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Deterritorialise to reterritorialise: Argha Bhattacharyya, ‘Transforming the settler narrative: reading Kim Scott’s Taboo as becoming minor’, Culture, Theory and Critique, 2026

28Apr26

Abstract: This paper critically analyses Kim Scott’s Taboo in reference to the Deleuzean notion of ‘becoming minor’. The novel discusses Noongar characters dealing with historical trauma and land dispossession against the persistent impacts of forced assimilation, reflecting on their positioning as the ‘other’ in their ancestral land. Through the use of omniscient and communal storytelling, the tale subverts the settler colonial worldview and asserts Aboriginal sovereignty. This paper purports that the revival of the Noongar language together with cultural practices can be viewed as an act of deterritorialisation, reconstructing new forms and narratives to express Aboriginal knowledge, memory, and agency. The analysis of the novel as an act of ‘becoming minor’ demonstrates how Scott’s novel can be read as a testament to new ways of Aboriginal sense of belonging and sovereignty within the field of Australian literature.


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