Postcolonial sovereignty in Greenland and Indigenous Australia

• Main Author: Jensen, Lars
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: 2022
• Subjects: Greenland; kalaallit; Kalaallit Nunaat
• Online Access: https://forskning.ruc.dk/da/publications/a8fbc7b4-71a5-40d9-8954-c5ca8d578995; https://hdl.handle.net/1800/a8fbc7b4-71a5-40d9-8954-c5ca8d578995; http://postkolonial.dk/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/10-Lars-Jensen.pdf

This article explores continuities, overlaps and differences between notions of sovereignty in Greenland and Australia. It operates from the premise that sovereignty in the handed-down Westphalian conceptualisation needs to be challenged to better correspond with the vast heterogeneity of colonial and postcolonial experiences across the globe, historically distorted by colonialism and invasion. The article pursues the question of defining different and locally grown formulations of sovereignty through a comparison of Greenland – Kalaallit Nunaat - and Indigenous Australia. In both cases this search takes place against the legacy of vested interests by the former colonial powers, Denmark, and Britain/settler colonial Australia, in preventing the articulation of a different sovereignty not premised on narrowly defined European views on territoriality as a given and colonialism as having the final say on how sovereignty may be described and circumscribed This article explores continuities, overlaps and differences between notions of sovereignty in Greenland and Australia. It operates from the premise that sovereignty in the handed-down Westphalian conceptualisation needs to be challenged to better correspond with the vast heterogeneity of colonial and postcolonial experiences across the globe, historically distorted by colonialism and invasion. The article pursues the question of defining different and locally grown formulations of sovereignty through a comparison of Greenland – Kalaallit Nunaat - and Indigenous Australia. In both cases this search takes place against the legacy of vested interests by the former colonial powers, Denmark, and Britain/settler colonial Australia, in preventing the articulation of a different sovereignty not premised on narrowly defined European views on territoriality as a given and colonialism as having the final say on how sovereignty may be described and circumscribed