ABSTRACT
This chapter stems from the startling observation of the missing presence of Aboriginal peoples from discussions and scholarship on transnationalism. As the investigations and conceptualisations of transnational relations have expanded to include families, communities, social movements, religion, economics, policy, and gendered and racialised relations, a vast array of relationships has been re-examined through a transnational lens, thus bringing in a new level of complexity. Yet, Aboriginal peoples have remained outside of that framework, perceived as the earliest inhabitants of the lands, whose worlds were transformed by the advent of foreign migration. The more recent thinking on transnationalism has evolved from studies of migration, taking into account the reconsidered status of nationstates and historicising their multiple effects. It is the settler peoples and the peoples who migrated after the constitution of nation-states who are considered in their transnational experiences. Yet, the absence of Aboriginal peoples from transnational thinking raises many questions. Leaving out Aboriginal peoples from this discussion can obfuscate a number of relations that Indigenous people enter into which are of a transnational nature. This absence restricts our understanding of transnational realities, and the existing and needed mechanisms of social support that are called for to sustain transnational relations. In this chapter we explore some of the possible sets of relationships that concern Aboriginal peoples in relation to transnationalism.
