Reciprocal Repossession: Property as Land in Urban Australia Naama Blatman-Thomas School of Geosciences, University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW Australia; naama.blatman-thomas@sydney.edu.au Abstract: Repossession of land by Indigenous people is commonly understood as a legal act that unfolds within the confines of state apparatuses. But for many Indige- nous urbanites, legal repossession is both impossible and irrelevant due to their histo- ries of dispossession and dislocation. Moreover, while land repossession in Australia is predominantly non-urban, I demonstrate that land is also reclaimed within cities. Urban repossession of land, considered here as reciprocal rather than legal, challenges the model of private ownership by asserting a territorially transferable relationship to property as land. The order of property entrenches Indigenous people’s dispossession by demanding immobility as precondition to ownership and rendering Indigenous urbanites all “too mobile”. Against this framing and the liquidation of their lands as capital, Indigenous people practice reciprocal forms of repossession that challenge both liberal and traditional meanings of ownership. This helps retrieve urban Indigenous subjectivities while compelling partial relinquishment of non-Indigenous properties. Keywords: Australia, private property, land repossession, settler-colonial cities, im/mobility, Indigeneity Introduction In early 2019 Townsville was hit with one of its worst natural disasters; over the course of 12 days, the city and its surroundings saw more than 2000 mm of rain, the highest rainfall in that area since records were first taken in 1888 (Bureau of Meteorology 2019). On 3 February 2019, during what became a dreadful night for many of the city’s residents, the Townsville City Council opened the Ross River Dam, which at that point had reached over 200% capacity, to release pressure and ensure its integrity. Located at the heart of the city, Ross River broke its bank, instantaneously flooding thousands of homes. The Townsville floods displaced tens of thousands of people, caused $600 million in damage (Crockford 2019) and left devastation throughout the city. Three residents lost their lives. Subse- quently, the Australian Government launched a Disaster Recovery Payment scheme—offering $1000 per adult and $600 for every child under the age of 16 —to provide immediate relief to flood survivors. Similarly, insurance companies around Queensland made special provisions to respond rapidly to repair damages and provide alternative accommodation for those whose homes became uninhab- itable. Yet in all the efforts to support flood survivors, those without permanent housing had been rendered invisible. A regional city, Townsville functions as a service centre for much of northern Queensland. This is particularly the case for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Antipode Vol. 0 No. 2019 ISSN 0066-4812, pp. 1–21 doi: 10.1111/anti.12570 ª 2019 The Author. Antipode ª 2019 Antipode Foundation Ltd. A Radical Journal of Geography