[[Alex_Parke_Honors_Thesis__16123615.pdf]]

Abstract

As Glen Coulthard notes in the widely read Red Skin, White Masks (2014, p. 8) further research on the intersections between settler colonialism and primitive accumulation in conversation with the critical thought and practice of Indigenous peoples is urgently needed. Reviewing the existing literature on primitive accumulation, this thesis identifies a ‘dispossession camp’ - a tendency characterised by arguments in favour of ==disaggregating dispossession and proletarianisation as constituent elements of primitive accumulation in settler colonies==. Using a case study analysis of the Northern Territory Intervention, this thesis will examine this claim, and in doing so assess the suitability of primitive accumulation as a framework for understanding contemporary settler colonial dispossession. This thesis contributes to existing literature on the Northern Territory Intervention and the scholarly frameworks of settler colonial studies and primitive accumulation. It undertakes original analysis, drawing together the above literature with recent scholarship on proletarianisation and the global labour market to provide new insights on primitive accumulation in contemporary settler colonies.