Mind the Gap: Micro-mobility, Counter-Networks and Everyday Resistance in the Northern Territory in 1951

This article begins with a single, seemingly isolated moment of activism by the
Indigenous residents of the Gap community in Alice Springs. We use this protest to
make two arguments. First, we highlight the significance of local mobility to
Indigenous people in the twentieth century; and second, we trace a hidden counter
network of Indigenous civil rights activism in the Northern Territory. We argue that
“micro-mobility” should receive greater attention from historians and show how the
1951 protest was one part of a broader counter network of Indigenous activism,
stretching across the vast distances of the Territory.