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15 Int'l J. Semiotics L. 1 (2002)

handle is hein.journals/intjsemi15 and id is 1 raw text is: RICHARD MOHR* SHIFTING GROUND: CONTEXT AND CHANGE IN TWO AUSTRALIAN LEGAL SYSTEMS ABSTRACT. Indigenous land claims in Australia have brought Indigenous law into contact with the Australian common law, changing some of the terms of each of these systems of law. By tracing these contacts back to one of the first engagements, when the Yolngu people of northern Australia framed a petition to parliament in pictorial descriptions of their law, I explore the means by which changes have occurred. This is characterised as a process of mutual framings and re-framings. The delicate and contentious issue of meaning change in Yolngu law and in Australian common law's dealings with Indigenous law is examined in order to illuminate the ways in which meaning change may be understood in an epistemological and semiotic framework. The most recent common law decisions in land claims have begun to recognise a mutual relationship between common law and Indigenous law. This has occurred most notably at the edges of western law's epistemological practice, in its dealings with histor- ical and Indigenous sources. The success of Yolngu epistemological and legal engagement with the dominant Australian society and its law suggests a means of understanding some of the ways in which meaning may change in response to changing contexts. This relation- ship can be seen through Yolngu categories of inside and outside, or in terms of the cultural context of semiotic interpretation. Meanings may change within each frame, not through the simple incorporation or adoption of outside concepts, but through shifts in the broader context of meaning. INTRODUCTION In 1963 the Yolngu people of north east Arnhem Land in Australia's Northern Territory sent a petition to the Federal Parliament. This was no ordinary petition. There were two pages each in a Yolngu language, Gumatj, with an English translation, which were pasted to pieces of bark framing the petition.1 Each of these frames was painted with designs * Senior Lecturer in Law, University of Wollongong, Australia. An earlier version of this paper was given at the 15th Roundtable on Law and Semiotics at Amherst, Massachu- setts, 19-21 April 2001. I am indebted to participants for comment and discussion and particularly to John Brigham, whose theme of Frames and Framing stimulated my thoughts about change initiated by Barbara Nicholson. 1 They are now displayed in Parliament House, Canberra and may be seen at http:// www.foundingdocs.gov.au/explore/picturealbum/cth_pics.htm L International Journal for the Semiotics of Law Y Revue Internationale de Stmiotique Juridique 15: 1-24, 2002. © 2002 Kluwer Law International. Printed in the Netherlands.

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