Real Recognition

Why should Indigenous Australians be constitutionally recognised, what form should recognition take – and how will it affect Australian society?

As a referendum on the issue becomes increasingly likely, those fundamental questions remain unresolved (and sometimes, hotly contested) – leaving Australia as one of the last liberal democracies still to settle its colonial beginnings.

In a new collection of essays, It’s Our Country, editors Marcia Langton and Megan Davis bring together diverse ideas from leading Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander thinkers and leaders including Dawn Casey, Noel Pearson, Patrick Dodson, Nyunggai Warren Mundine and Mick Mansell. Each offers a perspective on what constitutional reforms could – and should – achieve for Indigenous Australians.

Fifth Estate host Sally Warhaft will be joined by Langton and Davis for a conversation exploring the political and philosophical intricacies of recognition, and the real-world implications for the lives of Australia’s first peoples.