This Palgrave Pivot strives to recount and understand Indigenous Law, as set within a remote community in northern Australia. It pays close attention to the realpolitik and high-level political functioning of Indigenous Laws, which inspires a discussion of how this Law models the relational, influences governance and emplaces people in an ordered kincentric lifeworld. The book argues that Indigenous Law can be examined for the ways in which it is a deliberate, stabilizing and powerful force to maintain communal order in relation to Country, a counter framing to popular and ‘soft law or soft power asset’ visions of such Laws often held in the national and international imaginary. It is the latter which too often renders this knowledge esoteric and relinquishes it to a category of lore or folklore. This is an open access book.
Author(s): Amanda Kearney, John Bradley, Vincent Dodd, Dinah Norman a-Marrngawi, Mavis Timothy a-Muluwamara, Graham Friday Dimanyurru, Annie a-Karrakayny
Publisher: Palgrave Pivot
Year: 2023
Language: English
Pages: 158
City: Cham
Foreword
The Yanyuwa Authors
Acknowledgements
Contents
About the Authors
List of Figures
Chapter 1: Conceptualising Indigenous Law
The Language of Law
Indigenous Law as Ancestral and Kincentric
Law as Realpolitik
About the Authors
Chapter Organisation
References
Chapter 2: Yanyuwa Law
Yanyuwa Country and Colonial Encroachment
narnu-Yuwa: Yanyuwa Law, Kinship and Responsibility
Kincentric Order: Yanyuwa Politics of Land and Sea Ownership
Authority, Spiritual Power and Essence
Wunyingu—Names from Country
Linginmantharra and Yanyuwangala: Yanyuwa Politics as Negotiation of the Past
Yarrambawaja—Ceremony
Kujika—Songlines
Collective Decision-Making: Yanyuwa Processes of Reaching Consensus
Orality and Transmission of Law
Aspects of Change: Cultural Shifts and Generational Nuance
Chapter Overview
References
Chapter 3: Testimonies of Yanyuwa Law and Kincentric Order
Old Arthur Narnungawurruwurru
Old Arthur Narnungawurruwurru’s Telling of Yanyuwa Law
Yanyuwa Law and Legislative Land Rights
Phillip Timothy Narnungawurruwurru’s Story: Speaking About Law in 2000
A Word on Pushing Orality into Written Forms
The Practice of Law
Kincentricity
Empiricism in Country Through Ngalki
The Realpolitik of Law
References
Chapter 4: More Than Soft Power
The Problem with Soft Power
The Peril of Stakeholder Status
Straightening Things Up
Strengths in Political Pluralism
References
Chapter 5: Conclusion
References
Index
