New ways for exploring who knows what in a native title case: a sociological approach.

This paper explores native title legal processes. It seeks to build on earlier scholarship that has investigated what goes on in the tribunal encounter; in particular, it examines what makes it so hard for Indigenous claimants to be heard in the courtroom. Making an intervention into this broad debate, we present a new sociology of knowledge model that can be used to read native title legal processes in a slightly different way -- one that brings knowledge and legitimacy to the fore. Drawing on Legitimation Code Theory and postcolonial theory (Homi Bhabha, in particular), we establish some of the structural relations that enable or disable the voices of Indigenous peoples being heard in native title cases. Our key case study is the Yorta Yorta native title case and the interpretation of a squatter's diary, a piece of knowledge that was central to the outcome of the claim. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]