The Politics of Makarrata: Understanding Indigenous–Settler Relations in Australia

• DOI: 10.1177/0090591719849023
• Published date: 01 February 2020
• Date: 01 February 2020
• Subject Matter: Articles

https://doi.org/10.1177/0090591719849023

Political Theory

2020, Vol. 48(1) 30 –56

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DOI: 10.1177/0090591719849023

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Article

The Politics

of Makarrata:

Understanding

Indigenous–Settler

Relations in Australia

Adrian Little1

Abstract

In May 2017, the Uluru Statement from the Heart was released, providing

an Indigenous response to debates on recognition of Aboriginal and Torres

Strait Islander peoples in the Australian constitution. The document

advocated for a “Makarrata Commission,” which would oversee truth telling

and agreement making. This essay analyzes the concept of Makarrata as it

has emerged in the context of Indigenous–settler relations in Australia and

argues for a deeper engagement of non-Indigenous people with Aboriginal

and Torres Strait Islander concepts and practices. By extending some of

the methods of comparative political theory to incorporate endogenous

as well as exogenous comparisons, the article demonstrates the ways in

which Makarrata is likely to contribute to continuing contestation and

disagreement between Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples. While the

Uluru Statement marked a significant point in the Australian recognition

debate because it reflected a relatively consensual Indigenous message

articulated on its own terms, the article suggests that “Makarrata” must

not be appropriated into a benign settler discourse of reconciliation, if

the concept’s potential to inform substantive change in Indigenous–settler

relations is to be realized.

1School of Social and Political Sciences, University of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia

Corresponding Author:

Adrian Little, Professor of Political Theory, School of Social and Political Sciences, University

of Melbourne, John Medley Building, Parkville, Victoria 3010, Australia.

Email: little@unimelb.edu.au

849023PTXXXX10.1177/0090591719849023Political TheoryLittle

research-article2019

Little 31

Keywords

Indigenous politics, constitutional recognition, Australia, Makarrata,

reconciliation

In May 2017, following a constitutional convention of Indigenous leaders

and activists at Uluru in Central Australia, a statement was released reacting

to the decade-long debate over constitutional recognition of Aboriginal and

Torres Strait Islanders as the original inhabitants of Australia. This statement

was entitled “The Uluru Statement from the Heart.”1 This decade of debate

about recognition followed twenty-five years of discussion of Indigenous–

settler relations in Australia under the auspices of the concept of reconcilia-

tion and a longer contested dialogue over the nature of Australia’s colonial

history and the political relationship between the Australian state, settler-

descended, and migrant Australians and the Aboriginal and Torres Strait

Islander peoples.2 While there have been some advances in understanding

these issues through the reconciliation and recognition processes, the debate

is still relatively underdeveloped and the need for ongoing cultivation of

these conflictual relationships is not well understood. To summarize the

Uluru Statement from the Heart, it called for a “Makarrata Commission” to

facilitate truth telling and processes of agreement making, as well as an

Indigenous voice to parliament as a way of advancing this debate.3

Building on these foundations, this article examines the nature of

Indigenous–settler relations in Australia through the prism of comparative

political theory (CPT). While CPT frequently focuses on deeply embedded

concepts of different intellectual traditions and how these traditions relate to

one another,4 the object of analysis is usually centered on texts rather than

particular problems in context. The argument here is that the tools of CPT can

also be used profitably to examine discourses around practical problems.

CPT equips analysts with the tools to engage in both endogenous and exog-

enous comparisons to shed light on the ways in which the concepts used to

mediate Indigenous–settler relations in Australia have developed relationally

with debates internal to and outside Australian society. As such, the argument

demonstrates the hitherto neglected ways in which CPT can be used to make

sense of relational development of concepts in the experience of settler colo-

nial societies.

One of the key authors in CPT debates, Andrew March, argues that to

conduct comparative theoretical analysis “there have to be not only distinct

units, but their differences also have to be somehow enduring and generative

of knowledge or insights greater than what is derived from treating them in

noncomparative ways.”5 The distinct units in this case are Aboriginal and