First World, First Nations: Internal Colonialism and Indigenous Self-Determination in Northern Europe and Australia (First Nations and the Colonial Encounter) - Softcover

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1845193512 ISBN 13: 9781845193515

Publisher: Liverpool University Press, 2010

Synopsis

The Sami people of Northern Europe and the Aboriginal Australians are literally a world apart in geographical terms, yet these two groups share a common fate as Indigenous minorities emerging from centuries of internal colonization. Their ancient cultures and languages have been severely eroded by policies of forced assimilation. Their traditional lifestyles and economies have been damaged and their political voices marginalized. Recent decades have seen their struggles for collective survival rise to political prominence in national and international agendas, with the promise of Indigenous self-determination held out by national governments and the UN's Declaration of Rights for Indigenous Peoples. Both the Sami and Indigenous Australians have won important new rights during these decades, yet the outcomes are very different. In First World, First Nations - the only collection of essays specifically on the Indigenous peoples of Australia and Northern Europe - the similarities and differences between the Indigenous experiences in the Nordic countries and Australia are explored by renowned experts in the field, which includes Indigenous authors. Some of the contributions are explicitly comparative and based on research experience in both areas. Two essays on New Zealand and Canada provide external points of reference to the volume's focus on Northern Europe (Norway, Sweden, Finland, Russia) and Australia. As always in Indigenous Studies, issues of cultural identity and survival are prominent, but there is a special emphasis in many of the book's chapters on issues of socio-economic development and political representation. A substantial introduction by the editors sketches out a historical-theoretical framework for understanding Indigenous struggles in First World countries that is critical of some currently fashionable approaches.

About this title

About the Author

Gunter Minnerup has been teaching, and extensively publishing on, modern European history for over thirty years. He was Director of the Centre for European Studies at UNSW Sydney 2006-2007, in this capacity organiser of the conference on which this book is based. He is involved with Australian Indigenous issues in various ways, for example through the History Council of NSW (member of judging panel for Indigenous History Fellowship). Pia Solberg is currently writing her Ph.D. thesis comparing Indigenous development in Australia and Norway.

Review

“The volume by Günter Minnerup and Pia Solberg serves as a stark reminder that First Nations peoples are found on all continents. They contrast the respective histories and past and present vicissitudes of the Sámi – spread across Norway, Sweden, Finland and Russia – with those of Indigenous Australians. If in Scandanavia the Sámi suffer relative disadvantage vis-à-vis non-Sámi areas, the contrasts between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians are ‘shocking’. There is, moreover, a yawning disparity in living standards between the Sámi and Indigenous Australians. The authors offer a ‘historical and structural explanation of the very different processes of colonization involved’ and question how a model of internal colonialism might become transformed into one of internal self-determination. This latest volume in the series underscores that any process of internal decolonization must be about more than survival: rather, it has to do with stripping the relations between the colonizer and colonized of their structural asymmetries and inequalities.”  —From the Preface by First Nations Series Editor, David Cahill, University of New South Wales

Edition details

• Publisher: Liverpool University Press
• Publication date: 2010
• ISBN 10: 1845193512
• ISBN 13: 9781845193515
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 292
• Editor: Minnerup Gunter, Solberg Pia