Remembrance as remaking: memories of the nation revisited

This article revisits Anthony Smith's landmark collection Myths and Memories of the Nation (1999) from the perspective of recent developments in cultural memory studies. It argues for a more clearly demarcated distinction between myths and memories which acknowledges cultural memory as a site of new experiential perspectives that often work against the authority of myths, seen as the unquestioned truths about the collective past. Drawing on studies of modern memory cultures, it presents a dynamic and generative model that construes memory in terms of cultural practices of remembrance. It shows that memory is not an unchanging legacy but rather a malleable resource for making shared stories about the past. Where Halbwachs (1925) presumed that social frameworks precede and shape memory, remembrance is presented here as a cultural force that helps to redefine social frameworks and to create links between hitherto unconnected imagined communities.     

Is ‘white nationalism’, nationalism?

Are ‘white nationalists’ really nationalists? This label is one that right-wing, white activists themselves have chosen, and as such, compels rigorous investigation to avoid simply adopting the preferred nomenclature of these activists and their ambitions. The nation and nationalism are concepts with rich scholarly histories, and this paper seeks to examine the discussion, activities and statements of so-called white nationalists in light of this literature. We argue through a three-fold concept of the nation—based on territoriality, population and symbolic and/or cultural content—that the vision of the political community and ambitions of these activists falls short of the standard of a nation and that their aspirations do not conform to what the literature lays out as nationalism. We argue, therefore, that using the language of ‘white nationalism’ to describe these groups obfuscates and sanitises their motives and lends undue legitimacy to their standing in public discourse.     

Combining Indigenous and Maritime Archaeological Approaches: Experiences and Insights from the ‘(Re)locating Narrunga Project’, Yorke Peninsula, South Australia

This paper details the unique pairing of Indigenous and maritime archaeological approaches in the ‘(Re)locating Narrunga Project’. Narrunga was a ketch built by the Narungga Aboriginal community at Point Pearce Mission (Yorke Peninsula, South Australia) at the turn of the twentieth century and later sunk in the 1940s. It is argued that convergences between the scholarly interests of Indigenous and maritime archaeological approaches have been slow to develop and that maritime archaeology as a sub-discipline has not capitalized on the insights that can be gained from collaborative approaches between communities and practitioners. Similarly, Indigenous communities in Australia have had few opportunities to work with researchers to record their maritime heritage. As is evident in the Narrunga story told in this research, non-Indigenous records have been complicit in underplaying the maritime achievements and skills of Narungga people and collaborative research can work towards decolonizing this past.     

Indigenous sovereignties: relational ontologies and environmental management

Indigenous nations have always and continue to assert their sovereignties to resist colonialism. This paper makes explicit the ways in which environmental management has been and continues to act as a tool of colonialism, particularly by privileging Western science, institutions, and administrative procedures. We argue that to decolonise environmental management, it is crucial to understand and challenge the power relations that underlie it—asking who makes decisions and on what worldview those decisions are based. Indigenous ways of being deeply challenge the foundations of environmental management and the colonising power structures that underlie it, and invite further thought about posthuman and relational ontologies. We provide a range of case studies that showcase the role of Indigenous nations in redefining and reimagining environmental management based on Indigenous sovereignties, knowledges, and ways of being. The case studies emphasise the crucial connection between Indigenous decision‐making authority and self‐governance for the enhanced protection and health of the environment. We argue that Indigenous agency, grounded in Indigenous governance and sovereignties, is driving innovation and decolonising environmental management by making space for new ways of thinking and being “in place”.