Travelling our way or no way!: the collision of automobilities in Australian Northern Territory judicial narratives

Abstract

The regulation of driving and cars has taken on increasingly criminal guises. Apart from the role of insurance companies and motor vehicle registries, criminal law has stepped in to penalise drivers and car owners through more draconian measures. This article examines the problems that this presents for Indigenous drivers whose concepts of automobility are at odds with those of the nation state. It details the judicial narratives of this collision of automobilities in sentencing Indigenous drivers to argue that the Australian ‘settler state’ is continuing the practice of using mundane regulatory laws to dismantle and assimilate Indigenous communities.