Unsettling Expectations: A Study on Indigenous Land Claims

Eva Mackay’s “Unsettling Expectation: (Un)certainty, Settler States of Feeling, Law and Decolonization” investigates the impacts of indigenous land claims and how they affect the emotions of settlers.

The Crown has shown no intention of upholding indigenous land claims. Furthermore, Mackay argues this idea of not giving back the land happened because of early pioneers of European settlements feeling that they had a privilege to call this “indigenous land” that is being battled over theirs. The Settlers had a lustrous illusion of certainty. Now, embedded in Law, giving back the land would cause an extreme amount of uncertainty. The Crown can’t allow this to happen because it These people who strive for certainty, do this because of the social

frameworks that are embedded in the history of their ancestors. Mackay argues that this feeling of uncertainty disrupts this “fantasy of possession” of the non-Aboriginal people.

Mackay presents us with a social prejudice concept.

We want these Indigenous people to integrate into our society and become a part of what we have built but they didn’t and it shocked a lot of settlers. These indigenous people want to create reserves and live a life of uncertainty and it causes non-Aboriginal people to judge them each and every day. This judgement comes from a social bias that is put on by the Crown to itself and protect itself from a chance of a sovereignty of their land. The Crown has created an illusion that has become a reality that we have the right to indigenous land and have the control over aboriginals and how they are governed. Secondly Mackay shows us that some Aboriginal rights have been recognized but are only partial. These rights of land always land back in possession of the Crown. Finally, the idea of settler emotion is presented by Mackay. These settlers are extremely passionate about their land because of the hard work that their ancestors did to get it. They believe that these indigenous people didn’t work hard enough, and don’t want to integrate into the society of certainty thus we shouldn’t give up the land to them.

Mackay arguments flow extremely well into her analysis. Although her work displays no contradictions, it displays an incredible amount of repetition. When she argues the concept of the Crown always staying in control of the land. She uses the idea of the Crown always admitting that indigenous people live on the land, but then creating ways to make sure they always keep control of “their” land, many times. Mackay is very concise with her words. She keeps everything very short and

sweet.

Mackay uses cases that have happened in the past to demonstrated to us that the Crown shown has no intentions of recompensing land rights back to indigenous people. The Crown doesn’t want to lose the certainty that they have worked to get over a long period of time and giving back the land to Indigenous people would create this uncertainty. Mackay’s evidence seems very reliable because it flows in extremely well with her arguments and her tone. “Indeed, securing settler certainty through law is a much deeper characteristic.” Mackay is conceptually trying to argue feeling as a “law” and her evidence backs this up really fluently.

Guaranteeing “certainty” in indigenous land rights cases is an extremely hard thing to do. Mackay does a good job of showing us how we are led to believe we live in a world of “certainty”. Mackay’s piece is very opinionated and doesn’t have much factual evidence. She bases a lot of her arguments off of other pieces she has read and understood but she does an extremely good job of manipulating the evidence from these pieces to make her arguments seem very strong. Her point on emotions is extremely powerful because it speaks the truth. We don’t want to give up our land to Aboriginal people because it doesn’t seem right. It is embedded in our history that this is our land although its kind of ironic because we took the land from them.