Introducing work on migrants on Indigenous lands: Andonis Piperoglou, Francesco Ricatti, ‘Recognising Indigenous Sovereignty in Migration Research: Australian Reflections’, in Andonis Piperoglou, Francesco Ricatti (eds), Researching Migration on Indigenous Lands, Springer, 2026, pp 9-31 | settler colonial studies blog

Introducing work on migrants on Indigenous lands: Andonis Piperoglou, Francesco Ricatti, ‘Recognising Indigenous Sovereignty in Migration Research: Australian Reflections’, in Andonis Piperoglou, Francesco Ricatti (eds), Researching Migration on Indigenous Lands, Springer, 2026, pp 9-31

16Dec25

Abstract: This volume examines migration to Australia through the critical lens of Indigenous sovereignty, arguing for a fundamental rethinking of migration studies within settler colonial contexts. While migration and Indigenous studies have developed largely in parallel, this book challenges that separation by foregrounding the entanglements between migrant arrivals and the ongoing dispossession of Indigenous lands and peoples. The collection centres Indigenous epistemologies and critiques the ways in which celebratory multicultural narratives have obscured the colonial foundations of the Australian state. This introduction sets out the volume’s methodological framework, drawing on decolonial, antiracist, and Indigenous scholarship to critique disciplinary silos and advocate for reflexive, participatory, and community-informed research. Editors and contributors—many of whom are migrants or descendants of migrants—explore their own positionalities and the responsibilities of working and researching on unceded Indigenous land. The volume’s structure reflects its commitment to interdisciplinarity and undisciplined inquiry, with contributions ranging from autoethnographic reflection to critical policy analysis and media studies. Through case studies involving Greek and Italian diaspora, language policy, cinema, literature, and activist art, the chapters engage with the complexities of migrant-Indigenous relations, revealing tensions as well as possibilities for solidarity. The introduction also critiques the absence of Indigenous perspectives in leading migration studies handbooks, highlighting the volume’s intervention in the field. This collection thus offers a significant scholarly and ethical challenge to conventional migration research, proposing that any decolonial agenda must begin by recognising Indigenous sovereignty and reconfiguring the frameworks through which migration is studied, understood, and represented in settler colonial societies.

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