Skip to main content

CIPR

  • Home
  • About
    • Annual reports
  • People
    • Executives
    • Academics
    • Professional staff
    • Research officers
    • Visitors
      • Past visitors
    • Current PhD students
    • Graduated PhD students
  • Publications
    • Policy Insights: Special Series
    • Commissioned Reports
    • Working Papers
    • Discussion Papers
    • Topical Issues
    • Research Monographs
    • 2011 Census papers
    • 2016 Census papers
    • People on Country
    • Talk, Text and Technology
    • Culture Crisis
    • The Macquarie Atlas of Indigenous Australia
    • Indigenous Futures
    • Information for authors
  • Events
    • Workshops
    • Event series
  • News
  • Students
    • Study with us
  • Research
    • Key research areas
    • Visiting Indigenous Fellowship
    • Past projects
      • Indigenous Researcher-in-Residence
      • Sustainable Indigenous Entrepreneurs
      • Indigenous Population
        • Publications
        • 2011 Lecture Series
      • New Media
        • Western Desert Special Speech Styles Project
      • People On Country
        • Project overview
          • Advisory committee
          • Funding
          • Research partners
          • Research team
        • Project partners
          • Dhimurru
          • Djelk
          • Garawa
          • Waanyi/Garawa
          • Warddeken
          • Yirralka Rangers
          • Yugul Mangi
        • Research outputs
          • Publications
          • Reports
          • Newsletters
          • Project documents
      • Indigenous Governance
        • Publications
        • Annual reports
        • Reports
        • Case studies
        • Newsletters
        • Occasional papers
        • Miscellaneous documents
      • Education Futures
        • Indigenous Justice Workshop
        • Research outputs
        • Research summaries
  • Contact us

Research Spotlight

  • Zero Carbon Energy
    • Publications and Submissions
  • Market value for Indigenous Knowledge
  • Indigenous public servants
  • Urban Indigenous Research Network
    • About
    • People
    • Events
    • News
    • Project & Networks
      • ANU Women in Indigenous Policy and Law Research Network (WIPLRN)
      • ANU Development and Governance Research Network (DGRNET)
      • Reconfiguring New Public Management
        • People
        • NSW survey
    • Publications
    • Contact

Related Sites

  • ANU College of Arts & Social Sciences
  • Research School of Social Sciences
  • Australian National Internships Program

Administrator

Breadcrumb

HomeResearchPublicationsThe Blue Mud Bay Case: Refractions Through Saltwater Country - The Blue Mud Bay Case: Refractions Through Saltwater Country
The Blue Mud Bay Case: Refractions through saltwater country - The Blue Mud Bay Case: Refractions through saltwater country
Author/editor: Morphy, F, Morphy, H
Year published: 2009
Issue no.: 7
Volume no.: 82

Abstract

Under the Aboriginal Lands Rights (Northern Territory) Act 1976 (ALRA) Aboriginal freehold land has always extended down to the low water mark. In a historic majority decision on 30 July 2008, the High Court of Australia ruled on appeal in the Blue Mud Bay case that, in effect, the ALRA also applies to the column of water above the intertidal zone. This paper contrasts settler Australian and Yolngu ways of conceptualising and giving meaning to the bodies of salt water that settler Australians call ‘seas’ and ‘oceans’. It explores elements of the Yolngu worldview in order to unsettle the foundations of the settler ‘political geographic imaginary’ surrounding concepts such as ‘ocean’ and ‘border’.

The paper appears in Dialogue, the Journal of the Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia, 28 (1): 15-25.

[20 May 2009]

Attachment:
The Blue Mud Bay Case: Refractions through saltwater country
[2.7 MB] in Dialogue, the Journal of the Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia.