An introduction in 3 parts: Anthropological perspectives on the shooting of Kumanjayi Walker

This is an introduction in three parts. In the first part, I introduce this Special Issue, the briefs that led to its realisation, some of the key themes the contributors wrestle with, and the contributions themselves. The second part is more of a personal introduction; namely, an ethnographic narrative of my own experience of the first hours and days following the shooting. My aim here is to take the reader into the field at the beginning of the events that unfolded from a Yuendumu view (inherently different from the perspective presented by the media and the courts). In the third introductory perspective, I look at the nature of fear. In a series of short ethnographic vignettes, I explore how police and Warlpiri people's fears differed and overwrote each other. I contextualise Warlpiri fears by situating the shooting in an historical timeline with frontier massacres. The main thrust of my enquiry is to lay bare the opposition between Warlpiri people's views and those of the settler colony, and to analyse the power of the settler colony to legitimise its fears and make Warlpiri fears illegible. I conclude by pondering the continuing looming threat of settler-colonial violence in Warlpiri lives from the vantage point of the 'Red House', the place where the shooting occurred.