Decolonising (and) legal pluralism

Legal pluralism and decolonisation are global academic discourses and activist practices that emerge and intersect differently in different locations. In this paper, I draw upon and amplify some of the critical points made in Bharat Malkani's article with specific reference to the intersection of legal pluralism and decolonising practices in what is now known as Australia. Any analysis of legal pluralism in Australia needs to be accompanied by the acknowledgement of the chronological, ontological and ethical priority of the (already-plural) First Laws that are embedded in land–people relationships. The much more recently arrived Euro-colonial state-based law is dislocated from its heritage and place of origin in the northern hemisphere. Decolonising in this context means centring First Nations laws and, for those of us who inhabit a colonial positionality, it means developing a reflectiveness about our colonial genealogy as well as a much stronger understanding of place and more-than-human beings.