Law and Indigenous Peoples

The settler legal system in Australia has been built upon dispossession and erasure of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, as well as their land, laws and knowledges. Law continues to closely (over)regulate the lives of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, while failing to properly protect Indigenous interests. This course will investigate the variety of ways in which settler law has operated to afford (and deny) rights and interests to Indigenous people, both as individuals and as polities.