Carceral spectres: Hyperincarceration and the haunting of Aboriginal life

Abstract

Drawing on recent participant observation-based data from the Northern Territory's Victoria River region, I propose that the coercive and custodial arms of the settler state are predominant features of, and constant and permanent forces of rupture in, remote Aboriginal life. I use the term ‘carceral spectres’ to describe the ways hyperincarceration and hyperpolicing shape, disturb and, in particular, ‘haunt’ Aboriginal life, people, places and things. This framework has implications for the ways we might think about the multi-faceted impacts of the radical incarceration rates of Indigenous people in Australia, and the experience of life in the context of ongoing colonial occupation and pervasive carcerality.