Becoming the S tate in N orthern A ustralia: Urbanisation, Intra‐ I ndigenous Relatedness, and the State Effect

In A ustralia's N orthern T erritory, the L arrakia have been involved in a decades‐long effort to gain recognition as traditional owners through L and R ights and N ative T itle legislation. From one perspective, their claims have failed to achieve the entitlement and recognition grounded in these governmental regimes (Scambary 2007; Povinelli 2002). However, over the past decade the L arrakia N ation A boriginal C orporation ( LNAC ) and the L arrakia D evelopment C orporation ( LDC ) have emerged as locally powerful corporate bodies that pursue programs and exercise forms of power on behalf of the L arrakia that can be understood in terms of state and governmental practice. Through suburban development, a night patrol, educational and vocational training, a radio station, and through forms of policy research and statistical enumeration, the L arrakia nation have emerged in the eyes of many as a de facto   A boriginal ‘state’ in the D arwin region. This paper explores the intra‐ I ndigenous relations through which these practices have emerged, and analyses the extent to which the LNAC might be understood as a kind of ‘state’ within a state, responsible for world‐shaping activities of knowledge production, housing and health outreach, vocational training and education, and policing. Focussing on the forms of ‘stateness’ that accrue to the L arrakia N ation in D arwin through its policing, knowledge production, and outreach programs for A boriginal campers, the article explores the differential articulation of A boriginal groups with the state. It concludes by asking how such differences matter in contexts of planned urbanisation in the N orthern T erritory.