Performative recognition

 I recently came across this ‘acknowledgement of country’ on a blog I frequent:

We recognise the First Peoples of this nation and their ongoing connection to culture and country. We acknowledge First Nations Peoples as the Traditional Owners, Custodians and Lore Keepers of the world's oldest living culture and pay respects to their Elders past, present and emerging.

Similarly, the Australian Human Rights Commission’s antiracism website announces,

Racism. It Stops With Me acknowledges Traditional Custodians of Country throughout Australia and pays respect to Elders, past, present and future.

At first glance, such acknowledgements seem unexceptionable. But something is missing – a recognition that the colonists have usurped the Traditional Custodians’ possession without compensation. Isn’t it cynical to acknowledge ownership without that? Isn’t it hypocritical to do so without offering, or at least advocating, some form of material reparation for the harm colonialism has wreaked.

When we read of ‘the world's oldest living culture’, it raises a variety of issues. For one thing, it implies that Australian Indigenous culture is one thing. In reality, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples practiced a range of cultures prior to colonisation. More importantly, colonisation has required those cultures to adapt, resulting in further variety.

Ultimately, all living human cultures are exactly the same age. Indeed, they may all have originated from the same culture. They have just developed in different directions. To assert that Australian Aboriginal culture is ‘the oldest’ is really just a euphemism for the belief that it has not developed and is stuck in some ‘primitive’ form from the past. As Luke Pearson has pointed out, ‘it can also be seen to suggest that because we had a ‘continuous culture’ for over 60,000 years that there were no changes, no adaptations, no innovations, and was not influenced by individuals of great talent and skill’. I hesitate to speculate about what kind of attitudes might engender such ideas.

Finally, ‘emerging Elders’ or ‘future Elders’ is a curious concept. Although it is not obvious, in this context, an Elder is not just any old codger. According to Wiradjuri woman Yvonne Weldon, ‘An Elder is a respected holder of cultural knowledge who has lived in accordance with certain principles, values and teachings...In Wiradjuri law, recognition as an Elder is something that is conferred rather than assumed’. So an ‘emerging Elder’ must be someone whose status as an Elder their community has not recognised, which is why Weldon considers the term presumptuous. And Sydney University avers that ‘acknowledging “emerging leaders” or “Elders past, present, and emerging” is generally not accepted practice in the Indigenous community and should not be used’.

So all the protestations of recognition, acknowledgement, and respect end up unpacking as performative gestures and manifest the very colonial views they purport to distance themselves from.