ABSTRACT
Chapter Two engages first in a liner narrative with the relevant literature on the conceptualisation of constitutionalism, starting from the 18th and 19th Westphalian state-centred conceptions to the 20th and 21st centuries’ fundamental shift in legal and social sciences, in the way constitutionalism is identified, understood, analysed, and conceptualised within the theoretical framework of constitutional pluralism. Likewise, with specific reference to the decentralised chthonic legal orders, the Chapter proceeds by expounding Mill’s concept of ‘rooted constitutionalism’—considered as a concept that epitomises the vast body of Indigenous legal theory literature on Indigenous constitutionalism—and then subsumes Australian First Nations constitutionalism into Mill’s theoretical elaboration.
