Fourth World Theory in the Australian Context of Two Worlds

Tui Crumpen

doi:10.54760/001c.160848

Introduction

The First World, Second World and Third World concepts are used to describe the economic conditions or status of different countries or nation states (Seton, 1999, Para 2). Derived from World-system theory, the First, Second and Third World are capital, industrial and political categorisations and descriptions of differentiated global economic growth. Simply, ‘World’ is “self-contained” and ‘system’ is “having some degree of internal coherence” (Barfield, 1997, p. 498). Since Immanuel Wallerstein first framed the term, there has been more expansion of World-system theory to include gender, culture, Indigenous people and other human activity (Barfield, 1997, pp. 498–499). The Fourth World is one such expansion. It is a political concept that describes the position, location and boundaries of Indigenous people and their nations. The Fourth World in many cases is the colonising experiences of Indigenous people and their nations. This includes their geographies, relationships and economies as they relate and interact with the systems of a modern dominant nation-state (Ryser et al., 2017, pp. 50–51). The Fourth World is a conflicting separation to a colonising nation-state (Seton, 1999; Para 3) and defining the position of Indigenous peoples in this context is challenging. There is also an invisibility of those belonging to the Fourth World. First Peoples are positioned outside of the colony, and from the outset are not only treated differently, but also labelled or named differently (Ryser et al., 2017, pp. 50–51). Therefore, the Fourth World also demonstrates that Indigenous people have a unique identifier or identifiers that delineates this as the other ‘World’.

I will define an Australian Fourth World that describes the position of the nation-state and its relationship with Australia’s Indigenous people. To do this I will position the Fourth World as one of two Worlds: an Indigenous world and the world of the Australian nation-state. I will provide a framework for understanding how these two Worlds interact in the Australian institutional environment of Indigenous affairs (Crumpen, 2021, pp. 56–57, 72–84, 2024, p. 564) steeped in the legacy of an empire. This is an important consideration, while the nation-state is the other World, it is still the creation of a colonising empire –an imperialist “dominating metropolitan centre ruling a distant territory” from which colonialism is “almost always a consequence” as is the “implanting of settlements” (Said, 1993, p. 8). The Fourth World will therefore be described using three concepts:

The first is the concept of peoplehood. The Fourth World is a peoplehood. Peoplehood is an expression of identity where Indigenous people can draw upon their commonalities to unite beyond the identity of the nations they belong to (Pearson, 2009, pp. 244–245). This speaks to a larger political picture which includes the activities and legacy of empire, on that continues to influence and legitimise the behaviours and existence of nation-states. From the political position of a peoplehood, the Fourth World can enter a “dialectical process” with the nation-state –to reach the Radical Centre, a process of rigorous debate where a compromise is reached establishes a neutral zone - -radical because the debate has moved through “some of the world’s most intractable conflicts” (Pearson, 2009, pp. 244–245, 260) – caused by the colonising processes of empire . From this point, the Radical Centre is where two Worlds have agreed to a way of moving forward.
The second is the concept of nationhood which describes an Indigenous nation with a unified identity, with a localised right to self-determination, self-government, secure land, and to “manage their own resources in their own ways, … to sustain their communities in the ways that make sense to them” (Begay et al., 2007, p. 45). While peoplehood and nationhood emerge as unifiers for Indigenous people, the Fourth World adds more distinction from the identity of the nation-state.
Indigenous sovereignty is the third concept from which to view the Fourth World. Indigenous rights, sovereignty and autonomy, separates the Fourth World from the nation-state. As both a peoplehood and as nationhood’s, the Fourth World vies for their rights and the recognition of sovereignty, this means that the Fourth World is in a constant space or interface of cultural struggle between one World: Indigenous people, and the second invading World: the nation-state belonging to that of empire. It positions both Worlds as two very different Worlds, as the erasure of Indigenous sovereignty is the erasure of the Fourth World (and its people), meaning only the World of the nation-state will remain – fulfilling the goal of empire.

Institutional theory and a positional Indigenous political lens will also be applied.

The Fourth World Concept

While the Fourth World concept has also been connected with Sociologist, Manuel Castell’s, work (Sherwood, 2016, p. 16), it was under the leadership of Shuswap Chief, George Manuel, at the United Nations Stockholm Environmental Conference in 1972, the Fourth World concept was first used by Indigenous people . North American First Nations in dialog with other Indigenous people, the Saami, Bretons and Basques peoples attending the conference, considered themselves united and/or allied by that which has come to shape Fourth World theory. Identifying that their similarities, such as a shared struggle for self-determination, were more aligned to each other than to those of Third World countries (Hipwell, 1997, p. 2). Hipwell (1997) defines individual Fourth World nations as having “common ancestry, language and territory, and often consider themselves to be under the occupation by the centralized political systems of modern states” (p. 2). That underlying nation-states are Indigenous nations, colonised by other peoples. There is also no limit to how many times a territory is colonised, as some Indigenous people have experienced more than one coloniser (Jorgensen, 2007, p. 19).

Indigenous people who are colonised have been disposed, disrupted, displaced and disorganised in their lands so that a claim to their territory can be made by the colonising nation (Crumpen, 2024, p. 565). In several examples, the unlawful invasion of the British Empires across what were deemed new lands have been challenged in Australia, specifically in the landmark High Court Mabo case which contested the idea and legitimacy of terra nullius (land belonging to no-one) and won (Mabo v Queensland (No 2),1992, Decision, Para 2, 46, 51, 63). In other parts of the world, Indigenous people have litigated against nation-states, such as those in North America, to resecure their nation status (Jorgensen, 2007, p. 19). As Eddie Synot (2022), Wemba Wemba lawyer and academic, points out:

First Nations are not recognised as nation states under international law… so, our rights, even under the United Nations Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples [UNDRIP], a non-binding agreement, are subservient to the nation states within which we have our legal existence.

Synot (2022) notes that this very same international legal system is also created by nation-states who are the invaders of Indigenous lands. These nation-states then draw on this international legal system for their authority over the same contested lands. This is also demonstrated in the development of UNDRIP and discussed later in this paper. Thus, the legal system(s) and its functions, either created by or influenced by nation-states, are implemented at a local, state, national and international level. Therefore, the Australian nation-state, as the ATSIC submission to (UNHRC) also shows, is an entity that encompasses a local, state, national and global identity, an identity that embodies the history of globalisation and devastation caused by an invading empire.

The Fourth World, Nationhood and Peoplehood

Beyond rights to land, Indigenous people have other specific rights that need to be recognised as belonging to their peoplehood and nationhood. These rights include the right to an economy. How this is determined can be as Stephen Cornell and Joseph Kalt describe, either the Standard Approach or the Nation Building Approach (Jorgensen, 2007, pp. 7–8, 18–19), in that Indigenous peoples can unite as a peoplehood and also be in the process of rebuilding their nations, but economic development is a core component. Uniquely, the Goulburn Murray Regional Prosperity Plan (GMRPP) for Yorta Yorta and other Australian Indigenous peoples living in the Goulburn Murray Region provides another example, in that Indigenous people have a right to access and be economically included in the regional and therefore the Australian economy (Kaiela Institute, 2021) While Seton argues that the Fourth World analysis is more than economics (Seton, 1999, Para 7), as shown by Cornell and Kalt, the Fourth World can and does exist either way with an economic status, regardless of the composition of their wealth or political frameworks (Jorgensen, 2007, pp. 7–8, 18–19). Therefore, both peoplehood and nationhood are worth exploring to think about some of the different ways in which Australian Indigenous people as one of two Worlds, the Fourth World, interacts with another World, that of the Australian nation-state.

Stephen Cornell’s (2015) definition of Indigenous nationhood mentions that the bonds of community around culture and kinship gives a “compelling sense of peoplehood” (p. 4). Cornell (2015) also shifts easily between both nationhood and peoplehood as very nearly being the same thing (p. 7). As Cornell (2015) substantiates, nationhood is used often in the United States context of nation rebuilding (or building) in more than any of the other CANZUS countries (Canada, Australia, New Zealand, United States) (p. 8). Further, Cornell (2015) refers to the, National Congress of American Indians (NCAI), in the United States of America, which represents all Indigenous nations and people at a national level, as “supratribal” (pp. 1, 6), an acknowledgement of a greater collective identity, thus also peoplehood.

For Aboriginal lawyer and academic Noel Pearson (2009), peoplehood is an identity that Indigenous people draw on through their commonalities to unite beyond the identity of the nations they belong to (pp. 244-245). Pearson (2009) in using John Lie’s definition, describes peoplehood as a “self-reflexive identity” that is “an ‘internal conviction’ about the bond that unites”, a “‘situation that is the result of a historical process’” that draws Australia’s Indigenous people together through a shared experience of being colonised (p. 245). Pearson (2009), states “Indigenous Australian political issues are ‘peoplehood issues’”, as peoplehood is an “‘inclusionary and involuntary’ identity”, forged by people who have been “forced to co-exist within the borders of sovereign states” that today are a “chief source” of some of the world’s longest and most problematic conflicts" (pp. 244-245). Expanding on Pearson’s thinking, peoplehood resonates with the role of national Indigenous representative bodies in both a historical and current context (Crumpen, 2021, pp. 177–180). What is noticeable through the 2010–2020 political decade of the National Congress of Australia’s First Peoples (National Congress), are the efforts of Australia’s Indigenous people to continue to unite as a collective through structures that emphasise a connection to a deeper relationship with each other beyond tribal affiliations that manifests with many Indigenous people (Crumpen, 2021, p. 154). For example, National Congress’s membership consisted of 180 organisations representing their members and almost 9,000 individuals (Crumpen, 2021, p. 154).

While not labelled as such, during the 1950s and 1960s, peoplehood in action seems to also be evident through the Indigenous civil rights movement in Australia. This was political activity where Indigenous people strove to generate a united front to achieve a political tipping point, one that may be deemed successful, such as the 1967 Australian referendum. This gave power and responsibility to the Commonwealth for Indigenous affairs and shifted the national consciousness around Australian Indigenous peoples and rights. Nationhood on the other hand, particularly evident in the days of ATSIC (1990-2005) (also see next section), emerges through distinct communities lobbying for their rights to self-govern (Arthur, 2001, pp. 12, 19, 21–22, 24). It also emerged in ATSIC’s campaign for a national treaty with the Commonwealth (McGlade, 2003, pp. v-viii) and the pursuit of treaty in Victoria through the First Peoples’ Assembly of Victoria. Nationhood is not necessarily a term used to describe these events but a term that can be used to describe the activity.

Cornell (2015) also points out that the idea of nationhood is to realise that it is a “formally institutionalized political reality” (p. 2). Cornell (2015) defines Indigenous nationhood as “peoples, groups, or communities” that:

not only have distinctive cultures and historical heritages but also constitute – or wish to constitute – distinct political entities that should rightfully exercise control over their lands, over how those lands are used and cared for, over their own internal affairs including how they govern those affairs, and over the definition of their interests and over how those interests are pursued – even as they continue to exist within encompassing states. (p. 3)

In the Australian context, while Indigenous nations may be organised as a political body with nationhood goals (Rigney et al., 2015, p. 335), a formal institutionalised reality to govern a nation may still not be in place. Therefore, peoplehood and nationhood provide two important components to shaping Fourth World theory in Australia. The first is the position of sharing the same colonising processes and institutional subjugation from a single empire. The second, the position of being nations before the existence of an empire or nation-state.

The Fourth World as one of two Worlds

Institutions, organisation, large bureaucratic administration and systems are a feature of modern societies and of the nation-state (Bendix, 1966, pp. 417–418, 423). These features are programmed for social order reflective of a capitalist global society, they are also reflective of empire. The nation-state is “at center stage” of world politics, in which states, provinces, groups, organisations, and people are all actors (Meyer, 2008, pp. 789, 792; Scott & Meyer, 1994, p. 13). According to Scott and Meyer (1994), “all aspects of social, individual, and natural environment functioning come under the states’ world-assigned responsibilities” (p. 51) recognising that:

The contemporary state is a long way from an integrated bureaucratic state of a former period … The contemporary state must have policies and organizations dealing with multiple aspects of social development … of individual rights … and of the natural environment and its requirements and resources … States have expanded extraordinarily, but the contemporary nation-state, immersed in a highly fragmented legitimating environment, is itself a fragmented (but of course, rationalized) enterprise. (p. 51)

Scott and Meyer (1994) propose that nation-states are a wider setting that “contains prescriptions regarding the types of organizational actors that are socially possible and how they conceivably can be structured” (p. 15). In this expansion, the contemporary state has shaped the globalised world.

Indigenous peoples, the Fourth World, have become subjects of the nation-state (Stretton & Finnimore, 1993, p. 522). Burrows’ (2014) content analysis further argues there is also evidence “of a subaltern Aboriginal public”– an Aboriginal public alienated and marginalised, however still existing within the Australian public (pp. 221, 224-225). Hence, first and foremost the Australian nation-state is in a powerful position to nurture and maintain its own institutional frameworks, while dismantling those of its Indigenous people who are its subjects, and their culture (see examples Allam & Wahlquist, 2020; Van Extel & Borschmann, 2020). Aboriginal academic, Marcia Langton (2002), expounds this further, in that as subjects and/or subaltern citizens, Indigenous people still face both symbolic and other systematic exclusion from the identity of the nation-state:

Great claims have been made of the creation of the Commonwealth of Australia, and one of them that we celebrate is the nature of our present society as a peaceful democracy … Alfred Deakin judged that the strongest motive for Federation was “the desire that we should be one people, and remain one people without the admixture of other races”. The concept of race was a key constitutional issue in this country in 1900 when the drafters of the Australian constitution constructed the “race power”, which … excluded Aborigines from the ambit of this founding document. (p. 56)

While opinions vary, another constitutional issue at the time of Federation was voting in a federal government election (Cooper, 2018). Over this time and into the 1920’s, federal voting rights for Aboriginal people were heavily debated, constitutionally removed for Aboriginal people in Queensland and Western Australia and/or bureaucratically removed in other states (Goot, 2006, p. 519; Stretton & Finnimore, 1993, pp. 522, 529–530). For example, on one occasion the right to vote was argued for because Indigenous people were a dying race, and on another, their right to vote was based on whether Indigenous people looked full-blooded, half-caste or octoroon, rather than their parentage (Stretton & Finnimore, 1993, pp. 525, 530). Therefore, at this time the Fourth World is emerging as these distinctions and exclusions could be legitimately debated in founding the Australian nation-state.

However, it is the eradication of Indigenous populations that is becoming “culturally normalized”, through the “absorption into the body politic of the state”, (Gilio-Whitaker, 2015, p. 1), one that the British Empire while still formally in control, instited upon its colonies (Goot, 2006, p. 518). The empire insisted that Aboriginal people be treated as equals in political eligibility (Goot, 2006, p. 518), therefore become participatories in the nation-sates systems, an equal citizen in a new cultural system now occupying their territories. In practice, this largely occurred through segregation and aggressive assimilative state (and colonial) policies including the forcible removal of Indigenous children from their families. As the new nation-state established its boundaries through franchising its provincial colonies, Australia’s Indigenous people not only became subject to these colonising boundaries, but their existence continued to be consistently threatened. This management of Indigenous affairs further divides the Fourth World from the World of the nation-state.

As now demonstrated, the fragmentation, disruption, displacement and breakdown of Indigenous people and their culture by the nation-state, scrambles and disorganises an unbalanced interaction between these two Worlds. Pearson (2009) states that “only through synthesis can societies transcend conflicting tensions and take an historic leap forward” (p. 260). This synthesis is a profound compromise of competing, yet fundamentally important political principles, that reflect the beliefs and values of both Indigenous people and the Australian nation-state. The Radical Centre, as Pearson (2009) terms this, is found through “more than compelling analysis” (p. 260). To reach the Radical Centre, Pearson (2009) identifies three prerequisites:

1. The first, the political analysis must be right …

2. The second, that a group or an assembly of actors must play a pivotal role in the negotiation.

3. The third, that Indigenous rights are critical to reaching synthesis. (p. 260)

This suggests that to reach the Radical Centre requires radical compromise that shifts power from dominant institutions to empower Indigenous culturally based institutions. This further establishes a clear distinction that there are two distinct groups existing in two different contexts that must take part in the negotiation to reach the Radical Centre or an agreement

However, this does not assume there is “consensus amongst Indigenous Australians” or encourages “inappropriate notions of representation and unrealistic expectations of pan-Aboriginality” (Hollinsworth, 1996, p. 119). This demonstrates that identity is layered, that most people, including Indigenous people, are overlayed with differing identifiers, but for Indigenous people, these identifiers can also include unifiers identifying with peoplehood, nationhood and the Fourth World concurrently. These unifiers establish that while Indigenous people became subjects of the Australian nation-state, with all the diversity that nationhood can create. Indigenous people also have a shared identity that makes them a distinct population from the rest of the Australian population. This identity can also be shared in an international context with other Indigenous people across the globe.

Ultimately, the Fourth World recognises there are Indigenous people whose original boundaries precede the nation state and have not been erased through colonisation processes (Gilio-Whitaker, 2015, p. 1). Rather, Fourth World territories are determined by “ancestral ties to land and territory” (Hipwell, 1997, pp. 1–2) and follow “bioregional lines” (Ryser et al., 2017, pp. 50–51) as Sherwood (2016) explains: “From this perspective, it might be said that the Fourth World is a host world and is both excluded and included” (p. 16).

As Seaton (1999) explains, the Fourth World are Indigenous “and political movements in the same moment of space and time”, Indigenous people who are “temporally united through their histories and traditions passed on with their own languages” (Para 3). The Fourth World is “spatially united through their powerful links to their land and water territories” and their “struggles for self-determination are struggles to retain and/or regain cultural solidarity which unite them as a distinct people” (Para 3). Thus, while peoplehood and nationhood emerge as unifiers for Indigenous people, the Fourth World adds more distinction and distance from the identity of the nation-state. It supports and cements the idea of two Worlds existing with a cultural interface even though this interface may blur this distinction.

Defending Sovereignty

In further developing the usefulness of Fourth World theory and the concept of two Worlds. Synot (2022) writes: “[Australian] First Nations have never ceded sovereignty. The land was taken by force and has been retained by force”. Synot (2022) continues:

Although our [Australian] constitutional system of governance is underpinned by a rigid concept of sovereignty we have inherited from the British parliament, its meaning is in fact quite nebulous. This sovereignty is not actually defined in our constitution, but rather made out by the structure and role of the institutions within.

The representative trajectory is a symptom of Indigenous people interfacing with nation-state structures and institutions, and there are several examples of relationships, with numerous dimensions, that have developed (Crumpen, 2021, p. 322; Lock, 2008, pp. 40–41, 45). One test for Indigenous independence and establishing self-government took shape as the Aboriginal Provisional Government (APG). The APG was founded in 1990 entering a political climate in Australia where the Mabo v Queensland (No. 2) (Mabo v Queensland (No 2) (1992) No. 2 HCA 23 Decision, 1992) court case was being determined by the High Court of Australia. ATSIC had also been established and in 1991 the Council for Aboriginal Reconciliation was formed, a Federal Government legislative body formalising a national reconciliation approach (Reconciliation Australia, 2024).

The APG stance is that Indigenous decision-making should be independent of the nation-states control and influence. Michael Mansell (1994), in the role of National Secretary of the APG, stated that among other principles, the APG advocated for the establishment of an Aboriginal state. Communities could determine their own “political control” with the “coordination of some uniformity between Aboriginal communities”, such as coordinating trade, and like any other government, would “operate alongside all other governments in the world, including the Australian Government” (Mansell, 1994, p. 17). The APG advocated for four key changes,39F. The first, that Aboriginal people could self-determine their own rights as their own nations, each with its own form of government. The third, designing a vision for Aboriginal people in Australia. And fourth, that “by virtue of its name”, the APG would “set a new theme and plan for the long-term destiny of Aboriginal people” (Mansell, 1994, p. 16). The APG proposed that Aboriginal people would move out from underneath the label of being a minority group (Mansell, 1994, p. 16). This meant that Aboriginal people would sit outside of the political–institutional frameworks of the dominant nation-state and in turn culturally match with dominant systems and institutions where it was determined it could work by an Aboriginal government. By organising a political voice and producing Aboriginal passports (Mansell, 2005, p. 91), the APG is both a reminder of the institutional power of the nation-state, but also of the imprint of the Fourth World that challenges the nation-states reality.

While Fourth World theory applies to the APG; , it also applies to ATSIC. The APG reframed the position of Aboriginal people as independent and citizens of their own nation, whilst ATSIC demonstrated that as citizens, Australia’s Indigenous people could utilise government structure, but in doing so could still take the position of advocating for their own forms of self-government (Crumpen, 2024, pp. 567–568) This pursuit for autonomy was tested in ATSIC by at least four Indigenous nations (Arthur, 2001, p. v) . The APG and ATSIC, which existed at the same time, also demonstrates that Indigenous people sit with different political positions. As a further example, Maddison (2008) also points out that Indigenous parliamentarians, who are members of their Indigenous nations, are also “Australian citizen[s] representing other Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal citizens in parliament” (p. 10). Further, Synot (2022) sees that an undeniable fact is that the legitimacy of the Australian nation-state does not rest upon a treaty with Indigenous nations. This demonstrates two things: 1) to address or resolve issues that impact on Indigenous rights, including sovereignty, the nation-state must have a role (Arthur, 2001, p. v; Synot, 2022); and 2) the issues of Indigenous rights, sovereignty and autonomy, separates the Fourth World from the nation-state and establishes that in this space sovereignty is contested by two Worlds.

Representing the Fourth World through the Supratribal

While the Fourth World contests the sovereignty of the nation-state, institutional hybridity may emerge to manage the cultural interface of two Worlds. Torres Strait Islander academic, Martin Nakata (2007), describes the cultural interface as:

“a multi-layered and multi-dimensional space of dynamic relations constituted by the intersections of time, place, distance, different systems of thought, competing and contesting discourses within and between different knowledge traditions, and different systems of social, economic and political organisation. It is a space of many shifting and complex intersections between different people with different histories, experiences, languages, agendas, aspirations and responses” (p. 323)

However, in this interface, compliance with the nation-state is still expected. ATSIC provides an example of institutional rigidness, flexibility and hybridity through its composition and processes aimed at managing the interface between the nation-state and Indigenous people. Further, it also demonstrates how Indigenous rights required additional recognition, institutional tools and platforms to navigate the cultural interface.

Alongside the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) (United Nations, 1948), the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) (United Nations, 2007) provided an additional and explicit outline of international rights relating specifically to Indigenous people.The UDHR was an instrument listing 30 articles outlining the “rights of all members of the human family”. It was “a road map” that could be used by the international community “to guarantee the rights of every individual everywhere” (United Nations, n.d.). However, as another critical instrument the UNDRIP 2007 which took 25 years to be adopted (United Nations) was further needed to protect Indigenous people’s rights. One of the sticking points before this UNDRIP’s adoption was that nation-states were concerned with Indigenous peoples, The right to self-determination “and the control over natural resources existing on Indigenous peoples’ traditional lands” (United Nations). The Australian Government was one of four countries that did not support the UNDRIP until two years after the Australian Labor Party took power in 2007 (Pugin, 2023, p. 627; Thorpe et al., 2016, p. 15). As globally constructed instruments, these declarations are a measure for modern society.

While the UNDRIP was in development, ATSIC was established in 1989 through the ATSIC Act and opened in 1990, its legislation replacing both the Australian Government Department of Aboriginal Affairs (DAA) and the Aboriginal Development Commission (ADC) (Pratt & Bennett, 2004, pp. 6–7). ATSIC was a national Indigenous representative structure that operated for 15 years, abolished in 2004 (Pratt & Bennett, 2004, p. 11). ATSIC aimed to ensure that decisions were made for Indigenous people by Indigenous people and it had an Indigenous representative component that, at one stage, included 800 Indigenous representatives nationally (Crumpen, 2024, pp. 563, 571; Smith, 1996, p. 25) ATSIC was a national operation that covered Australia. While a legislative instrument, ATSIC was established as a “body corporate” (Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission Act 1989 (Cth)), and elected Indigenous regional councillors who made up an Indigenous representative body, even though it was administered by public servants (Pratt & Bennett, 2004, p. 8). ATSIC’s purpose and functions are listed under Functions of Commission within the ATSIC Act 1989.

ATSIC could be described as a body that represented the Supratribal. It was woven into a political framework by its electoral process, which stabilised the representative process in that voting was confidential, representative positions were filled, paid, and, in a way, were roles like those of politicians (Dillon, 1996, p. 54; Rowse, 1996, pp. 49, 53, 54; Smith, 1996, pp. 25–26)). ATSIC, however, was birthed in political turbulence and continued to suffer through this turbulence during its operation (Crumpen, 2024, pp. 97, 99–102; Holland, 2024, p. 1) .When the ATSIC bill was introduced to parliament in 1988, a Select Committee was formed to look into both the dismissal of ADC Commissioners and the bill (Pratt & Bennett, 2004, p. 6). John Howard, Opposition leader at the time, also opposed the bill which was perceived to be a “Black Parliament” and/or gave a separate status to Australia’s Indigenous people. Howard, as Prime Minister, later initiating the abolition of ATSIC (Pratt & Bennett, 2004, pp. 6, 11). Towards its end, ATSIC was caught up in controversy that focused on ATSIC Chairperson, Geoff Clarke (ATSIC, 2003, p. 23), it had already seen internal structural challenges related to regional self-governance and self-determination (Arthur, 2001, pp. 1, 19, 21, 22) and had undergone a review by John Hannaford, Jackie Huggins and Bob Collins in 2002 (Pratt & Bennett, 2004, p. 10).

However, in 2000, before the UNDRIP was adopted and in the lead up towards the abolition of ATSIC, ATSIC submitted to the United Nations Human Rights Committee (UNHRC) a report called Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples and Australia’s Obligations under the United Nations International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (Marks et al., 2000). As an independent authority, ATSIC tabled this report which aligned with the Australian Government’s reports to the 69^th Meeting of the UNHRC (10-28 July 2000) (Marks et al., 2000, p. 3). The report outlined the Australian nation-states’ failure to uphold and protect Indigenous rights, stating among other breaches, that the nation-state was overriding its own Racial Discrimination Act, and therefore in breach of the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (ICERD) (Marks et al., 2000, p. 16). ATSIC also cited that its role was to advise government, administer several key programs, form partnerships with other agencies, “monitor the performance of government agencies in providing services to Indigenous citizens”, but it also advocated for Australia’s Indigenous people domestically and internationally (Marks et al., 2000, p. 3). ATSIC was “Australia’s principal democratically elected” Indigenous body (Marks et al., 2000, p. 3), advocating for Australia’s Fourth World.

ATSIC charged the Australian nation-state for attempting and erasing Indigenous rights, largely centred around the watering down of the Native Title Act 1993 (Cth) which came into effect in 1993 (Marks et al., 2000, p. 7). In Mabo v Queensland (No 2),1992), a High Court of Australia case, the outcome “established that the Indigenous peoples do in fact hold native title to their lands according to their own customs and practices” (Marks et al., 2000, p. 3). ATSIC stated:

In the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (ICERD) Articles 2.2 and 5(c) apply. Such a right of self-determination does not establish either a right of, nor an expectation about, secession, partition or other changes to the boundaries or sovereignty of existing states. What it does is to establish limits, under international law, against unreasonable intrusion by the State into the lives of Indigenous peoples and the expropriation of, or interference with, their lands and territories. Indigenous people have a legitimate expectation of autonomy. (Marks et al., 2000, p. 7)

The submission determined that the basis on which the Australian nation-state had been settled, a claim of terra nullius, was fiction (Marks et al., 2000, p. 3). While allegations made by ATSIC against the Australian nation-state for breaching ICERD demonstrates problems with holding the nation-state accountable, potentially one shared across the Fourth World, this is a clear example of the Fourth World challenging a nation-state outside of the nation-states claimed territory. The impact however, was felt, demonstrated by the Australian government reaction where it claimed that Australia should be resolving its own issues, and setting forth an Australian government motion to the United Nations for a review on the United Nation’s human rights treaty bodies (Marks, 2002, pp. 19–20).

ATSIC in its submission to the United Nations also recognised the power and influence of the global connections and networks between nation-states. That in this international space, the actions of the Australian nation-state were also potentially impacting on the rights of all Indigenous people globally (the Fourth World). ATSIC further stated:

It is therefore of the utmost concern to ATSIC that the Australian Government has abandoned self-determination as the basis of its domestic policy in respect of Indigenous peoples, and that it has also sought in international fora to persuade other countries to oppose the application of self-determination to Indigenous peoples. It is the contention of ATSIC that the negative view of self-determination taken by the Government encompasses and explains the winding back of, and failure to promote the realisation of, Indigenous rights" (Marks et al., 2000, p. 6)

The ATSIC submission also demonstrated in this global dialogue, that the overriding of the Racial Discrimination Act 1975 to make amendments made to the Native Title Act 1993 (Cth) forced the Australian nation-state under an international eye. It goes on in the submission to outline how the Australian nation-state is eroding Indigenous powers over Indigenous lands and shutting Indigenous people out of the dialogue, pitting them against powerful industries and companies that have the capacity and wealth to back themselves (Marks et al., 2000, p. 8).

In 2005, five years later, ATSIC was abolished by the nation-state. In the pursuit of self-determination, Indigenous people and communities are constantly subjected to finding a balance between innovation, compromise, and loss. Australia took one step forward when it reversed its decision and endorsed the UNDRIP in 2009, but there is still little progress in the absorption of this declaration into Australian domestic law (Parliament of Australia, 2023, pp. xix–xx; Thorpe et al., 2016, pp. 18–20). As Synot (2022) points out:

No matter how strong the belief in our sovereignty or how just our claims… technical points of law and principles of fairness count for little in the face of history. This is the context within which we must frame our response. Some see it as intractably difficult. I do not. Although we must work within the institutions of the Australian state, this does not mean those institutions must remain irredeemably colonial, nor does it mean we cannot change our nation.

However, as ATSIC demonstrated, even though these international instruments aim to balance the power within nation-states, the commonality shared between those who are the Fourth World, is that the Fourth World most often find themselves in a systemic tug-of-war that risks at requires the relinquishment of their rights.

Conclusion

The Fourth World, as one World, must now live and share territory with the nation-state just as the nation-state as one World must live and share territory with the Fourth World. While both exist together in the same moment of time, they clearly are still two very different Worlds. The Fourth World positions Indigenous people as one World subjected to interacting, with firstly empire, and then the empires conversion into a modern independent nation-state.

Fourth World theory demonstrates that the machinery of government in modern times, still creates institutional environments that are divisive and disruptive to Indigenous people’s cultural stability and progress. Such an environment also wields a crippling power produced by the nation-states bureaucracy, documentation, policies, and policy frameworks. As the Fourth World, Indigenous people are also subjected to the laws that give legitimacy to nation-states. Thus, Indigenous culture sits within a modern institutional setting that revolves continuously between disempowerment and limitations to empowerment. However, what the concept of the Fourth World does is it reshapes the position of Indigenous people as one World interacting with another. It also shows that the Fourth World position is not always one of complete powerlessness, hopelessness or assimilation. Being of the Fourth World can give restored perspective to those buried deep, conditioned and unaware of the institutional environment the nation-state creates for Indigenous people.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest is reported by the author.

Acknowledgements

I wish to acknowledge the traditional custodians on whose land my research was conducted, the Yorta Yorta Nation, and pay my respect to their Elders, past, present and emerging. I wish to acknowledge my Torres Strait Island people, Elders and ancestors. I would like to express my appreciation to Professor Lisa Bourke, Dr. Lucinda Aberdeen and Leon Morris for their invaluable feedback and guidance throughout this process, and whose input improved this manuscript significantly. Special thanks to my PhD supervisors Professor Shaun Ewen, Professor Marcia Langton and Professor Richard James, for sharing their wisdom and without whom my research would be uninspired.