« Words matters (colonialist entomologists): Janice Vis, ‘Whose Colony? Rethinking Terminology and Insect Relations’, Environmental Humanities, 18, 1, 2026, pp. 78-95
Digital dispossession: Tyler McCreary, David Hugill, ‘Digital Colonialism, Fossil Capitalism, and Indigenous Dispossession’, Capitalism Nature Socialism, 2026 »

The colony as a prison: L. N. Billington, ‘L.N. (2026). ‘Incarceration as Colonisation: Indigenous Imprisonment and Self-Determination in Australia and Kanaky’, in T. Anthony, M. Bhatia, K. Pillay, J. M. Williams (eds), The Palgrave Handbook of Racial Injustice and Resistance, Palgrave Macmillan, 2026, pp. 245-270

17Mar26

Abstract: For generations, prison population rates in colonial carceral systems have reported breathtakingly high levels of Indigenous incarceration. While Canada, Australia, Aotearoa New Zealand and the United States of America (CANZUS) are most often cited in this regard, Indigenous hyperincarceration manifests in colonial carceral jurisdictions across the globe. Positioning Indigenous incarceration as an integral part of a colonial project which is both lived and ongoing, this chapter scrutinises the imperialist logics driving historical and contemporary exercises of colonial carceral control over Indigenous nations. This chapter draws on two colonial carceral case studies: Kanaky (New Caledonia) and Australia. Building on the observations and reflections of those with lived experience of prisons in these jurisdictions, as well as on both critical scholarship and Indigenous advocacy work in Australia and Kanaky, this chapter examines the structural relations between colonisation and incarceration, and between decolonisation and decarceration. Analysing the ways colonialism and Indigenous incarceration are fundamentally entwined in these jurisdictions, this chapter demonstrates the purposeful and continued deployment of carceral control over Indigenous nations as a tool of the modern-day colonial project to subdue, subjugate, dispossess and eliminate Indigenous peoples. Drawing on illustrations from Kanaky and Australia, this chapter concludes that the inherently colonial nature of Indigenous incarceration necessitates the fundamental fracture of the contemporary structures of colonial invasion—including the prison. Only then can Indigenous decarceration become a reality.


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