Indigenous histories and indigenous futures

Abstract

This chapter meditates not only on indigenous histories but on indigenous future. It takes as a point of departure Dipesh Chakrabarty's deliberations on subalternity, indigeneity, and multiculturalism. The author observes that in times of radical upheaval people ask why usual human possibilities are no longer open to them. They are even faced with the prospect of no longer being able to be the same kind of people that they once were. So it was for the indigenous peoples of Australia, for whom the "radical upheaval" came in the form of European invasion, conquest, and dispossession. The chapter contends that the Goolarabooloo peoples of the Broome region in western Australia were forced to creatively redefine what it meant to be Goolarabooloo at a time when assimilationist policies, the contempt of white Australia, and the banning of indigenous languages in schools called into question the very possibility of being Goolarabooloo. They did so by incorporating "whitefellas" into their vision of the future; by, in a sense, inviting white Australians to share in the possibilities of being Goolarabooloo. This innovation that was a gesture of their sovereignty: "Look! This is our country!" Doing so, enabled an indigenous identity to survive by being performed in different ways, and thereby also creatively pluralized.