Exercising Dominion: Landscape, Civilisation and Racial Politics in Capricornia

Autores

  • Michael Thomas Ellis University of Sydney

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.5007/2175-8026.2016v69n2p43

Resumo

The Land in Xavier Herbert’s 1937 novel Capricornia acts as a “medium” (38) according to Lydia Wevers, mediating all experiences and developments. In particular, the land is a site of contention between Indigenous and settler groups each vying for an existence very different from the other’s. The phrase “exercising dominion” (Fitzmaurice, 56) was developed by European thinkers in the Middle Ages, who were tasked with finding justification for the colonisation of the Holy Lands of the Middle East and the mineral-rich lands of the Americas. This article will analyse the settlement and colonisation of the Northern Territory as depicted in Capricornia with consideration of the above statement, particularly as it explores the opposing groups’ attitudes towards and interactions with the Land and to each other. 

Biografia do Autor

Michael Thomas Ellis, University of Sydney

Michael Ellis is currently a PhD student in the Department of English at the University of Sydney.

Referências

Evans, Raymond. 1999. Fighting Words: Writing About Race. University of Queensland Press: St Lucia. Print.

Fitzmaurice, Andrew, “Anticolonialism in Western Political Thought: The Colonial Origins of the Concept of Genocide” in: Empire, Colony, Genocide : Conquest, Occupation, and Subaltern Resistance in World History (ed.) Dirk A. Moses. New York, NY: Berghahn Books. 2008. Pp. 55-80. Print.

Herbert, Xavier, 1947. Capricornia. Angus and Robertson: Sydney. Print.

Jose, Nicholas (ed.), “Xavier Herbert”, Macquarie Pen Anthology of Australian Literature, Crows Nest, NSW: Allen & Unwin Publishing. 2009. Pp. 449. Print.

McDougall, Russell, “Herbert, Albert Francis Xavier (1901–1984)”, Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/herbert-albert-francis-xavier-12623/text22741, published first in hardcopy 2007, accessed online 20 February 2016.

Reynolds, Henry (ed.), 1972. Aborigines and Settlers: The Australian Experience 1788-1939. Cassell Australia: North Melbourne. Print.

Stanner, W.E.H., (1959) “Durmugam: A Nangiomeri” in: The Dreaming and Other Essays, 2010, Black Inc. Agenda: Collingwood, pp. 19-57. Print.

Stanner, W.E.H., (1953) “The Dreaming” in: The Dreaming and Other Essays, 2010, Black Inc. Agenda: Collingwood, pp. 57-73. Print.

Watson, Irene, (2009) “Sovereign Spaces, Caring for Country, and the Homeless Position of Aboriginal Peoples” in: South Atlantic Quarterly, 108:1, pp. 27-51.

Publicado

2016-06-07

Edição

Seção

Artigos