A Reconciled Nation? Mabo and the Reimagining of Australia's National History

Abstract

The High Court's 1992 decision in Mabo v Queensland (No 2) is widely regarded as a seminal moment in Australia's legal and political history. The decision established a legal right to native title and placed Indigenous history and politics at the forefront of public debate. As this historiographical survey will demonstrate, the decision, and the public debate that followed it, also spurred significant discussion in the discipline of Indigenous history about how to write and represent Indigenous history, and the place of Indigenous history in national historical narratives. For some, Mabo encouraged an emphasis on negotiation and reconciling Indigenous and settler experiences to create new narratives about Australia's history and nationhood. For others, Mabo and the politics of reconciliation constituted a further appropriation of Indigeneity by settler Australians, underscoring the historical continuity of invasion and the need to transform the discipline of history to recognise Indigenous epistemologies and history-making.