Centring the curated margins: Exclusionary inclusion as decolonial borderwork in First Nations art markets

Marketplaces are exclusionary structures that reify and exacerbate power hierarchies. In many contemporary marketplaces, one of the power hierarchies that structures marketplace exclusion is colonialism. Drawing on Borderwork as a decolonial perspective and data collected on the First Nations art markets in Australia, we explore market exclusion as a form of decolonial resistance, reclamation and reassertion. We show how First Nations artists and intermediaries draw on practices nominally associated with market exclusion to carve out inclusionary spaces within settler colonial market structures. In theorising exclusionary inclusion , we document First Nations artists and intermediaries as border makers and maintainers—and theorise how exclusionary tactics can serve as border-making and enforcing—all towards a goal of fomenting a safer and more inclusive marketplace. We thus put forward an exploration of how decolonisation lenses afford a novel relational view into the dynamic and complex nature of marketplace exclusion, power hierarchies, and inclusion.