Reconciliation and Colonial Power

In the 1990s several countries that had been divided by mass violence or gross human rights violations instigated projects of national reconciliation. In 1991 Australia instigated its own reconciliation project between indigenous and non-indigenous people. In this book the author offers a sociological interpretation of this process which suggests that, rather than being a genuine attempt at atonement, that is responsive to key indigenous aspirations, Australian Reconciliation is perhaps better understood as the latest stage in the colonial project.Despite being the longest running reconciliation process, to date there has been no authoritative study of Australian Reconciliation. This book fills this significant gap in theoretical and empirical understanding, considering the relevance of acknowledgement and apology, restitution and rights, nation building and state legitimacy to the reconciliation project.During Australian Reconciliation both the Keating and Howard governments had the opportunity to give legislative effect to common law indigenous land rights, but as this book shows, the legislation that was supposedly enacted to enshrine indigenous land rights more closely reflected the needs of commercial interests and actually functioned to dispossess indigenous people still further. This is the first book to analyse Australian Reconciliation as a reconciliation process. It compliments the burgeoning literature on reconciliation theory and practice and provides fertile material for comparisons with reconciliation processes in other countries such as Chile and South Africa.