Thinking the Other: From Terra Australis Incognita to Terra Nullius
Issued Date
2024-01-01
Resource Type
ISSN
00822884
eISSN
20408706
Scopus ID
2-s2.0-85201555254
Journal Title
Terrae Incognitae
Rights Holder(s)
SCOPUS
Bibliographic Citation
Terrae Incognitae (2024)
Suggested Citation
Hardy J. Thinking the Other: From Terra Australis Incognita to Terra Nullius. Terrae Incognitae (2024). doi:10.1080/00822884.2024.2377914 Retrieved from: https://repository.li.mahidol.ac.th/handle/20.500.14594/100612
Title
Thinking the Other: From Terra Australis Incognita to Terra Nullius
Author(s)
Author's Affiliation
Corresponding Author(s)
Other Contributor(s)
Abstract
At the end of the 18th century, when Sir Joseph Banks, president of the Royal Society, recommended Botany Bay in Australia as an “advantageous” site to establish a new British penal colony, he did so with the knowledge that the east coast of the country was inhabited by Indigenous Australians, having traveled to the South Continent with Lieutenant James Cook. As a naturalist and imperial botanist on board the Endeavour, Banks’s primary duty had been to identify and classify Australian flora and fauna. Yet, the multiple observations that he made based on his interactions with Aboriginal people also contributed to establish his influence in scientific and political circles at the turn of the 19th century. Banks’s ethnographic accounts recorded in his Endeavour Journal shed light on his mind-set and convictions during his time in Australia as well as his impressions that later played their part in making him the greatest proponent of settlement in New South Wales and motivating the decision to colonize the country. In a time when exploration records significantly shaped the perceptions of the public about human nature and the beliefs and theories of the scientific community on questions of race and otherness, the writings of Joseph Banks offer a window into science and history in the making. As the scientific exploration of distant lands progressively gave way to political and economic interests, the transition from geographical othering to racial othering in the representation of Indigenous Australians turned Terra Australis Incognita into terra nullius.