Unfinished Constitutional Business: Rethinking Indigenous
Self-Determination, Barbara A. Hocking, ed., Canberra: Aboriginal
Studies Press, 2005, pp. 293.
In the introduction to this collection of papers from a 2001
conference in Brisbane, Australia, the editor asks, “can indigenous
peoples' experiences of colonisation reshape our constitutional
language?” (xv). The contributions to the book reflect the breadth
of indigenous experiences as well as the range of ways that many
nation-states will have to revisit their constitutions in order to satisfy
the goal of decolonization/self-determination. Indeed, the book
requires us to rethink what we consider to be a constitution in
the context of unresolved and highly unsatisfactory indigenous-settler
relations. More than a document or series of political institutions, the
book explores the many ways that colonial societies have been and remain
constituted by non-indigenous assumptions and ideologies and considers
whether and how these impair claims for indigenous self-determination.