Nation building in Australia

The term ‘nation building’ has different meanings for different Indigenous peoples around the world. In Australia, the work of nation building involves actions such as:

• defining the members of the nation

• creating governance structures that reflect their needs and goals

• developing models for economic development that can support all aspects of their lives both under the native title regime and through other opportunities

• understanding the role of cultural heritage in all its forms.

Nation building around the world

First Nations people around the world are engaged in nation building through a range of activities, operating in various historical contexts. 

• In Canada, nation building is supported by both historical and contemporary treaties. Many of the terms used in other places around the world relating to nation building and governance were established by work done by First Nations peoples in Canada.  Canadian First Nations peoples also have the right to self government. Read more about treaties and agreement making in Canada.

• In New Zealand, nation building activities are informed and supported by the 1840 Treaty of Waitangi. Read more about treaties and agreement making in New Zealand.

• In South Africa, the impacts of apartheid, which ended in 1994, are still being addressed in across many areas. Read more about agreement making in South Africa.

• In the United States, over 500 treaties were created between the US Government and American Indian nations before 1871, when the US House of Representatives ceased recognition of individual tribes as independent nations. Read more about treaties in the US. 

Sovereignty and nation building

Nation building in countries like Canada has informed the actions of First Nations peoples in Australia. Importantly, nation building in Australia is tied to the concept of sovereignty—a concept that remains contested. 

Our Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander tribes were the first sovereign Nations of the Australian continent and its adjacent islands, and possessed it under our own laws and customs. This our ancestors did, according to the reckoning of our culture, from the Creation, according to the common law from ‘time immemorial’, and according to science more than 60,000 years ago.

This sovereignty is a spiritual notion: the ancestral tie between the land, or ‘mother nature’, and the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples who were born therefrom, remain attached thereto, and must one day return thither to be united with our ancestors. This link is the basis of the ownership of the soil, or better, of sovereignty. It has never been ceded or extinguished, and co-exists with the sovereignty of the Crown.

– The Uluru Statement from the Heart

In her essay Sovereignty: 65,000 years of ancestral links to land, written for the 22nd Biennale of Sydney 2020, Professor Marcia Langton explores a model of understanding Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander sovereignty in Australia:  

Understanding sovereignty as the spiritual or ancestral tie of Aboriginal people to their lands 

It is [the] attachment to a place through ancestors and tradition that enables those of us who can claim a kind of sovereignty that predates the colonists to have a sense of place that is, at once, deeply emotional and social and political. It is this ancestral connection that makes the sacrifices worthwhile, and makes it possible for one to believe in one’s own humanity.

Read the full article.