Australian Aboriginal Studies: Issue 2, 2025

Major articles

Mabo’s Extension? Sovereignty Reimagined in Australian Court

Arieh Herszberg

Justice Brennan in Mabo v Queensland [No 2] observed that while a municipal court cannot question the act of state doctrine regarding sovereignty, it can consider the effect of a change of sovereignty. This insight opens the door for the High Court to reconsider Indigenous sovereignty within the context of contemporary legal and constitutional principles, without being constrained by historical notions of Crown authority. This paper explores the interplay between sovereignty, Indigenous rights, and legal frameworks in Australia, focusing on revisiting Walker v New South Wales and Members of the Yorta Yorta Aboriginal Community v Victoria. These cases are used to argue for a re-evaluation of the High Court of Australia’s stance on Indigenous sovereignty. By critically engaging with these decisions, drawing on comparative jurisprudence from Canada and the United States, and considering broader developments in Native Title law, the paper advocates for a nuanced judicial reconsideration of sovereignty. The paper concludes by analysing the recent 2025 High Court decision of Commonwealth v Yunupingu.

Indigenous Literature Re-View Methodology: Findings from an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Boarding School

Thu Pham and Jessa Rogers

This article outlines the findings of a literature review we conducted, using Indigenous Literature Re-view Methodology (ILRM), a new Indigenous research method. ILRM was developed to give greater emphasis to Indigenous voices and knowledges in the literature review process, foregrounding Indigenous ways of being, doing and knowing, and Indigenous voices, in the literature review. In this article we, as Indigenous and non-Indigenous researchers, present the findings of our ILRM re-view of Australian Indigenous boarding school literature. Our re-view saw seven themes emerge from 66 identified sources, published from 2000 onwards, on Indigenous boarding schooling in Australia. These themes were home, student experience, transitions, access, staff, health, and evaluation. Indigenous readers are warned that this article contains images of people who have passed away.

The Original Archive: deep diving in Australia’s recorded history

Robyn Smith

This article examines the re-emergence of historically marginalised Aboriginal knowledge and juxtaposes some examples of Aboriginal records held in Australia’s original archive with the dominant historical records held in colonial and post-colonial archives. The article notes that the latter have, until comparatively recently, been considered authoritative premised on them being factual, truthful, of an evidentiary nature and, therefore, proof of an event. It explains the notions of epistemic oppression and epistemic privilege and explores deep history through case studies from Northern Australia in which dominant colonial records are challenged and neutered by mnemonic Aboriginal records held in the original archive. The article questions the value and meaning placed on the word ‘record’ and exactly what constitutes a ‘record’ for the purposes of accurate historical scholarship. The inevitable conclusion is that Australia’s original archive contains a wealth of information that will value-add to existing, deficient archival records.

AIATSIS’s partnership approach to repatriating significant material culture: an examination of the Bardi Jawi, Illinois State Museum and AIATSIS collaboration

Iain G Johnston, Christopher Simpson, Christiane Keller, the AIATSIS Return of Cultural Heritage team, and the Bardi Jawi knowledge holders and cultural authorities

This article examines the application of a partnership model to repatriate cultural heritage material with the Bardi Jawi people of the Kimberley region in Western Australia, as part of the AIATSIS Return of Cultural Heritage (RoCH) Project (2018–2020). The partnership with the Bardi Jawi community was the first completed return project by the RoCH team and has informed our return collaborations for the ongoing RoCH Program (2024–). In this article we outline the partnership model and argue it is the most ethical way to undertake Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander research within a government agency.

Reflections on fieldwork with South Australian Aboriginal communities: respect, reciprocity, and waiting

Leda Sivak, Susan Hemer and Alex Brown

Research relationships with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people have a challenging history of power imbalances and colonial tensions, which continue to affect both Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities and non-Indigenous health researchers in contemporary contexts. This article argues that power imbalances both emerge from and can be shifted in the day-to-day activities of research. Reflecting on how power manifests within health research can improve research design and implementation. We explore some negotiations involved in maintaining relational accountability, responsiveness and empowerment through community-based research. Inspired by autoethnographic methods, we present reflections from the field regarding three themes in research with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people: space and place in fieldwork; reciprocity; and waiting as power sharing. Three vignettes, which illustrate seemingly routine moments from fieldwork, provide a starting point for exploring the related literature. Further, the vignettes and accompanying literature contribute practical ways to enact relationships, respect and relational accountability in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander research. Despite its challenging history with settler colonialism, research with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people can be conducted in ways that are respectful and responsible.