Postcolonizing housing

This chapter addresses the postcolonial housing question from the perspective of places where the colonizers never left. Utilizing Moreton-Robinson’s concept of postcolonizing, it centres Indigenous ontological belonging as an omnipresent fact that unsettles the settler-state’s authority to manage modes of dwelling. In doing so, this chapter establishes a contingent framing for the postcolonial housing question, articulating one way of studying housing that better accounts for the place-specificity of dwelling and the modalities of violent dispossession that (post)colonial authorities continue to enhance. Drawing upon two case studies in so-called Australia, it demonstrates how housing and dwelling-related policies advance outcomes that sever Indigenous connection, expand systems of racial/social stratification and innovate programs of dispossession and displacement.