Re-Settling Australia? Indigeneity, Indigenous Sovereignty, and the Postcolonial Nation in Kim Scott's Taboo

Based on a reading of Kim Scott's Taboo (2017), this article argues that only through a sincere acknowledgement of material and mental Indigenous sovereignty can postcolonial nations eventually attempt to move beyond embedded colonialist structures. Sovereignty, as the novel emphasises, relates not only to questions of physical displacement but also, importantly, to the issue of representation. This article contends that a dual approach informed by both postcolonial and Indigenous studies can be useful in challenging existing colonising elements in the construction of Indigeneity and offering alternatives. Employing Bob Hodge and Vijay Mishra's notion of "Aboriginalism," this article shows how postcolonial theory offers vital tools to identify, describe, and criticise ubiquitous colonialist images of Indigeneity and is hence able to raise an awareness of these structures and make change possible. With its insistence on the diversity and mutability of Indigenous identities, critical Indigenous theory, such as James Clifford's formulation of an "articulated Indigeneity," on the other hand, emphasises that recognising the complexity of Indigeneity represents an important step towards Indigenous sovereignty, as Taboo rightly identifies.