The inheritance and repetition of colonial practices of dispossession

The Challenging Racism Project & Planning and Geography at Western Sydney University invite you to join our upcoming Author Meets Readers Series, featuring Dr Pratichi Chatterjee. During this session, we will delve into Dr Chatterjee's article, "The inheritance and repetition of colonial practices of dispossession".

Attendees are encouraged to read the article in advance, as it will form the basis of our discussion during the session. To access the open-access article, please use the following link: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/02637758231206628

Please register to attend the session online on Tuesday, 5 August at 11:00 am AEST. Zoom details will be provided upon registration.

Abstract

State processes of land dispossession rely on multiple modes of power such as domination, legitimisation, pacification, and deceit to achieve their aims. This article analyses how governments in Australia have drawn on these varied forms to redevelop inner city areas in Sydney which are important to Indigenous communities. It analyses three redevelopment practices that targeted the suburbs of Redfern and Waterloo between 2005 and 2019. First, domineering planning structures used to marginalise Indigenous housing in Redfern. Second, racist tropes that have worked to legitimise this authoritarian approach and the resulting dispossession. Third, community consultations, that attempted to placate residents impacted by redevelopment, with culturally inclusive participation, but that maintained a deceitful silence on the question of colonisation. The article shows how authoritarian state planning, racialised legitimisation, and colonial pacification and deceit wielded in Redfern and Waterloo, are directly inherited from and/or reproduce historic colonial nation and city building agendas. On this basis, the article claims that settler colonialism can be understood as a self-perpetuating process, where practices of dispossession, developed at a given time, can set precedent for and be reworked into later programmes of land dispossession.

Bio

Pratichi Chatterjee is a researcher working across urban geography, planning and housing studies. She is particularly interested the political and economic drivers of spatial change, including how these are shaped by structural inequalities of race, class and colonisation. Relatedly, her work engages with the challenges of housing activism and the role that research can play in struggles for housing justice. Pratichi has held academic positions in Australia and the UK. She is currently based at the Healthy Housing Initiative, University of Huddersfield, where her research focuses on the politics and policies driving homelessness among new refugees.

*Photo credit: Waterloo Towers by Matthew Venables