Hijacked Sovereignty: The Far-Right Attempts at Appropriation of Aboriginal Resistance

Abstract: This article critically examines the co-option of Aboriginal sovereignty by far-right and sovereign citizen movements in Australia, with a particular focus on the events surrounding the Muckadda Camp protest and the 2021 fire at Old Parliament House. Drawing on the work of Menzel (2022), Coe (2022), Kelly (2022), Day and Carlson (2021), and related scholarship, it explores the settler-colonial dynamics of conspirituality, the performance of false Indigeneity, and the undermining of Aboriginal self-determination. Through this lens, we analyse how white nationalist, anti-vax, and sovereign citizen ideologies converge with settler nativism to erode the legitimacy of Aboriginal resistance and threaten the safety and coherence of longstanding Indigenous justice movements such as the Aboriginal Tent Embassy.