Settler Islamophobia is anti-Indigenous: Ryan Al-Natour, ‘“Not Yours to Reclaim”: White possessive logics and the Reclaim Australia movement of 2015-6’, Australian Journal of Social issues, 2024 | settler colonial studies blog

Settler Islamophobia is anti-Indigenous: Ryan Al-Natour, ‘“Not Yours to Reclaim”: White possessive logics and the Reclaim Australia movement of 2015-6’, Australian Journal of Social issues, 2024

27Dec24

Abstract: Within settler colonial societies around the world, the racialisation of settlers of colour as “invaders” exemplifies how invasion paradoxes operate on Indigenous lands that remain both stolen and unceded. The Reclaim Australia movement was active in 2015–2016 and frequently denied its racism as it protested the presence of Muslims within Australian society. Whilst Islamophobia is a key defining feature of this movement, this article focusses on Reclaim Australia’s persistent expressions of anti-Indigenous racisms. In analysing this racist movement, I point out that it is not enough to observe that racist invasion narratives among settlers on stolen, unceded Indigenous lands are paradoxical. Rather, that a series of white possessive logics shape these racisms, as the movement produced two dichotomous narrations of Indigenous peoples that involved a commodified “Aboriginal friend” trope, or framed First Nations peoples as ungrateful “beneficiaries” of the colonial project that is Australia.

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