Postcolonial belonging as an ethic of care
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2014
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MacGill, B.
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New Scholar, 2014; 3(1):155-170
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This paper explores the notion that an ethic of care is differentially expressed within pluralist projects of belonging (Yuval-Davis). In postcolonial contexts, belonging to a place is a constructed and socially constitutive political and moral project that is highly contested. The lower Murray River, Lakes and Coorong in the South East of South Australia is politically charged where colonial boundary marking is contested by the fact that the Ngarrindjeri Nation never ceded sovereignty (Trevorrow et al). This paper explores this space through the lens of ethics of care expressed as a mode of belonging. The millennium drought has significantly impacted on South Australia's main water supply from the Murray River, making the river and its fragile environment an object of care for both Indigenous and settler communities. While this platform of environmental care as a basis for forming new relationships of shared belonging is a welcome development, the concept of 'care' has a racist and paternalist history in colonial Australia. This paper examines critically how recent settler assertions of care for the Murray environment are not only connected to claims of belonging but also associated with colonial understandings of entitlement. The Greek word 'autochthony' in its literal sense of 'to be of the soil' expresses the Ngarrindjeri notion of Ruwe/Ruwar (Country/land/spirit) that centralises the nurturing of the land for the communal good. This contrasts with settler standpoints of belonging, which include exploiting the land for individual, economic gain. Yet, settler claims to the land are rooted in the notion of pastoralists as autochthones (literally 'people sprung from earth itself,' or Indigenes). Both stances are highly charged with an emotionality of entitlement. Importantly, an ethics of care approach allows for an investigation into settler notions of entitlement, and prompts sensitivity to notions of Ngarrindjeri Ruwe/Ruwar, which offer a counter-model of belonging in a drought devastated land.
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Copyright 2015 the author. Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/)