ABSTRACT
It has become a commonplace of descriptions of Imperial-colonial relations to invoke familial and bodily metaphors, while more recently their function in ‘naturalizing’ such relations has been exposed. Nevertheless, I believe it is necessary to address questions of the power of these metaphors, noting, for instance, their relevance in describing real political relations in ‘settler’ post-colonial societies such as Australia, Canada, and New Zealand. Having acknowledged them we may interrogate them, and work towards de-scribing some less obvious aspects of their ideological bases. Specifically, I suggest that what is missing from these bodily-relational analogies is precisely any body, let alone relations between bodies. In other words, it is not the body which is problematic, but the metaphor. Further, the omission of the body is consistent with the gendered structuring of what Luce Irigaray has termed ‘the empire of phallocratism’ (Irigaray 1985b: 136).1
