Decolonising the dynamics of media power and media representation between 1830 and 1930: Australian Indigenous peoples with disability

Abstract

Indigenous Australians have experienced the horrific consequences of European invasion and colonisation. Some of these consequences include wars, geographic displacement and attempted genocide. Both the high prevalence and experience of disability among Indigenous peoples remain directly linked to the events that followed European invasion. Critical Disability Studies and Media Studies can investigate the process of decolonisation. This chapter is cross disciplinary in so far as we are concerned with the representation of Indigenous people in the mass media and decolonising Indigenous disability. We examine data collected from an analysis of the print media during the colonial period; that is, representation of “disabled” Indigenous people in mainstream newspapers during the first 100 years of the press from 1830. We use Martin Nakata’s Indigenous Standpoint Theory and Decolonising frameworks to deconstruct and analyse the material collected.