When I teach Indigenous social and political theory, I draw on a perspective which emphasizes that the states of the so-called First, Second, and Third World, as originally distinguished by Mao Zedong, are built on the backs of the global indigenous nations of the “Fourth World,” which long predates them, and within which they have come to find themselves situated. To reinforce some of the key concepts of Fourth World Theory, I use the music video, “Australia Does Not Exist,” by the artist DRMNGNOW (Yorta Yorta) (featuring artists Philly, Adrian Eagle, and Culture Evolves).
Indigenous social and political theory challenges much that is taken for granted in western political thought. Emphasizing the indigenous “Fourth World” foregrounds Indigenous Peoples in world affairs in a particularly provocative way. DRMNGNOW’s “Australia Does Not Exist” offers a concise statement of Fourth World Theory’s core sociohistorical insight that there is an underlying antagonism in the modern world—obscured by the very terms of that world’s advent—between modern states and nations. Nations, on this view, are not “nation-states,” but enduring peoples with ancient ties to geographically specific territories, whose very peoplehood is articulated to and through their cultural homelands and/or waters. By contrast, modern states, while typically controlled by particular ethnic group, are an artificial formation of power that sits on top of (typically) multiple unconsenting nations, claiming sovereignty and jurisdiction over them and their territories.
The song’s chorus advances this point unambiguously: like other settler colonies, “Australia does not exist” as a real nation (a nation in the Fourth World sense). Rather, state ideology, backed by coercive power, sustains a legal fiction that masks the settler state’s existence as a parasitic entity built on and structured by the genocide and ongoing dispossession of real nations (i.e., Indigenous nations). Lyrically, the song emphasizes the pre-existence and endurance of Indigenous Peoples in Australia, despite state attempts to annihilate, assimilate, and reshape them as distinct peoples. Recounting the story of settler colonialism in Australia, it explores the impact of key genocidal moments. For example, the song alludes to the shameful policy of forcibly removing aboriginal and “half-caste” children from their families and placing them in state- or church-run institutions, foster care, and in non-Indigenous families. In class, I observe that this policy resulted in the kidnapping of at least 1 in 10 but as much as 1 in 3 Indigenous children, later known as the Stolen Generations. Thus, Adrian Eagle sings of settler nationalism that “pride is genocide” that aims to “wash away” the evidence of its origins.
Visually, the video highlights several important thematic elements, of which I will mention just one: the natural landscape. Corresponding to the song’s reiterative emphasis on the spiritual, the video cinematically creates a sense that the land, as a larger-than-life entity (or set of entities), has a mind-independent identity and agency. Contrasting with the relative adolescence and artificiality of settler society—Jeff Corntassel (Tsalagi) calls modern states “immature societies”—this corresponds to the lyrical theme of the millenarian character of Indigenous nationhood, as well as to the Fourth World concept of nation as a place-specific phenomena that emerges from kinship relationships to the land itself. It thus points to what Glen Coulthard (Yellowknives Dene) calls grounded normativity, by which he labels the varieties of Indigenous conceptions of land not only as a material place, but as a “system of reciprocal relations and obligations” (emphasis in original).
Lesson Plan
Typically, I show the video to the class at the end of the unit (see the assigned readings below). Before showing the video, I ask students to take notes on things that stand out to them in relation to the concepts and arguments we have been discussing. Then, I play the video again, so they have a second opportunity to catch new things, and to digest its content. I then put students in small groups and ask them to discuss what theoretical concepts and arguments from our unit came to mind. I then open the conversation to a class-wide discussion. The video is rich enough for students to volunteer observations that struck them as significant. But there are key moments that I make sure to highlight if they do not come up in discussion, such as Coulthard’s concept of grounded normativity. At the end of the discussion, I sometimes ask students to reflect on the video using three concepts from the unit or assign that task as a homework assignment, to be posted in an online discussion board. The instructions for this assignment are as follows.
After rewatching the video: (1) Identify 3 concepts from our unit that are expressed in the video and (2) explain how each is expressed in it. Note: the aspects of the video you can focus on do not have to be lyrical, but can also be its formal elements (the instrumentation/beat, the cinematography, etc.).
Possible readings
Usually, I assign some or all of the following works.
- Corntassel, Jeff. 2012. “Living in a Longer Now,” pp. 85–98 in For Indigenous Minds Only: A Decolonization Handbook, edited by Waziyatawin and Michael Yellow Bird. Santa Fe, NM: School for Advanced Research Press.
- Coulthard, Glen. 2010. “Place Against Empire: Understanding Indigenous Anti-Colonialism.” Affinities: A Journal of Radical Theory, Culture, and Action 4 (2): 79–83.
- Excerpts from: Wolfe, Patrick. 2006. “Settler Colonialism and the Elimination of the Native.” Journal of Genocide Research 8 (4): 387–409.
Sources and other resources
- Alfred, Taiaiake, and Jeff Corntassel. 2005. “Being Indigenous: Resurgences Against Contemporary Colonialism.” Government and Opposition 40 (4): 597–614.
- Coulthard, Glen. 2014. Red Skin, White Masks: Rejecting the Colonial Politics of Recognition. University of Minnesota Press.
- DRMNGNOW, “Indigenous Land,” https://youtu.be/xvgEl41ngh0
- Kauanui, J. Kēhaulani and Patrick Wolfe. 2012. “Settler Colonialism Then and Now: A Conversation between J. Kēhaulani Kauanui and Patrick Wolfe.” Politica & Società, Periodico di filosofia politica e studi sociali 2012 (2): 235–258.
- Manuel, George and Michael Posluns. 2019 (1974). The Fourth World: An Indian Reality. University of Minnesota Press.
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Julio Covarrubias
Julio César Covarrubias is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Northern Arizona University. His research interests include race and racism in the US and Mexico, the Mexico-US borderlands, anticolonial theory, and Latin American and Latino/a/x philosophy. He is the winner of the 2018 American Philosophy Association Prize Essay on Latin American and Latinx Philosophy.
