Morgan Brigg | The University of Queensland, Australia (original) (raw)
Papers by Morgan Brigg
Routledge eBooks, Jan 29, 2016
Native title deals with Indigenous people's rights to land and waters, but it does so on 'white' ... more Native title deals with Indigenous people's rights to land and waters, but it does so on 'white' terms that do little to advance 'rights' in the wholesale sense of an incontrovertible moral political principle. Rather, it carries a European 'toughness' forged on the colonial frontier that denies Indigenous rights and is deeply embedded in Australian political institutions. Native title re ects an Aboriginal observation, offered to Bill Stanner by an old Aboriginal man, that Europeans are 'very hard people'. Of course, native title does afford some rights to Indigenous Australians, but these are very limited-nothing like those envisaged by Mabo, the Wik people and others, when they won their famous ghts. After 25 years of administration the native title regime is predominantly a vehicle for the ongoing subjugation and assimilation of Indigenous peoples, in line with the logics of the settlercolonial state upon which Australian law is built.
Journal of Intervention and Statebuilding
This thesis undertakes two principal tasks in relation to postwar efforts to develop the Third Wo... more This thesis undertakes two principal tasks in relation to postwar efforts to develop the Third World. The first of these is to explore Itdevelopmentalism" as a historically and culturally contingent conceptualisation of social change in order to map the location of development efforts. By drawing primarily on the work of Michel Foucault, I argue that developmentalism emerges in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century through intertwined relations of knowledge, power, governing and the constitution of the Western subject. This culturalhistorical approach demonstrates that considerations of development efforts should not accord developmentalisffi, nor the economic relations and concepts which are central to it, their widely-held a priori status. Following from this requirement, the second major task taken up in this thesis involves extending current critical approaches by elaborating a Foucaultian framework for analysis of the emergence and operation of the postwar devel...
The Australian Journal of Indigenous Education, 2001
Waking up to Dreamtime contributes to a currently popular Australian genre of policy commentary t... more Waking up to Dreamtime contributes to a currently popular Australian genre of policy commentary that is skeptical about claims articulated through Aboriginality, particularly those around Aboriginal self-determination. To the extent that this is clearly an important issue for many Australians, Gary Johns and other contributors to Waking Up pose a challenge to many Aboriginal people, to well-meaning leftist commentators, educators, and theirsympathetic white Australian supporters. However, with one or two notable exceptions, the book does not address the issues in a way that is respectful of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander culture and people, or attuned to the complexities involved. Moreover, many of the chapters are not sufficiently reflexive about the role of 'Westernality'-the counterpart to Aboriginality. This severely undermines the claims the authors attempt to make but will, unfortunately, likely make the book appealing to those who are seeking simple answers to current fears and controversies.
The New Politics of Conflict Resolution, 2008
How can we pursue conflict resolution beyond the influence of sovereignty? In what ways can we re... more How can we pursue conflict resolution beyond the influence of sovereignty? In what ways can we respond without disavowing cultural others and governing difference? Part I of this book generated these questions through a critical engagement with conflict resolution, yet also suggested that the seeds for addressing them are already partly sown within conflict resolution itself. Conflict resolution is a practically engaged enterprise, committed to responding to people in conflict. This combination of practical engagement and responsiveness is a valuable resource for addressing challenges facing the field. Nonetheless, the possibilities should not be overstated, and realizing them requires sustained critical inquiry. The conceptual grounds for responding to others, including for undertaking dialogue and exchange, have largely remained implicit and continue to risk capture by the influence of sovereignty. There are, for instance, ongoing encounters across cultural difference in conflict resolution, but the field remains largely dominated by Western approaches. This situation reproduces the culture challenge and governs difference, thereby compromising the capacity of conflict resolution to address some of the contemporary world’s most difficult conflicts. We need to explore avenues for dealing with pressing challenges facing the conflict resolution field while remaining cautious about commonsensical appeals to exchange and dialogue. To do so, it is necessary to ask questions about the relations between sovereignty and the field’s advanced theoretical formulations.
Palgrave Macmillan UK eBooks, 2016
Indigenous peoples pre-date the contemporary world system of nation-states, and yet are now bound... more Indigenous peoples pre-date the contemporary world system of nation-states, and yet are now bound with this global scheme through asymmetric power relations of colonialism. As colonial exchanges saw the expropriation of Indigenous lands and the concentration of wealth in European hands from 1492, notions of progress, private property and nationhood relied upon Indigenous reference points to conjure the image of a barbaric, romantic or simply earlier past that was ‘naturally’ succeeded in the passage to a modern world.1 The European colonial episode inflicted incredible damage on Indigenous societies, frequently pushing Indigenous peoples to the brink of extinction through genocidal violence, but it also bound Indigenous and European peoples in the generation of European self-understandings that continue to reverberate and dominate in world politics. The asymmetry of many colonial encounters certainly means that many exchanges occurred — and continue to occur — on European terms, but Indigenous peoples have consistently pushed back, troubling and haunting a Eurocentric world order from a marginal position.
The Palgrave Encyclopedia of Peace and Conflict Studies
Routledge eBooks, Jan 29, 2016
Native title deals with Indigenous people's rights to land and waters, but it does so on 'white' ... more Native title deals with Indigenous people's rights to land and waters, but it does so on 'white' terms that do little to advance 'rights' in the wholesale sense of an incontrovertible moral political principle. Rather, it carries a European 'toughness' forged on the colonial frontier that denies Indigenous rights and is deeply embedded in Australian political institutions. Native title re ects an Aboriginal observation, offered to Bill Stanner by an old Aboriginal man, that Europeans are 'very hard people'. Of course, native title does afford some rights to Indigenous Australians, but these are very limited-nothing like those envisaged by Mabo, the Wik people and others, when they won their famous ghts. After 25 years of administration the native title regime is predominantly a vehicle for the ongoing subjugation and assimilation of Indigenous peoples, in line with the logics of the settlercolonial state upon which Australian law is built.
Journal of Intervention and Statebuilding
This thesis undertakes two principal tasks in relation to postwar efforts to develop the Third Wo... more This thesis undertakes two principal tasks in relation to postwar efforts to develop the Third World. The first of these is to explore Itdevelopmentalism" as a historically and culturally contingent conceptualisation of social change in order to map the location of development efforts. By drawing primarily on the work of Michel Foucault, I argue that developmentalism emerges in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century through intertwined relations of knowledge, power, governing and the constitution of the Western subject. This culturalhistorical approach demonstrates that considerations of development efforts should not accord developmentalisffi, nor the economic relations and concepts which are central to it, their widely-held a priori status. Following from this requirement, the second major task taken up in this thesis involves extending current critical approaches by elaborating a Foucaultian framework for analysis of the emergence and operation of the postwar devel...
The Australian Journal of Indigenous Education, 2001
Waking up to Dreamtime contributes to a currently popular Australian genre of policy commentary t... more Waking up to Dreamtime contributes to a currently popular Australian genre of policy commentary that is skeptical about claims articulated through Aboriginality, particularly those around Aboriginal self-determination. To the extent that this is clearly an important issue for many Australians, Gary Johns and other contributors to Waking Up pose a challenge to many Aboriginal people, to well-meaning leftist commentators, educators, and theirsympathetic white Australian supporters. However, with one or two notable exceptions, the book does not address the issues in a way that is respectful of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander culture and people, or attuned to the complexities involved. Moreover, many of the chapters are not sufficiently reflexive about the role of 'Westernality'-the counterpart to Aboriginality. This severely undermines the claims the authors attempt to make but will, unfortunately, likely make the book appealing to those who are seeking simple answers to current fears and controversies.
The New Politics of Conflict Resolution, 2008
How can we pursue conflict resolution beyond the influence of sovereignty? In what ways can we re... more How can we pursue conflict resolution beyond the influence of sovereignty? In what ways can we respond without disavowing cultural others and governing difference? Part I of this book generated these questions through a critical engagement with conflict resolution, yet also suggested that the seeds for addressing them are already partly sown within conflict resolution itself. Conflict resolution is a practically engaged enterprise, committed to responding to people in conflict. This combination of practical engagement and responsiveness is a valuable resource for addressing challenges facing the field. Nonetheless, the possibilities should not be overstated, and realizing them requires sustained critical inquiry. The conceptual grounds for responding to others, including for undertaking dialogue and exchange, have largely remained implicit and continue to risk capture by the influence of sovereignty. There are, for instance, ongoing encounters across cultural difference in conflict resolution, but the field remains largely dominated by Western approaches. This situation reproduces the culture challenge and governs difference, thereby compromising the capacity of conflict resolution to address some of the contemporary world’s most difficult conflicts. We need to explore avenues for dealing with pressing challenges facing the conflict resolution field while remaining cautious about commonsensical appeals to exchange and dialogue. To do so, it is necessary to ask questions about the relations between sovereignty and the field’s advanced theoretical formulations.
Palgrave Macmillan UK eBooks, 2016
Indigenous peoples pre-date the contemporary world system of nation-states, and yet are now bound... more Indigenous peoples pre-date the contemporary world system of nation-states, and yet are now bound with this global scheme through asymmetric power relations of colonialism. As colonial exchanges saw the expropriation of Indigenous lands and the concentration of wealth in European hands from 1492, notions of progress, private property and nationhood relied upon Indigenous reference points to conjure the image of a barbaric, romantic or simply earlier past that was ‘naturally’ succeeded in the passage to a modern world.1 The European colonial episode inflicted incredible damage on Indigenous societies, frequently pushing Indigenous peoples to the brink of extinction through genocidal violence, but it also bound Indigenous and European peoples in the generation of European self-understandings that continue to reverberate and dominate in world politics. The asymmetry of many colonial encounters certainly means that many exchanges occurred — and continue to occur — on European terms, but Indigenous peoples have consistently pushed back, troubling and haunting a Eurocentric world order from a marginal position.
The Palgrave Encyclopedia of Peace and Conflict Studies