Paper short abstract:

Claiming native title in Australia is a legal process and so inevitably entails the filtering of one set of culturally determined values through another. While the state intended to produce property rights through this process it encourages instead ethnically defined nations. The Yawuru, who live on the coastal fringe near Broome, are an example.

Paper long abstract:

The Yawuru people of the Broome region of North-west Australia inhabit a watery world. Living on a coastline with one of the most extreme tidal variations in the world large amounts of the land are periodically flooded, creating salt marsh and tidal mangrove creeks. At the other extreme the tides expose reefs and sand bars which hold as much cultural and material interest as the land. Situated in the monsoonal tropics, the land is also periodically inundated with fresh water, though there are few permanent standing bodies of fresh water and no permanent fresh water creeks. The Yawuru people relied on soakages and springs for the fresh water needed to hunt and fish. Consequently, this paper contends, the Yawuru developed a highly labile form of social organisation with the high mobility and social interaction characteristic of the arid areas of the continent. The introduction of the Native Title Act in 1993 allowed the Yawuru to lay claim to their traditional land and waters. The Act foresaw the demonstration of property rights that could be registered. Instead, the court has effectively created a form of ethnic nationality with a right, not to property, but to territory. This paper will examine the tensions produced in this re-description of traditionally labile social practices by the desire of the state for property holders with which to negotiate, on the one hand, and the proclivity of the court to create sub-nationalities which indirectly challenges this desire for fragmentation and individuation.