This work is the first to assess the legality and impact of colonisation from the viewpoint of Aboriginal law, rather than from that of the dominant Western legal tradition. It begins by outlining the Aboriginal legal system as it is embedded in Aboriginal people's complex relationship with their ancestral lands. This is Raw Law: a natural system of obligations and benefits, flowing from an Aboriginal ontology. And this book places Raw Law at the centre of an analysis of colonization - thereby decentring the usual analytical tendency to privilege the dominant structures and concepts of Western law.

Auteur

Irene Watson is a Professor of Law at the University of South Australia and has published extensively on the impact of colonialism on Indigenous Peoples as subject/objects in international law. She is currently working on the Australian Research Council project 'Indigenous Knowledges: Law, Society and the State'.

Contenu

Chapter 1 Introduction, Chapter 2 Kaldowinyeri, Chapter 3 Raw Law, Song, Ceremony, Ruwe, Chapter 4 Naked: the coming of the cloth, Chapter 5 Who's your Mob? - How are you related?, Chapter 6 Dressed to Kill, Chapter 7 Indigenous Ways: a Future