Incarceration, Migration and Indigenous Sovereignty

Space, Race, Bodies is a research collective focused on the connections between racisms, geography, and activist and theoretical accounts of embodiment. A number of events and research projects have been hosted under this theme, including the Incarceration, conference and workshops from which this booklet emerged, Space, Race, Bodies II: Sovereignty and Migration in a Carceral Age. Incarceration, Migration and Indigenous Sovereignty: Thoughts on Existence and Resistance Migration and in Racist Times responds to the current and ongoing histories of the incarceration of Indigenous peoples, migrants, and communities of colour. One of its key aims is to think about how prisons and their institutional operations are not marginal to everyday spaces, social relations, and politics. Rather the complex set of practices Indigenous around policing, detaining, and building and maintaining prisons and detention centres are intimately connected to the way we understand space and place, how we understand ourselves and our families in relation to categories of criminal or innocent, and whether we feel secure or at home in the country we reside. Sovereignty: School of Indigenous Australian Studies Thoughts on Existence and Charles Sturt University Locked Bag 49 Resistance in Racist Times Dubbo NSW 2830 www.spaceracebodies.com Australia Edited by Holly Randell-Moon Incarceration, Migration and Indigenous Sovereignty: Thoughts on Existence and Resistance in Racist Times Edited by Holly Randell-Moon Second edition published in 2019 by Space, Race, Bodies School of Indigenous Australian Studies Charles Sturt University Locked Bag 49 Dubbo NSW 2830 Australia www.spaceracebodies.com ISBN 978-0-473-41840-3 Space, Race, Bodies Incarceration, Migration and Indigenous Sovereignty: Thoughts on Existence and Resistance in Racist Times Format Softcover Publication Date 11/2019 Layout, typesetting, cover design and printing by MCK Design & Print Space, Race, Bodies logo design by Mahdis Azarmandi. Acknowledgements Mā whero, mā pango ka tutuki te mahi. appreciation also to Pounamu Jade Aikman This booklet would not have been possible for his transcription work, which has formed without the generosity of the contributors. the basis of many of the contributions in the I thank them for sharing their knowledge booklet. Ehara koe i a ia! This booklet was and expertise in order to help readers better funded by the Antipode Foundation, a schol- understand the connections between incar- arly organisation and publisher committed ceration, racism, and colonialism. Much to radical geography and activism. 3 Contents Acknowledgements 3 Introduction by Holly Randell-Moon 7 Sovereignty: Struggles And Solidarities “Erasing lines, dismantling borders: Rethinking Pacific borders in the 17 context of colonization” by Teanau Tuiono Prison And Beyond “Dismantling the Detention Industrial Complex” by Fadak Alfayadh 23 “Beyond Walls and Cages: Dismantling Detention and Prison” by 26 Emmy Rākete, Fadak Alfayadh, Crystal McKinnon and Emma Russell Belonging and Sovereignty “Thoughts on Migrant Place(s) in a Settler Space: (Decolonisation 37 and Te Tīriti o Waitangi)” by Marie Laufiso and Suzanne Menzies-Culling “The Pacific body and Racism” by R. Michelle Schaaf 45 Notes on Contributors 53 5 Introduction Holly Randell-Moon This booklet responds to the current and The idea for Incarceration, Migration ongoing histories of the incarceration of and Indigenous Sovereignty was to create Indigenous peoples, migrants, and commu- a space in which different conversations nities of colour. One of its key aims is to think about the struggle around carceral politics about how prisons and their institutional and practices could take place. We hope the operations are not marginal to everyday booklet prompts discussion and thinking spaces, social relations, and politics. Rather about some of the tensions or complexities the complex set of practices around polic- in refugee advocacy by Pākehā (non-Māori ing, detaining, and building and maintaining New Zealanders) and non-Indigenous peo- prisons and detention centres are intimately ple when they welcome new migrants to connected to the way we understand space a country that is not their own, or how to and place, how we understand ourselves and think about social justice beyond the tem- our families in relation to categories of crim- porality of a short-lived “welcome”. Overall, inal or innocent, and whether we feel secure Incarceration, Migration and Indigenous or at home in the country we reside. Sovereignty seeks to situate contemporary Incarceration, Migration and Indigenous carceral practices and the increasing use of Sovereignty: Thoughts on Existence and detention to manage people as they move Resistance in Racist Times was born out of across borders within settler colonial his- many questions and conversations we have tories of the internal policing and impris- had about whether practices of detention onment of Indigenous peoples – where and incarceration of communities of colour exercising sovereignty has and continues to and Indigenous peoples are connected. If be linked to criminality under settler state they are, how can we understand, organ- law. ise, and support criminal justice reform and abolitionist (the abolishment of pris- Who is this resource for? ons) advocacy across these lines of solidar- Incarceration, Migration and Indigenous ity? Consequently, Incarceration, Migration Sovereignty was created for educational pur- and Indigenous Sovereignty brings together poses to assist community organisers, edu- different perspectives on the detention of cators, students, and advocates involved in migrants, refugees, and Indigenous peoples anti-racist, decolonial, and abolitionist work. and discusses how the detention of these It is primarily designed to address the inter- communities is reflective of state prac- sections of this work and advocacy based on tices of violence against peoples of colour. the understanding that the incarceration of Contributors also provide a wider histori- communities of colour, migrants, refugees, cal and geographical context for the settler and Indigenous peoples share intersections colonisation of Australia, the Pacific, and through the racism bought about by set- Aotearoa and how this effects the movement tler colonialism. There are four key terms of communities and families within these used throughout this booklet that help us spaces and territories. to understand these intersections: Settler 7 colonialism; Decoloniality; Racism; and the settler colonial structures, values, and Abolition. knowledge that make settler migrants and Settler colonialism is an “inherently their ancestors the normal and dominant eliminatory” “land-centred project that group in society. As Nelson Maldonado- coordinates a comprehensive range of agen- Torres notes, “Decolonial thinking has cies” to destroy Indigenous societies and existed since the very inception of mod- remove their presence from country (Wolfe, ern forms of colonization” (2011, p. 1). This 2006, pp. 387, 393). What distinguishes set- thinking has been practised by a diverse tler colonialism from colonialism is “the group of Indigenous and minority commu- long-run structural consistency” of settlers’ nities to challenge colonisation and its cul- attempts at legal, social, and political perma- tural and social effects. Decolonial thinking nence (p. 402). Australia and New Zealand can be applied to the removal of monuments share many of the same symbols of British and names that efface the history of local Christian settler permanence in their alle- and Indigenous communities, the history giance to the British Crown, the presence and education taught in a society, or ways of of the Union Jack or the Royal Union Flag organising and running institutions. One of in their national flags, Christian public holi- the key aims of decolonisation is to empha- days (based on the Gregorian calendar), and sise the epistemological effects of coloni- the Preamble to the Australian Constitution alism and imperialism. Here epistemology contains a reference to unifying the colo- refers to not only what we know but how we nies into one country under “the blessing of know what we know. For instance, European Almighty God” and New Zealand’s national and Western histories promote the idea that anthem is entitled “God Defend New freedom, scientific progress, and civilisation Zealand.” While these symbols of British were developed during the Enlightenment Christian culture have emerged from migra- period. But these ideas can only be known tion, British Christian culture is rarely named if the histories of slavery, colonial genocide, as migrant or ethnic in dominant Australian and the theft of Indigenous lands are ignored and New Zealand society. “Ethnicity” or and excluded. Decolonial thinking is then a “race” are usually applied to Indigenous peo- method or way of approaching knowledge. ples or non-white migrants. This is because As Linda Tuhiwai Smith argues, in order to British Christian or Anglo-Celtic settlers avoid perpetuating colonising structures, it are not framed as migrant on the basis of is important “to decolonize our minds” (2012, their “replacement” of Indigenous peoples p. 63) and work with and from Indigenous (Wolfe, 2006). That is, they are the “normal” and marginalised knowledges. Speaking at population against which racial and ethnic the Space, Race, Bodies II event, held at the others are distinguished. This is how settler University of Otago in 2016, Moana

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