Reclaiming the Northern Territory as a settler colonial space

The Australian federal government declared a state of emergency in Indigenous townships and town camps within about two weeks of the release of Ampe Akelyernemane Meke Mekarle, Little Children are Sacred. The state of emergency was constructed in federal government discourses as a humanitarian emergency and an immediate crisis. While the initial state of emergency was about Indigenous child abuse and neglect, the emerging federal government discourses linked the national emergency to the failure of Indigenous communities to maintain basic standards of law and order and behaviour. Women and children were unsafe