Indigenous Australians and Their Lands: Post-Capitalist Development Alternatives

Abstract

This chapter explores post-capitalist development alternatives that are emerging in remote Australia for Indigenous peoples who have repossessed their ancestral lands. My exploration is based on over 40 years of research as an economic anthropologist/comparative economist exploring development alternatives. I deploy a grounded model of actually existing economies that I term ‘the hybrid economy’ to illustrate how through their agency Indigenous landowners are creatively reconfiguring and recombining elements of capitalist and non-capitalist forms of production. Customs and traditions that need to be legally demonstrated to secure landownership are being activated in pursuit of diverse livelihoods that include self-provisioning, the controlled commodification of culture and the production of environmental services, including carbon emissions avoidance and sequestration, and renewable energy mega-projects. The hybrid economy theorisation challenges the envisioning of capitalism as the singular dominant mode of economy and might yet prove a harbinger of post-capitalist futures essential for Indigenous and non-Indigenous survival.

But I must add that, apart from the splendid mineral, pastoral, and agricultural possibilities in the Territory, which will enable it to become populous, progressive, and productive, we must remember that in its proper development lies the key, not only to the defence of Australia , but to the development of its north. About one-half of Australia lies north of a line running from the Gascoyne River to Gladstone. Is this half to be neglected? … Either we must accomplish the peopling of the Northern Territory or submit to its transfer to some other nation. The latter alternative is not to be tolerated. The Territory must be peopled by a white race.

—Alfred Deakin in debate over the Northern Territory Acceptance Bill, Australian parliament, Hansard 15 October 1909