Reflections on genocide and settler-colonial violence

The debate about whether genocide took place on the Australian colonial frontier began more than thirty years ago and appears to have reached an intellectual impasse. How then did the debate begin in Australia, how did it gain traction and why does it appear more vigorous in Australia than in other settler societies? To explore these questions, this paper places the debate within a larger context, firstly by comparing the Australian debate with those taking place in other similar British settler societies and then considering the ways European historians have invoked genocide discourse to explore nationalist histories. In taking this approach the paper reveals the different ways genocide discourse has been used to make sense of traumatic pasts in different regions of the world and how it has become part of the discussions about national identity. Finally in an attempt to overcome the intellectual impasse about the genocide debate in Australia, the paper presents a few suggestions that may offer historians of the colonial frontier a way forward.