Decolonizing Solidarity: Dilemmas and Directions for Supporters of Indigenous Struggles

In this highly original and much-needed book, Clare Land interrogates the often fraught endeavours of activists from colonial backgrounds seeking to be politically supportive of Indigenous struggles. Blending key theoretical and practical questions, Land argues that the predominant impulses which drive middle-class settler activists to support Indigenous people cannot lead to successful alliances and meaningful social change unless they are significantly transformed through a process of both public political action and critical self-reflection.

Based on a wealth of in-depth, original research, and focussing in particular on Australia, where - despite strident challenges - the vestiges of British law and cultural power have restrained the nation’s emergence out of colonizing dynamics, Decolonizing Solidarity provides a vital resource for those involved in Indigenous activism and scholarship.

Clare Land is a long-time supporter of Indigenous struggles. She works on research at Victoria University’s Moondani Balluk Indigenous Academic Unit, supports social change projects at the Reichstein Foundation, and consults to community organizations on race relations. Clare has been engaged since 1998 with the history and present of settler colonialism. An Anglo-identified non-Aboriginal person living and working in south-east Australia, inspired by Aboriginal struggles, she has undertaken community-based organizing in solid support of a range of Aboriginal-led campaigns. Since 2004 Clare has collaborated with Krauatungulung (Gunai)/Djapwurrung (Gunditjmara) man Robbie Thorpe on campaigns, projects and a long-running radio programme on 3CR in Fitzroy, Melbourne, which focuses on colonialism and resistance.