ABSTRACT
Re-bordering, involving the violent imposition of colonial borders and the subjugation of pre-colonial ones, is a core technology of colonization. Formal processes of decolonization, rather than transforming the power relations expressed by colonially imposed borders, have ushered in a neo-colonial world order in which economic exploitation persists and new forms of racialized border violence have emerged. In this chapter, we critically examine the internal and external manifestations of the Australian colonial border, noting that the settler-colonial border enables ongoing colonial subjugation within while upholding a neo-colonial world order without. We consider what it means to decolonize the settler border, concluding that any decolonization of settler-colonial borders – whatever form that may take in specific contexts – will require a fundamental reconfiguration of relations between people and place.
