Indigenous peoples and land ownership

For countries using a politico-economic system based upon ownership, they tend to frame an indigenous connection with the land they live on as ownership, but is it?

Indigenous peoples often see land as supporting them, but not as something they own. They see the situation as that they are allowed to use the land but have an obligation to look after it, otherwise they may lose that use. This is reflected in how they have built their customs and ceremonies around cooperating with the beings they say are in charge of the land. It is a relationship of respect and an acknowledgement of the transitory nature of that relationship.

Replacing the being with government we can see that there are some similarities with our modern private land usage, in that land is ultimately dependent upon the government making it available and providing the laws and conditions that govern usage of the land for private purposes. The important difference is the idea of ownership and what that allows private individuals or groups to exclusively do with the land they supposedly own.

Ownership in non-indigenous land systems is about how much control an owner has over the land and its resources, whether on, below or above it. Critically, ownership here is about endurance and exclusivity of use, and that is where the indigenous view typically diverges. In non-indigenous systems, ownership of land endures in perpetuity once bought, regardless of what they do to it, within loose limits, whereas traditional views are that the relationship to the land is always temporary and requires respect and fair use of it to be able to keep using it.

With the non-indigenous systems typically being the ones that have the huge state apparatus that took over the indigenous land to begin with, their land management systems dominate. typically meaning the full perpetual ownership is the norm. That means that while governments may want to make some reparations for disruptions to indigenous land use in the past, they still have obligations to those non-indigenous land users that they have made laws to protect that use for.

This means that in order for indigenous peoples to have some sort of ability to use the land in their traditional ways without interference from others, they are nominated as the now owners of the land so they collectively have exclusive and uninterrupted use of it, according to the limits they have negotiated with the government. Having a form of ownership play out in a lot of what governments then decide about how to manage relations with the indigenous people regarding the land, and how they communicate how to treat the new arrangements to the rest of the population.

Reconciliation Australia uses Traditional Owners. When the organization tasked with leading reconciliation uses a term like that without acknowledging its legal baggage, it shows how even well-meaning efforts can unintentionally sideline Indigenous worldviews. It shows that we still have along way to go to really allow indigenous viewpoints to seep into a nations psyche.