Another day in the colony: F**k hope. Be sovereign.

I was fortunate enough to meet Professor Chelsea Watego, author of Another day in the colony, at a reconciliation symposium I attend in Cairns in March 2025 as part of my work on the Australian government's mental health in education initiative. Professor Watego gave an insightful and unapologetic presentation at the symposium and I eagerly lined up afterwards to buy her book and have it signed. The book is not an easy journey for a non-indigenous reader, but it's a powerful and highly personal account of racism in so-called Australia, as Watego refers to it, and a unique insight into what it means to continue to live in a settler colony as an indigenous woman.

Another day in the colony | Chelsea Watego | Published November 2021 | Read August 2025

Another day in the colony is written as a collection of essays where Professor Watego examines ongoing and habitual racism in Australia. The essays are reflections on her personal and professional experiences of racism as an indigenous woman. I was interested to read the book to educate myself as a white reader (and immigrant to this country) on unceded lands, but also for the examination of academia, a world I inhabited for much of my working life and in the same two Queensland higher education institutions as Professor Watego.

Lots of the reviews I have read by white readers point to the book's intended audience - not them. I interpreted Professor Watego's explanation in the early pages of her book a little differently. She says on page 6 that she has written the book "in anticipation of the potential conversations and debates that will emerge between blackfullas rather than the number of times the text is cited by whitefullas." She stresses later on that same page that more stories are needed from the indigenous perspective, not from white people writing about those perspectives. She says that black stories "are told by Black people to and for Black people exclusively" and they "don't require attending to a white audience" (page 6). I don't think she means that the book is not for white readers. I think her comments reflect her raw and honest approach that may not be understood by white readers, with the potential to make them uncomfortable. Yes, white readers will never fully understand her experiences, but that doesn't mean the book isn't something they should read. Watego is challenging what she perceives to be the discomfort white Australians experience when they "learn about us rather than from us" (page 9). These ideas are tied to the central messages of her book (see below) around persistence as a form of resistance and her unwavering belief that the book doesn't need white approval or a white lens to be be valid and valuable.

Professor Watego offers a new perspective in Another day in the colony (well, for me, anyway), reflected in her ultimate message: f**k hope, be sovereign. My understanding of what she means is the reframing of her thinking to focus on living not surviving, replacing resistance with insistence and persistence in an "always was, always will be" way. Watego discusses how 'closing the gap' isn't necessary, as this approach might have lofty aims, but it positions indigenous people as deficient rather than sovereign. She writes of a retiring of hope and an acceptance of nihilism. This sounds incredibly dark and pessimistic, but I think what she means is that hope rests on white patronage, is "a call to wait for a new day which never dawns" (page 197) and that "accepting the truth of the limitations of this place offers us far more promise than hope ever has" (page 206).

Professor Watego explains that her book is not about solutions but about stories as strategies for "coping and for combat in the colony" (page 7). I think I understand this position, but as a white reader committed to allyship, I did find this approach made me feel unbearably sad. Like other readers have commented, Another day in the colony is a confronting and uncomfortable read. Watego is understandably angry at the racism she has experienced and of the colonial settlerism that has shaped Australia since the arrival of Captain Cook. I didn't expect her to do the work of providing answers, but it made me sad to think that my good intentions may be harmful. I am not sure now how to "do the right thing". Perhaps that's the point, that the book isn't designed to help me figure that out, but is a polemical tome that serves to present a way forward for indigenous Australians, and that's all the matters.

I want to include a quote from pages xii-xiii that hit me right in the heart from the very beginning of this powerful and insightful book. Professor Watego says: "In lieu of resistance, I have talked about indigenous presence as one of insistence and persistence...when our sovereignty is framed as resistance, as agitation, as aggression, it is as though we are the antagonists. But we are not. And the violence we encounter for having held our ground is not of our making." This observation could be applied to so many marginalised, bullied and dehumanised individuals and groups when they employ any kind of resistance. It is a message that is worth remembering, I think, in the current sorry state of the world.

Enjoy is not a word I would apply to my reading experience of Another day in the colony despite my high rating. The book did make me feel uncomfortable, humbled, and sad. Moreover, if I have learnt anything from reading the book, it's that it's not for me to pass judgement on it. I also believe it is important for me, as a product of colonialism to educate myself on indigenous perspectives, to be indeed rendered uncomfortable and to sit with that discomfort. Another day in the colony is a necessary read even if I admit that I do not have the experiences to fully understand and appreciate it.

Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐