Dr. Richard Howitt, Human Geography, Macquarie University, Australia. Richard.Howitt@mq.edu.au

The Dreaming, power and indigenous rights: challenging the 'heart of darkness' in Australia's postcolonial geographical imaginaries.

How do Australians imagine their place in the world? Reflecting on involvement in complex native title negotiations in South Australia, this paper critically engages with notions of geographical scale and cultural landscapes to argue that achieving indigenous self- determination relies on effectively challenging the overwhelming power of dominant postcolonial discourses in Australia. A geographical imaginary rooted in the Dreaming rather than conventional politico-legal ontology is an important part of this challenge. Through negotiations that have been accountable to the Dreaming, native title claimants in South Australia have constructed a new scale of indigenous discourse, with new networks, relationships, institutions and foundations for dealing with the realities of governance in the state. In imagining a new geography of South Australia, built on a just and sustainable relationship between Aboriginal and settler interests rather than an imagined terra nullius, insights to the wider challenge of re- imagining geographical relations without the compass of racist, patriarchal, classist imaginings are suggested. This leads the paper to a consideration of the work of Levinas, Irigaray and others as a basis for re-thinking scale and geography.