ABSTRACT
The concept of civilisation can be deployed as an interpretative device in order to contribute to the way we can understand the impact of New World settlement upon the indigenous peoples of Australia.1 It is argued that there was a clash of civilisations – in a way that shares some affinities with Huntington’s understanding in terms of configurations of power and culture (Huntington, 1996: 41-44). In this particular context this clash can be reconstructed according to a politico-juridical notion of civilisation, which emphasises sovereignty, and one that emphasises forms of power in terms of collective representations. The outcome of this clash was the formation of a modernity specific to the Australian indigenous population. Civilisation was never an innocent, homogenous or uncontested term. It has always been an interpretative device that has divided the world into those who are ‘civilised’ and those who are not.
