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- Convenor:
-
Cris Shore
(Goldsmiths)
Send message to Convenor
- Stream:
- Citizenship, politics and power
- Location:
- Old Quad-G18 (Cussonia Court Room 2)
- Start time:
- 4 December, 2015 at
Time zone: Australia/Melbourne
- Session slots:
- 1
Short Abstract:
This panel explores the changing nature, symbolism and moral authority of the State in post-colonial settler societies. More specifically, it uses debates on constitutional reform and the discourse of the 'Crown' to interrogate the State's moral claims to sovereignty and legitimacy.
Long Abstract:
The problem of the modern State - its formation, effects and legitimacy - lies at the heart of political and legal anthropology. Post-colonial Commonwealth settler states, however, face particular moral challenges: their constitutional legitimacy derives largely from their historic links to the British Crown, yet they keenly proclaim autonomy and distance themselves from their colonial roots. How is this dilemma reconciled? With what authority can they claim to represent all citizens, including indigenous populations?
Many Commonwealth countries utilise 'the Crown' and retain Queen Elizabeth as head of state, which provides a sense of identity, stability, and constitutional flexibility but also reflects legacies of colonialism, exploitation and oppression. Queen Elizabeth's death will precipitate major constitutional debates that go beyond republicanism. These debates, which have already begun, offer glimpses into the contingent and often fragile nature of the state's claims to legitimacy and sovereignty. While much has been written about the legal personality of the State, less attention has been paid to its character as a moral actor. Among the questions this panel asks are:
• What characterises the State in post-colonial settler societies?
• How is the State symbolised/represented?
• How do symbols underpin the State's moral positions?
• How is its moral authority established and contested?
• What is the 'Crown' and what work (political,legal and symbolic) does that concept perform?
• What insights into moral politics can be gleaned from closer analysis of the State in post-colonial settler societies?
• What moral horizons are evident in debates over constitutional reform?
Accepted papers:
Session 1Cris Shore (Goldsmiths)
Paper short abstract:
This paper provides a conceptual introduction to the panel by revisiting debates over the difficulties of studying the state. I show how ‘the Crown’, as conceptual placeholder for the state, can shed light on the enigmatic nature of the state and its effects in post-colonial Commonwealth societies.
Paper long abstract:
In his seminar essay, Philip Abrams (1977: 58) argued that the State 'is not the reality which stands behind the mask of political practice. It is itself the mask which prevents our seeing political practice as it is.' Since Abrams, anthropologists have emphasized the importance of studying the 'state idea' and 'state effects' treating the modern state not as a reified given, but as an ideological or cultural artifact that creates the illusion of its own coherence. This paper asks, how is that illusion of coherence created and how are those state effects produced? These questions are particularly salient in post-colonial settler societies that retain Queen Elizabeth II as their head of state. Often referred to as 'the Crown', the state system of constitutional monarchies provides a fascinating exemplar of Abram's thesis. As conceptual placeholder for the state, the Crown also illustrates key aspects of the way that contemporary sovereignty operates and has adapted the medieval principle of The King's Two Bodies (Kantorowicz 1957).
This paper argues that the Crown in Australia and New Zealand is an enigmatic entity rendered opaque and invisible by its own success and seeming naturalness. It is 'black box' in Latour's (1999) sense of the term. Yet it also provides a lens for analyzing the operation of the state in constitutional monarchies. The paper provides an introduction to the panel, to the methodological challenges of studying the state, and to the Crown's constitutional claims to moral authority.
Jai Patel (University of Auckland)
Paper short abstract:
In New Zealand, the Crown is more than a proxy for the State; I suggest that it personifies the State as a moral actor and is central to its perceived legitimacy. I also show how changes in the moral character of the Crown reflect changes in New Zealand’s constitutional arrangements.
Paper long abstract:
The Crown in New Zealand has always occupied a moral position; it is perceived as apolitical, as the fount of justice, and is associated with honour and due process. The Crown is often understood to mean the State, but I suggest that it also bestows a moral character on the State and is central to its legitimacy.
In the 1800s, the King could do no wrong. The Crown's presence in New Zealand was deemed a moral necessity and the concerns of settlers were allayed through Crown Law and Crown Land. Today however, the Crown's moral character is contestable; the Crown can not only do wrong, but has done wrong. This is clear, for example, in Banks v Queen, the Crown Proceedings Act, criticisms of the Royal family, in republican discourse and through the Crown's acknowledgement of its breach of Treaty principles. At the same time, the Crown maintains its moral authority by apologising for past transgressions against Maori and by prosecuting in high profile legal proceedings. The Crown upholds moral standards through oaths and the honours system, and has been indigenised and modernised to try to accommodate all New Zealanders.
This paper asks: what does it mean when people say the Crown argues a case, or apologises for past grievances? What would be at stake for the legitimacy of the State if the Crown was replaced? I suggest that changes in the Crown's moral accountability arise from its changing meanings and its ambiguous place in New Zealand's constitutional arrangement.
Sally Raudon (University of Cambridge)
Paper short abstract:
This paper examines one way in which the Australian Crown seeks to maintain its moral authority symbolically. Using preliminary results from ethnographic fieldwork, I argue that the Crown harnesses local associations with land and sacrifice to support its own legitimacy.
Paper long abstract:
The Crown in Australia, as embodiment of the state, is largely concerned with executive control and management over resources, minerals and territories - land - but arguably without some of the parallel obligations of honour which underpin the crown in other common law countries. Consequently, the Australian Crown remains a contested notion which sits uncomfortably and reluctantly in public discourse.
Yet Queen Elizabeth II remains Australia's Head of State. This is what most Australians popularly associate with the crown, and rightly so because constitutional monarchy depends on the legal fiction of the monarch's two bodies, corporeal and incorporated. However, any sovereign necessarily requires moral legitimation and ideally should embody the land over which they rule. This task is complicated when that ruler is foreign. Through royal visits and gap years, the Crown's corporeal embodiment - the royal family - regularly circulate through the Commonwealth, reminding Australians of shared histories, genealogies and kinship, worldview and claims on shared cultural treasures.
Royal tours make reciprocating claims on Australia, often through carefully cultivating relationships between individual royals and Australian soil. They go outback to remote stations and settlements, wrestle crocs, and plant trees. Royals participate in events rich with notions of sacrifice, such as Anzac and military memorials, which are understood to have secured Australia's lands from her enemies. By grounding future kings in Country, the taken-for-granted concept of the crown can be reconciled with and naturalised in the land it rules.