An urban cultural interface: (Re)thinking urban anti-capitalist politics and the city in relation to Indigenous struggles

A limited yet growing number of contributions in urban geography have sought to address cities in Indigenous/settler colonial contexts as both Indigenous place/space and as sites and processes tied to ongoing Indigenous dispossession. In Australia, there is an important and growing literature engaging cities as spaces of both historical and ongoing Indigenous presence and as Country. Yet, more work needs to be done to complicate and challenge existing urban theory, practice and struggles in relation to Indigenous ontologies, epistemologies and struggles. Thinking from the protests against the G20 in Meanjin/Brisbane in 2014, this thesis adds to engagements with the city as Indigenous place/space, particularly in the context of urban struggle and the more-than-human, engaging city as Country. It asks what the simultaneous presence of ongoing colonisation and Indigenous presence mean for non-Indigenous activists and movements in urban settings and how we understand who each of us are, where we are and how we might do politics and urban theorising differently in relation to Indigenous epistemologies, ontologies and struggles. I undertake this thinking and engaging from my position as a non-Indigenous person learning my place, relationships and responsibilities situated as both a social movement participant and researcher on stolen lands and Indigenous place/space/Country.