognise and protect; the most significant issues impacting those values; how those issues should be dealt with; and ways for Bininj people to be involved in implementation of the plan (Australian Government 2016 p.i).…”

The Absent Presence of the State in Large-Scale Resource Extraction Projects

“…Yet, this lack of recognition and regulatory guidance diminishes these rights and interests. Whether this is the result of ignorance of what good guidelines look like, or yet another form of 'administrative violence' (Lea et al 2018) to marginalise Aboriginal interests, or perhaps a combination of both, results in the same effect. As this legislation does little to accommodate the particularities of Aboriginal interests, so it becomes a form of absence.…”

‘The chemists’ war’ in Sydney’s seas: Water, time, and everyday militarisms

“…] and the significance of military institutions and everyday practices in shaping reality' (32). Angela Davis (2008) among many other abolitionists points out that US wars such as the 'war on terror' extend war tactics to racialised communities particularly in relation to the prison industrial complex, while in Australia, the 'frontier wars' against Indigenous communities are described by Lea et al (2018) as ongoing, but in new guises such as the violence of unrelenting bureaucracies. Such analyses find further expression in work such as feminist anthropologist Catherine Lutz's (2002) 'making war at home' that defines militarisation as the continuation of war into everyday life.…”