We Are Here

We Are Here: Politics of Aboriginal Land Tenure edited by Edwin N. Wilmsen brings together leading anthropologists to examine how indigenous systems of landholding have been understood, misrecognized, and increasingly asserted within the legal and political frameworks of modern nation-states. Long dismissed as “foragers” without institutions of tenure, Aboriginal peoples across Africa, Australia, and North America have faced the unique burden of proving that their land relations are legally commensurate with those of agricultural and pastoral societies. This volume traces both the colonial origins of this dichotomy and the contemporary efforts—by communities, courts, and anthropologists—to dismantle it. From Pintupi property claims in Australia to Cree negotiations in Canada and San land struggles in southern Africa, the essays demonstrate that indigenous tenure systems are coherent, dynamic, and integral to arguments for restitution and sovereignty.

At once a comparative study and a political intervention, the collection highlights how concepts of tenure emerge not as static “rules” but as embedded practices in extended social processes of cooperation, competition, and ritual life. Contributors probe the challenges of translating these practices into European-derived legal categories while showing how anthropologists themselves have been called to testify, mediate, and interpret in contested land claims. A recurring theme is the constructed opposition between “forager” and “husbandman” that has shaped colonial law and persists in policy debates today. By questioning the very terms in which rights to land are defined, We Are Here offers both a critique of liberal-democratic institutions and a defense of the inherent integrity of diverse attempts to live with land. Essential reading for anthropologists, legal scholars, and policymakers, this volume reframes land rights as not only a matter of law but of social justice and cultural survival.

This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1989.