A Comparative Discussion of the Racialized Play of Symbolic Capital in Cultural and Political Economies of Indigenous Gambling in Australia and the United States

Abstract

This article aims to unsettle a pervasive cultural distinction between gambling – on one hand - and the competitive games of society – on the other - by exploring the role of whiteness as a form of symbolic capital in two different but closely related nations. Rather than following Pierre Bourdieu in relegating gambling to the constitutive outside of neo-liberal cultural and political economies, where sub-proletarian subjects are rendered simultaneously the object of an academic gaze and of public worrying about problem gambling, I will explore racialized dimensions of the many games of strength, skill and chance that constitute everyday culture in ex-settler-colonial nations. Comparative discussion highlights the role of gambling in mediating and transforming relationships of sovereignty between Indigenous and non-Indigenous citizens in Australia and the US.