Abstracts for papers from AIATSIS Conf2004
Session 1: Indigenist Research
Negotiating governance research in the Desert Knowledge CRC: Reflections on a work in progress
Elizabeth Ganter
This paper will reflect on the practical management of a research program in desert governance in a collaborative research venture, the Desert Knowledge CRC. DK-CRC has the unique charter to ‘develop and disseminate an understanding of sustainable living in remote desert environments, delivering enduring regional economies and livelihoods based on Desert Knowledge, and creating the networks to market this knowledge in other desert lands’. DK-CRC has a Board with 50% Indigenous membership and multiple partners with diverse interests – universities, Indigenous organisations, state governments and private companies – making the task of negotiating research into desert governance particularly complex, yet potentially of great value to desert people. The paper will explore the practical issues of negotiating inter-disciplinary, inter-sectoral research collaborations in the area of governance, in which Indigenous people have profound, but not exclusive, knowledge and interests.Elizabeth Ganter / Desert Knowledge Cooperative Research Centre, Northern Territory, Darwin 0801 / email address
Indigenous research reform:
what is meant by Indigenous governance in the research sector?
Terry Dunbar
Although there has been nearly forty years of discussion in Australia about the need for reform of research involving Indigenous domains of interest, it has only been in the past decade that the discussion has become more focused around the problem of how Indigenous voices can be heard within the research process. The number of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander academics and researchers has increased substantially in recent years and this has provided the momentum for collective representation of Indigenous interests across the research spectrum. High on the current list of reform objectives is the project to clearly articulate what Indigenous peoples mean by appropriate research governance and what adjustments are required to existing institutional structures and research management processes to ensure that Indigenous interests frame future research activity. In this discussion I will refer to key research governance issues under two broad headings including: Processes - Indigenist methodologies, Indigenous framing of the research agenda; Indigenous priorities and centralising Indigenous knowledge throughout the research: Structures - Institutional and ethical arrangements for Indigenous management of research – board level, management level; Investigating the adequacy of existing ethical governance systems addressing the cultural and beneficence issues raised by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples in relation to the conduct of research; Institutional arrangements for ensuring Indigenous involvement in research priority setting. The extent of alignment between issues of significance to the development of appropriate governance arrangements in the broader Indigenous sector and in the Indigenous health research sector has not been the subject of detailed analysis in the Australian research literature. I propose, however, that recent research conducted by the Cooperative Research Centre for Aboriginal Health in Darwin provides evidence of significant linkage between developments in both these areas. I will argue that although there has been substantial reform in the ‘process’ domain, that significant structural barriers to reform of Indigenous research still remain. My critique will be based on a framework of governance outlined by Dodson and Smith (2003). According to Dodson and Smith, ‘good governance’ provides an important foundation for sustainable community development in the Indigenous sector. Key attributes of governance include:: legitimacy (the way structures of governance are created), power (the acknowledged legal and cultural capacity and authority to administrate), resources (the economic, cultural, social and natural resources and information technology required to establish and implement governance arrangements) and accountability (the extent to which those in power must justify and substantiate and make known actions and decisions) (Dodson and Smith, 2003, p.2).
Terry Dunbar / Research Fellow, Co-Director Learning Research Group, Faculty of Education, Health and Science, Charles Darwin University / Consultant OATSIH / email address
Indigenous Australian institutional research ethics
Wendy Jopson
The National Indigenous Postgraduate Association Aboriginal Corporation (NIPAAC) is conducting a research project that aims to examine the effectiveness and suitability of ethical assessment procedures relating to research about Indigenous-Australians in Australian universities. Postgraduate research students and Indigenous-Australian academics in universities across Australia will be surveyed about their views on current research ethics practices and potential ways forward. It is anticipated that the project will produce useful information about the perceived positive and negative aspects of ethical approval practices, as well as identify ways in which to make improvements. The research findings will be written in the form of a report containing recommendations to assist universities in their development of more effective and culturally appropriate research ethics practices. The report will be distributed to Indigenous Higher Education Centres/ Units and Indigenous-Australian Studies Schools/ Programs at all campuses around Australia, as well a being made available through the NIPAAC website. The research project is in pre-data collection phase. Wendy Jopson will present an overview of the project to date on behalf of the NIPAAC Research Project Team. The aim of the seminar is to not only provide information about the project but also to seek feedback about research ethics issues for Indigenous-Australian researchers at their universities, and to canvas opinions about future directions for NIPAAC’s research.
Wendy Jopson / member, NIPAAC Research Project Steering Committee / University of Technology, Sydney Faculty of Education / email address
Postgraduate research training – the case for a curriculum model
Margo Weir
In this paper it is argued that a ‘Curriculum Studies’ model is the most appropriate research training model for postgraduate students, particularly Indigenous ones. Conclusions are based on the author’s PhD thesis ‘Indigenous Australians and Universities: A Study of Postgraduate Students’ Experiences in Learning Research’. Issues raised include: critique of Supervisory and Panel Models; existing postgraduate Research Units; and Program Guidelines for a Curriculum Model together with reasons for content inclusion. Content elements included are cross-cultural research units; the concept of a cross-cultural researcher; ‘2 ways’ professional development; writing ‘2 ways’ for professional journals; and Indigenizing existing research methodologies. Qualifications include: Doctor of Philosophy, Education; Honours Research Masters Degree in Curriculum Studies; Bachelor of Education; Diploma of Physical Education.
Dr Margo Weir / education consultant / email address
Indigenous standpoint theory: Why? when? who for?
Dennis Foley
Indigenous Australian scholars who have achieved the academic award of a Doctorate number in the twenties, only twenty odd individual Indigenous Australian awardees. Why is the pinnacle of academic achievement such an elusive award for Indigenous Australians? Is it because of the oppressive historical record of poverty, lack of education opportunities or is it a combination of deprived social conditions and Eurocentric approaches to knowledge that stifle the Indigenous pursuit of knowledge in an epistemological framework that is counteractive to alternative viewpoints. ‘And of course these viewpoints are multi-faceted because not all blackfella’s are the same!’ Our epistemological approaches from the Indigenous position, of our individual heritage base, differs, yet the dominant white discourse that we are forced to operate within is a homogenous one. White discourse can stifle, smother and extirpate Indigenous approaches to knowledge. Indigenous Standpoint Theory offers an alternative for the Indigenous higher degree research student. As a methodological approach it can be applied across academic disciplines and more importantly it can be used as an epistemological approach by Indigenous scholars from the mired of culturally different societies that comprise Indigenous Australia.
Dennis Foley / Koori Centre, Old Teachers College, The University of Sydney 2006 / email address
Stories from the interface and of sharing cultural and theoretical spaces:
An Indigenist research experience of research reform
Karen Martin
In the last five decades or so, much has occurred to build towards reforms in the ways research is constructed and conducted that are based upon other ways of viewing, creating and experiencing the world. These research spaces are available for sharing because of the persistent work and assertion of the cultural and theoretical standpoints of researchers who were once the researched. In 2001, at the AIATSIS ‘Power of knowledge and resonance of tradition’ conference I outlined the framework of an Indigenist research paradigm based upon the ontological, epistemological and theoretical positions of my people, the Noonuccal of Quandamoopah. In this presentation I wish to now share how the development of the fledgling ideas have evolved and emerged as one contribution to the continuing reform of research and the reclamation of Indigenous cultural spaces in Australia. This discussion includes some of the conceptual, cultural and practical tensions experienced at the research interface and how these have been ‘resolved’ as one example of the ongoing commitment to research reform.
Karen Martin / Children ’s Ambassador, Newmarket 4051 / email address
Session 2: Making Space for Indigenous Cultural Expressions of Well-Being in Aboriginal Health Research and Practice
Practical re-colonisation: A new direction for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health
Steve Larkin and Leila Smith
Re-colonisation in the context of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health is an extension of ideas concerning evidence-based policymaking (Larkin and Henderson 2004) to encompass colonialism, re-colonialism and gender inequalities. John Borrows has developed a theory on the ways in which Indigenous Australian peoples can enjoy the benefits of colonialism by asserting their rights to claim these benefits as re-colonisers (Borrows, 2004). This paper explores Borrows’ proposal for re-colonisation as a pathway towards a new approach in health policymaking, and program delivery. Eveline (1994) argues that male and non-Indigenous privilege are both denied and protected as they are taught to view their lives as normative and morally neutral. By exposing the hidden assumptions and unfairness of male and non-Indigenous advantage as normative and immutable, we can reveal the established order as unacceptable, and make changes. Formal recognition of the major benefits of colonisation enjoyed by non-Indigenous Australians may lead to the de-marginalisation of Indigenous Australian peoples to share in the fruits of re-colonisation. We discuss in this paper Indigenous re-colonisation through a graduated reformulation of health policies and programs.
Borrows, J. 2004. Practical Reconciliation, practical re-colonisation? Land, Rights, Laws: Issues of Native Title 2(27).
Eveline, J. 1994. The Politics of advantage. Australian Feminist Studies 19 (Autumn).
Larkin, S. and G. Henderson. 2004. Evidence-based policymaking in Indigenous health in Australia, paper presented at the IUHPE 18th World Conference on Health Promotion and Health Education, 30 April 2004, Melbourne.
Steve Larkin and Leila Smith / AIATSIS / email address, Leila.Smith@aiatsis.gov.au
Health policy and Aboriginal practice: how to develop a common approach for the national and local levels
Daniela Heil
In this paper, I reflect on the cultural and theoretical space of Indigenous and non-Indigenous perspectives in health policy making. Deriving from my experiences as an anthropologist working in a local Aboriginal community in central New South Wales and, more recently, as a consultant for the national health department in Canberra, I elaborate the theoretical space linking national health policy and local Aboriginal practice. Linking the national and local levels with regard to Indigenous health is a reality that needs to be confronted, but how? And how can it be experienced as efficient, effective and successful from the perspective of local Aboriginal people? Drawing on my brief experiences as a health policy maker as well as a resident of a local Aboriginal community, I bring together both ethnographic experiences to the health policy arena and to the task of turning health policy theory into practice. In doing so I ask what this sharing of the cultural and theoretical space of Indigenous health is all about. Is it to improve Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people’s health? To enhance government policy and politicians’ ideas? Is it about a methodology that enables both objectives (and are there others?) at the same time? In this paper, I argue that good intentions, co-opting local Indigenous people into national health policy making processes, and exposing health policy makers to local contexts and situations is not sufficient for the effective addressing of Indigenous health. Rather, issues of ‘power’, ‘governance’ and ‘recognition’ dominate and disturb the desired outcomes.
Daniela Heil / University of Sydney / email address
Theoretical space – mapping culture
Margaret Weir
This paper offers a perspective on finding and living ‘Sense of Place’ and ‘Sense of Purpose’ in a bi-cultural world. The author explains how she was raised according to her Clan law/lore and how she walks her life path while striving to remain true to that Law/Lore. The Malara-Bandjalang Peoples World view, Stages of Learning, Clan Culture map/Typology and daily living principles are explained. Practical examples of life strategies for dealing with cross-cultural issues such as racism, conflicting belief systems and cultural practices are discussed. Cultural knowledge is framed on Clan research undertaken on for the author’s Master’s Degree thesis titled: Aboriginal Pedagogy and Lists of Cultural Differences. Qualifications include: Doctor of Philosophy, Education; Honours Research Masters Degree in Curriculum Studies; Bachelor of Education; Diploma of Physical Education.
CAUTION: The Malara People, Bawden-Gordon Family line emphasises that this cultural description may not apply to other Aboriginal or Indigenous groups. Nevertheless, we trust that this material will be used for the common good of all peoples. Information open only to the public viewing is contained herein.
Margaret Weir / Consultant / email address
Changing generations: a cultural and theoretical approach to graduate education in Indigenous health promotion
Shane Hearn and Marilyn Wise
Before colonisation Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander nations had sophisticated education systems to pass knowledge and skills across the generations, and to mentor and support young people as they took up the challenges of adulthood and ensuring the future of the community knowledge.
Colonisation saw much of this system destroyed. Not only did the invaders destroy an existing system – they denied Aboriginal peoples and Torres Strait Islanders access to education in the ‘new’ system and failed to recognise the long existence of a knowledge economy in Indigenous societies. Despite these experiences, Indigenous peoples and cultures continued to educate their people – persisting and succeeding against the odds. Furthermore, Aboriginal people and Torres Strait Islanders have participated in mainstream education – despite the system’s ignorance of Australia’s Indigenous history and experience, and despite its lack of significant support for Indigenous academics and students.
Only in the last decade has there been any significant commitment on the part of ‘mainstream’ educational institutions and policy makers to providing education that is responsive to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander-defined needs.
The Graduate Diploma in Indigenous Health Promotion is a response to this new way of thinking. The course has been based on a model of self-determination in every aspect. Above all, the course pedagogy has been based on theories of facilitation and learning that integrate authority, autonomy and holism [Heron, 1993].
The course has proven to be a platform for generational change in many different directions within one of society’s most powerful institutions – a university. But beyond that, the course affirms the strong relationship between education that arises from self-determined needs and communities’ capacity for progress.
Shane Hearn and Marilyn Wise / Australian Centre for Health Promotion, University of Sydney / Shane Hearn's email address, Marilyn Wise's email address
Creating safe space: using traditional medicine knowledge to support healing through law and spiritual practice
Tjanara Goreng Goreng
Tjanara will present an interactive and participatory session on the use of traditional medicine practice and knowledge to create a safe healing environment for the person who is suffering from any physical, emotional, mental or spiritual ill health. The use of traditional medicine practices allows the person being healed and the healer to work in a pure space which is created to support the energy of deep healing. Traditional medicine practice treats the spirit which then has a powerful effect on the emotional, mental and lastly physical recovery of the human being. Creating safe space involves sensitivity, intuition and the role of the healer in being willing to assist recovery. The methods used are diagnostic tools which enable the traditional healer to ascertain the depth of the illness and treat the negative energy which is created by ill health at all levels in order for the person to recover. Traditional medicine is powerful and holistic in its natures and application and can have profound, long-lasting and deep effects on the psyche so that a person experiences deep change in themselves and their health and well-being.
Tjanara has been taught and now practices medicine as passed onto her by her teachers, Ancestors and Elders. She has been training for over 25 years and now teaches and practices medicine to those willing to learn and receive. Traditional medicine is based in ancient and ceremonial practices, based in Aboriginal Law and Spirituality where knowledge is taught and passed on orally. The tradition includes several tools which are used in the healing process and may be unique to the healer, so that the person being healed always experiences positive change.
Tjanara Goreng Goreng, Traditional Medicine Healer, Wakka Wakka Community Development Practitioner, Director - Centre for Indigenous Education, University of Melbourne /
c/- Lenny de Vries / email address
Nyaa Tjana Wangkanyi: Interpreting for Pitjantjatjara Clients in the health sector
Bill Edwards
While opportunity to retain the use of their own language in day-to-day interaction has given some Indigenous peoples an advantage in maintaining their cultural identity and the feeling of well-being which goes with this, they sometimes find themselves at a disadvantage in communicating with health professionals and in health care environments. While writers including Eades and Pauwels have described language difficulties faced by Aboriginal people in the judicial system and Trudgen has identified problems relating to cross-cultural communication in the health sector, little attention has been given to problems faced by interpreters for Aboriginal patients. In this paper I will draw on forty-six years of contact with Pitjantjatjara people and twenty-four hospitals and other spheres of health care in Adelaide to identify and illustrate problems relating to: the environments in which the communication takes place, * linguistic factors, * cultural factors, * differences in understandings about the causes of ill-health, * the question: Who should interpret for Aboriginal patients?
The demand for interpreting for Aboriginal patients in hospitals in Adelaide has increased in recent years. Few interpreters are available and they are confined to two language groups only. This paper aims to draw Attention to the continuing vital role of interpreters in enabling Aboriginal clients to better understand what is happening in the health sector.
Bill Edwards / University of South Australia / email address
‘I believe more in maparn’: the contested site of Indigenous desert health
Brian McCoy
Maparn (traditionalist healers) and the ritual of ‘sorry business’ disclose for Indigenous desert communities important protective and resilient factors that support social and emotional wellbeing. Maparn protect people from serious illness; they use their healing powers to restore those who are sick to the company of family and relations. Sorry business responds to death and loss by encouraging the social outpouring and sharing of grief with the reception of personal support and comfort. The work of maparn and the performance of sorry business reveal a coherent, significant and active body of Indigenous health beliefs. These beliefs emphasise the centrality and importance of social and cosmic relationships for people’s health.
While desert people maintain their health beliefs against those represented by the provision of clinic (western biomedical) health care there are a number of ways in which the protection offered by maparn and the resilience provided by sorry business can become compromised. Non-Indigenous people are able to undermine, prevent or restrict the practice of maparn and the ritual of sorry business. Where the local health clinic places emphasis on the biomedical, and ignores the social and relational, significant elements affecting people’s health can become marginalised.
Drawing on research work in the western desert of the Kimberley the author will show that, despite the efforts of both Indigenous and non-Indigenous people to improve people’s health, the Indigenous desert (social and physical) body has become a contested site. The commitment that Indigenous people take to maintain and promote their health can seriously conflict with the interventions and interactions of non-Indigenous people and the dominance of clinic-based health care. In such a contestation the health outcomes of desert people can become seriously compromised and weakened.
Brian McCoy / Centre for the Study of Health and Society, University of Melbourne / email address
Taking control of our well-being: The Unity of First People of Australia approach to a chronic illness such as diabetes
Ernie Bridge
Aims: To prevent and limit the serious impacts of widespread ‘lifestyle’ diseases like obesity, cardiovascular disease and diabetes in remote Aboriginal Communities.
Methods: These disorders are related to unhealthy diets and low physical activity and are often detected late, so conventional methods of prevention and control have had limited success. This is complicated by cultural factors, inadequate awareness of health and nutrition, loss of traditional food usage, dependence on western foods and drinks, and reliance on community stores for food supplies that are often monotonous, nutritionally marginal and are expensive and unreliable. We use a program that involves remote communities in all of these issues and takes responsibility for its development and sustainability.
Summary of outcomes: The Aboriginal Community and its Council are closely involved in an 8-stage process that involves most aspects of community life. We have a community-wide health database, the program runs for approximately 6 months, is evaluated and transferred to full community control with continual support as required. Community control and endorsement are essential. The program has an integral exercise and sports component, together with better food supplies, nutrition, food purchasing and cooking lessons. Community members are becoming more active and there is evidence of lowered risk of ‘lifestyle’ diseases.
Conclusions: Aboriginal community involvement and responsibility are crucial for multi-faceted programs that will lessen the burden of chronic diseases in future.
Ernie Bridge, OAM CitWA JP / President of Unity of First People of Australia / email address
They Used to Call it Sandy Blight
Jilpia Nappaljari Jones and Gordon Briscoe
The National Trachoma and Eye Health Program (NTEHP) was set up in the early 1970s to survey and treat eye disease among rural and remote Australians. Based on his experience in far west NSW, Prof Fred Hollows, advised by the Aboriginal activist Gordon Briscoe, persuaded the Royal Australian College of Ophthalmologists to oversee the project and the Federal Government to fund it. Teams were to focus on the remote areas where Aborigines outnumbered non-Aborigines, but all races were welcomed. During its time in Queensland the team was expelled from the state by the government led by the then premier Bjelke-Petersen, ostensibly for political activity.
A film was made showing aspects of our remote field work. However the Commonwealth Department of Health viewed its contents as controversial and inaccurate and tried to censor the film prior to its screening. They were worried that the tourist industry to the outback may be adversely affected.
You can be the judge when you see the film.
Jilpia Nappaljari Jones (AIATSIS) and Gordon Briscoe (ANU)
Session 3: A Theoretical and Practical Framework for Dealing with Culture and Conflict
Indigenous fragmentation, minority rights scepticism and co-integrationist approaches to space sharing
Patrick Sullivan
This paper is about fragmentation in Indigenous politics. It also addresses a different kind of fragmentation - the segregation of Indigenous and non-Indigenous interests into separate domains. It suggests that conflict is aggravated by certain ways of thinking about social groups that arose during the colonial epoch and are no longer useful. And it attempts to find alternatives that recognise diversity while allowing for unity.
Indigenous relations in Australia today mirror ethnic and sectarian conflicts world wide. They fragment along the same fault lines of identity and authenticity, and they are compounded by the same types of legal and administrative processes leading to codification and entrenchment of difference. This is because they share the same conceptual basis, which is a fundamentally modernist European idea about the nature of social groups as being bounded, sharing lines of descent (or blood) and historically and mythically linked to a definable territory. These assumptions are increasingly questioned by historians, anthropologists and political theorists in the world at large, yet they are increasingly influential in Australia.
Indigenous fragmentation in Australia, and therefore intra-Indigenous conflict and difficulty in accommodating non-Indigenous interests, is compounded by minority rights approaches based on out-dated approaches to decolonisation that replicate these statist conceptions. This paper argues to the contrary that cohesion among Indigenous groups is a condition for the advancement of rights and that co-integration of Indigenous and non-Indigenous people in recognition of mutual dependency and obligation is a further condition. The paper attempts to uncover the forces behind fragmentation in Indigenous affairs and proposes ways that unity may be found without compromising local and cultural differences.
Patrick Sullivan / Visiting Research Fellow, AIATSIS / email address
‘Culture’, conflict and competing discourses of Indigenous rights, interests and needs in native title
Toni Bauman
The National Native Title Tribunal refers to its approach to its core mediation function under the Native Title Act as an ‘interest-based approach’ in a ‘rights-based context’. Yet, the terminology of ‘rights’ and ‘interests’ and ‘needs’ is located in a number of competing and conflicting discourses which makes it difficult to arrive at shared definitions in the native title regime. Firstly, the terms have developing legal meaning under Section 223 (1) of the Native Title Act which refers to ‘native title rights and interests’ as ‘the communal, group or individual rights and interests of Aboriginal people or Torres Strait Islanders in relation to land or waters’. Secondly, there are a number of approaches to the meaning of ‘rights’ as they are defined at international human rights law including that they may not be definable, that they are never identical for any one person and that they are in a constant state of flux. Thirdly, there are the meanings of the terms, ‘interests’ and ‘rights’ (and ‘needs’) as they are discussed within Alternative Dispute Resolution mechanisms where there is recognition of two main procedural approaches: positional and interest-based.
This paper looks at these competing discourses and their implications for Indigenous conflicts in the native title area where assumptions are often made about the essential differences of homogenous disputing Indigenous groups. There is also a view in mediation and conflict resolution techniques that the end of the mediation process marks a finality in decision-making. This does not allow for the fluidity and networking quality of Indigenous groupings and for the fact that decision-making is an ongoing process.
A challenge for the researcher and alternative dispute resolution (ADR) practitioners is to consider whether at least some Indigenous rights, interests and needs are contextual, not necessarily fixed in time and differentiated within a ‘group’ and not realised in the common ADR notion of distinct parties. We need ways of conceptualising parties to a dispute that do not circumscribe and essentialise their identities and therefore their rights, interests and needs. We also need dispute transformation methodologies which are more appropriately tailored to differentiation within and across disputing ‘groups’.
Drawing boundaries around ‘cultural groups’ may result in the opposite effect from that which is intended. That is, processes which realise the rights, interests and needs of one group run the risk of ignoring the rights of those who fall outside imagined group boundaries. Most models of the ‘inter-cultural’, both in anthropology and in the dispute resolution literature, continue to reflect the meeting of two hermetically constructed bounded Indigenous and non-Indigenous cultural groups. This paper suggests that the idea of a field of inter-subjective relationships might be a more useful paradigm for considering the range of rights, interests and needs at play in conflicts in the native title arena, whether involving only Indigenous people or Indigenous and non-Indigenous.
Toni Bauman / Visiting Research Fellow, AIATSIS / email address
Governing knowledge through legal technologies
Jane Anderson
My questions here are directed to the way in which law has brought Indigenous knowledge into its domain and consequently how it has sought to define and manage the boundaries of Indigenous knowledge. I am interested in how truths about Indigenous knowledge have been produced within a legal space and with what effects. In particular the paper will discuss certain tensions generated through the ongoing legal construction of Indigenous knowledge as 'traditional' and community owned.
I suggest that law functions as an important technology of liberal governmentality. For law has established certain pre-eminent boundaries in addressing the problem of Indigenous knowledge. These include the way in which concepts of Indigenous knowledge are positioned within the law and the extent that protecting a variety of Indigenous interests in controlling and disseminating knowledge systems is secured through an expectation of legal remedy. The challenge of how to stop the unauthorized use of Indigenous knowledge has been firmly constituted as a problem to be solved by and manage through the legal domain.
Dr Jane Anderson / Visiting Research Fellow, AIATSIS / email address
Session 4: Innovation and Sustainability in Indigenous Tourism
Breaking barriers to Indigenous entrepreneurship through Indigenous social capital and participatory action research
Judy Bennett and Wilfred Gordon
The authors of this paper worked together for two years, initiating, launching and developing Wilfred Gordon’s Guurrbi Tours. The principal focus of their collaborative research was to greater understand the barriers to enterprise in a remote Aboriginal community and, through action research, to develop workable strategies to overcome these barriers and mobilise the nascent Indigenous entrepreneur to entrepreneurship. Given the acknowledged role of social capital in entrepreneurship, the secondary purpose of the study was to develop an understanding of social capital from the Indigenous perspective, how it can be generated, and to define its role in the Indigenous entrepreneurship process.
In order to address the research questions at hand, participatory action research (PAR), the most entrepreneurial of research methodologies, was used. Given the history of research on, rather than with or by Aboriginal Australians, PAR was particularly appropriate as it is needs-driven, and enables participants to control all aspects of the research – the research questions, interpretation and its application. Focussing as it does on the empowerment of its participants, PAR also encourages entrepreneurial action. It combines the lived experience with the academic, and, through authentic collaboration, creates exciting new knowledge which combines Indigenous and western worldviews.
Using the PAR process, the research participants engaged in the critical recovery of history in order to relate this to present circumstances, gaining insights into the psychological barriers to enterprise, particularly the deeply-held belief that ‘Business and wealth is just for Whitefellas’. Both historical evidence and present-day experience demonstrate that Indigenous social capital is a prerequisite for Indigenous empowerment and entrepreneurship, and that social capital at the level of the individual (sense of community) is the source of spiritual energy which mobilises the nascent entrepreneur to entrepreneurship. It was found that sense of community can be developed in the individual with the help of a mentor, and is dependent neither upon family, previously held friendships, nor people from the same background or culture. A diagrammatic representation of the Indigenous entrepreneurship process was developed, showing the relationship between Indigenous social capital, empowerment and enterprise development. The model provides an effective benchmark against which future plans and policies wishing to foster enterprise in a discouraged population can be assessed, and, beyond the current context, shows how help can be delivered in such a way that it generates social capital and empowerment, rather than disempowerment and dependency.
Judy Bennett / School of Tourism and Hospitality, La Trobe University, Melbourne / j.bennett@latrobe.edu.au; Judy Bennett's email address / Wilfred Gordon / Nugal-warra Elder / owner/operator, Guurrbi Tours, Cape York
Moving from subject of the tourist gaze to manager? Taking an integrative approach to Indigenous cultural heritage management and Indigenous tourism in the contested landscape of Darwin
Patricia Bourke and Lorraine Williams
Indigenous tourism has a long history in the Northern Territory, starting with the very first public corroborrees performed in the 1920s. Today Indigenous cultural tourism is seen as an important part of economic development – a view shared by government, the private sector and Aboriginal leaders. Not shared are philosophical underpinnings of management structures and approaches to how Indigenous tourism programs are run and related issues of management of Indigenous cultural heritage. This paper discusses a small project looking at the integration of Indigenous cultural heritage management with the sustainable development of Indigenous tourism in Darwin - the traditional country of Larrakia people.
Dr Patricia Bourke / SAIKS, Charles Darwin University, Palmerston / <email address> Lorraine Williams / Larrakia research associate, Darwin
Land, family and business: Appropriate skills development for indigenous tourism
Nicholas Hall
Indigenous land owners and managers throughout the country are increasingly interested, and in some cases even eager to become more active and engaged in considering tourism options for use of their lands. Land and access to land is a key currency in tourism. Understanding the land base of Indigenous Australia and working appropriately with it, is crucial for the next stage of development of Indigenous tourism in Australia; as is building a permanent foundation that acknowledges Indigenous rights to speak for land. Understanding land-tourism fundamentals on Aboriginal lands will require different styles of tourism development planning and more culturally-sensitive, practical and appropriate capacity building.
Issues for the development of tourism initiatives on Aboriginal land and in Aboriginal communities are considered in light of current factors at play. These include developments in land-base and land tenure issues, the styles of Indigenous tourism product emerging, the application of varied business and planning models and new linkages occurring in the environment of tourism, land management and economic development. Attention is given both to overall trends as well as differences occurring in Indigenous tourism development in states and territories and regions. Other international experiences in Indigenous tourism development that have a particular bearing on the Australian context are also considered.
These perspectives are contributing to a current PhD research project supported by the Sustainable tourism CRC, Charles Darwin University and the Northern Territory Tourist Commission. They are also informed by the author’s involvement in Aboriginal land and heritage management, community-based training and Indigenous tourism.
Nicholas Hall / Sustainable Tourism Cooperative Research Centre PhD Industry Scholarship, Charles Darwin University / Culture and Heritage Research, Tourism Development, Northern Territory Tourist Commission, Darwin / email address
Aboriginal tourism in New South Wales: Sustainability and development
Roxanne Smith
No abstract available
Roxanne Smith / Aboriginal Business Development Manager, NSW Department of State and Regional Development /
The landscape of Aboriginal tourism
Lois Peeler
In 2002 over 130,000 international visitors came to Australia to experience Indigenous culture. These visitors contributed $426 million on indigenous tourism to the Australian economy. Over 410,000 visitors or 10% of all visitors to Australia said they experienced Aboriginal art and crafts and cultural displays. Around 200,000 tourists visited an Aboriginal site or community. These statistics indicate the growing interest in overseas visitors having an Aboriginal cultural experience which presents obvious opportunities for both indigenous and non-indigenous tourism operators.
I * Detail the opportunity that exists; * Discuss various programs via case studies which have now been established to assist with the development of indigenous tourism opportunities; *Financial Management Guide – this comprehensive guide assists people wanting to start up or grow existing tourism businesses; * Stepping Stones – a workshop style program to help aboriginal people assess tourism opportunities in their communities and plan next steps; * Respecting our Culture – an accreditation program for operators to help them understand how to meet and maintain industry standards; * Connecting with customers – an annual program providing operators with practical information in a workshop format; * Discuss the challenges and opportunities to be considered in building business sustainability in Indigenous communities that produce the much sought after cultural experiences.
In an Aboriginal context, sustainability is about working out ways of adapting or creating the resources, skills and values needed to continue to exist for the benefit of the community and for future generations. Aboriginal Tourism Australia (ATA) is the peak national organisation for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander tourism within Australia working with Aboriginal communities in tourism development to benefit the community and build cultural, environmental and economic sustainability whilst maintaining cultural values. ATA also works with non-indigenous operators and publishes numerous brochures which help visitors understand how to respect Indigenous communities. This paper identifies where ATA fits into the overall landscape for Indigenous tourism in Australia, and provides a framework for how all the different key stakeholders in Indigenous tourism can work together for the future of Indigenous tourism and the tourism industry as a whole.
Lois Peeler, Aboriginal Tourism Australia / email address / peeler@optusnet.com.au
Session 5: What is a Knowledge Centre? A Contemporary Approach to Indigenous Cultural Resource Management
The paradox of knowledge production at the knowledge centre: A brief history of the Galiwinku Indigenous Knowledge Centre
Jessica De Largy Healy
When the GIKC first became a physical space in 2002, its Yolngu directors described it as a ‘breathing space’ where the wandering youth could grow strong cultural roots. The idea for such a place was not new, it grew during the 1970s when the culture was seen to be ‘running away’. The opportunities presented by the recent developments of technologies of information and communication for repatriating, storing, archiving and accessing cultural information at the local level were recognised by government departments in the NT and elsewhere. Significant funds were committed to the ‘networking’ of remote communities through these technologies.
GIKC was first conceived as an archiving facility with the central feature being a customised database that would reflect Yolngu ways of organising knowledge. However, issues of classification, access and ownership of information soon became the main points of contention nearly drawing the entire project to a standstill. The failure of Yolngu to engage with the initial database, and its ways of structuring cultural information, forced GIKC staff to devise alternative processes. For the model to work for Yolngu, it required strategies built on Rom or foundational law thus providing new pathways for the expression of thought and practice.
This paper will begin by describing the initial phases of the Knowledge Centre and the contests that existed. It will then move to a discussion of how the Knowledge Centre model, as creatively adopted by the Yolngu at Galiwinku, has been the catalyst for innovative strategies for cultural resource management.
Jessica De Largy Healy / University of Melbourne and Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales, Paris /
Owning a knowledge centre project: Building the Gupapuyngu legacy
Joe Neparrnga Gumbula and Matthew Baltha Gaykamangu
The Gupapuyngu Legacy originated as a family biography project based on the lives of the three great Gupapuyngu leaders, Djawa, Lipundja and Mongunu. It represented an innovative direction for the Galiwinku Indigenous Knowledge Centre by centrally engaging a clan based approach to a project that had until then lacked real community ownership. This position opens a pathway for other mala groups to invest the Knowledge Centre with their own ideas. With an office fitted with computers and communication technology, the Knowledge Centre became the Gupapuyngu Legacy Project’s key hub and institutionalised face. Paradoxically, through the ongoing development and success of the Project, the Knowledge Centre attained legitimacy within the community, whilst simultaneously providing legitimacy to the Gupayungu Legacy Project in the eyes of external funding agencies and institutions.
In 2003, Joe Neparrnga Gumbula, GIKC’s Liaison Officer spent three months at the University of Melbourne as the inaugural Liya-Ngarra-Mirri Fellow. During this period Joe researched Museum and archive collections to identify Gupapuyngu cultural material. Through this experience Joe developed new ways of thinking about how to utilise the Knowledge Centre as a locus to develop partnerships between external collecting institutions and the local community. Importantly, this new direction enabled the circumvention of database difficulties that had brought the GIKC to a standstill. The GIKC assumed a reinvigorated role that carried community support. The Gupapuyngu ownership over the Legacy Project laid the foundation for ownership of the Knowledge Centre by the community as a whole. This paper will discuss this transition period for the Knowledge Centre with attention to the success of the Gupapuyngu Legacy Project.
Joe Neparrnga Gumbula / Liaison Officer, Galiwinku Knowledge Centre and Liya-Ngarra-Mirri Fellow, University of Melbourne, and Matthew Baltha Gaykamangu, Manager, Galiwinku Knowledge Centre
The natural development of Wangka Maya into the direction of a knowledge centre
Lorraine Injie and Fran Haintz
Wangka Maya was founded in 1988 in order to maintain and promote the languages of the Pilbara. Over the years it role has increased to Wangka Maya Pilbara Aboriginal Language Centre aims to be recognised as a leading Aboriginal language and resource centre in Australia. By working with the old people of the Pilbara, we will use our expertise, knowledge and sensitivity to record and foster Aboriginal languages, culture and history. Thus, ensuring that young people remain strong. As a result Wangka Maya is involved in not just Aboriginal language activities but also the recording of histories, the restitution of sacred objects and skeletal remains to the Pilbara, cultural awareness courses, Link Up and numerous other activities that revolve around the broader concept of culture.
One of Wangka Maya's projects over the last five years has been to get any copies of documentation about or from the Pilbara returned. The idea is that any of the people of the Pilbara, or anyone working for Wangka Maya on anything related to the Aboriginal culture of the Pilbara should be able to find the materials at Wangka Maya. These materials are archived and can be found using a computerised filing system. Having to serve the entire Pilbara with extremely limited resources is a challenge that Wangka Maya has been trying to come to terms with. Wangka Maya has been seeking a way to make these materials more accessible to the Pilbara community. The first step has been to list all documentation on any of the language groups of the Pilbara on Wangka Maya's website so that people will know what's there. The second aspect Wangka Maya has been researching is how to make the content material available over the internet and still keep the restrictions in place concerning who may access material. Wangka Maya has been looking to the Ara Iritija Project as a possible model for this aspect. Other aspects of Wangka Maya's role in becoming a knowledge centre are to act as a support centre to and copy deposit centre for other developing language centres in the Pilbara.
Lorraine Injie / Vice Chairperson, Wangka Maya Pilbara Aboriginal Language Centre, Pilbara TAFE Indigenous Languages Lecturer, and Fran Haintz, Manager, Wangka Maya Pilbara Aboriginal Language Centre
Session 6: Repatriation: Return of Indigenous Remains and objects of Cultural Significance
Repatriation of Indigenous ancestral human remains: No respect, no progress
Bob Weatherall
This paper examines the history of repatriation to date, the unwillingness of Australian governments to progress the adopted principles for repatriation, the unwillingness of governments to honour Aboriginal ownership of the repatriation of their ancestors. Also explores the issue of unprovenanced remains and possibility of a ‘One Stop Shop’ - Aboriginal controlled clearing house and the way forward.
Bob Weatherall / Bubbunj Pty Ltd /
Government and community partnerships in the repatriation process
Neil Carter and Tamsin Porter
This presentation will be a collaborative effort involving Tamsin Porter from the Office of Indigenous Policy Coordination (a Government agency) and Neil Carter from the Kimberley Aboriginal Law and Culture Centre (a Community organisation).
Tamsin Porter will speak about her insights regarding the processes of exchange and collaboration between Government and community that took place throughout the repatriation of ancestral remains from Sweden. She will discuss the importance of viewing the repatriation process as a ‘transitional project’ that is open and flexible in terms of expectations and outcomes.
Neil Carter will discuss the cultural significance of repatriation and what exactly this means for Community Elders. The importance of culturally appropriate methods of repatriation will be stressed, with a focus on the significance of ceremony and reburial, and how this contributes to the healing process of the country and the community.
Neil Carter / Kimberley Aboriginal Law and Culture Centre / Tamsin Porter / Office of Indigenous Policy Coordination /
The application of biological science in repatriation
Colin Pardoe
There are five tasks that may be carried out using biological sciences, either in the use of theory and method, or historical information. These are (1) To interpret historical information that might be relevant to the return of remains. (2) To individuate the remains, or re-assemble as individuals in case of mixing or unhappy curation. (3) To determine, if possible, the likely place of origin of skeletal remains to enable the return of these to the correct people. (4) To provide information that may assist particular traditional burial rituals based on age or sex of the person. (5) To provide further information that may personalize the remains and occasionally provide clues to how the person had been buried.
The results of work on two collections are presented. In one collection, 77 percent of crania (278 of 361) had no recorded place of origin. Using biometric methods, a likely place of origin was determined for 171 of these. In the second collection, 87 crania were recorded listed to location, but that location might have been a hospital, or simply the name of the town to which many different people may have been brought. These individuals were confirmed as having come from the local region, encompassing five different tribes in the immediate area, but were unlikely to have been from groups further afield. Historical investigation provided further information on place of origin. These practical investigations are the basis for discussion of how collections are to be prepared for return to Australia and how returns might be improved once in the country.
Colin Pardoe / consultant physical anthropologist / Adelaide
Travelling bones
Joey Chatfield
The title is based on the story line that we have experienced during our involvement of the repatriation of our Ancestral remains. A song was also written and performed by a famous Aboriginal musician artist Archie Roach in which he dedicated it on the day of the reburial ceremony held at Framlingham Aboriginal cemetery in Western Victoria.
The presentation will give viewers an insight and an appreciation into the hard of work that went into making this particular project so successful. It will give you the various stages that needed to take place so that all people concerned were adequately consulted and informed of any changes that were made. The important role of our Aboriginal Elders had played during the project in which they gave me advice and direction on issues that I needed help with.
After the presentation I will play a video which was produced during the reburial ceremony that will add to getting a better picture of that very important day activity.
Joey Chatfield / South West and Wimmera Cultural Heritage Program /
Current trends and future strategies to facilitate the repatriation of Aboriginal human remains
Franchesca Cubillo
Aboriginal people have campaigned for many decades to have their ancestors remains returned to them from museums and universities across Australia. Museums have responded to this pressure by developing policies to ensure the repatriation process takes place. The Cultural Ministers Council provides funding through the Department of Communication, Information Technology and the Arts to museums throughout Australia to facilitate the repatriation of Aboriginal human remains. Equally, the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission in its advocacy role were instrumental in ensuring a growing number of collections of human remains returned to Australia from overseas.
However, in spite of these mechanisms, the repatriation process continues to be complex, ad hoc and drawn out. This paper will identify why repatriation is problematic for Indigenous communities, government agencies and museums. It will highlight that through the process of repatriation, museums and government departments have solved some problems only to learn that new concerns and difficulties have emerged. In the same way, Indigenous communities are discovering that despite having access to these collections, they do not feel equipped or resourced to take receipt of large collections of their ancestors’ remains. Therefore this paper will endeavour to provide some potential new strategies that will ensure a more coordinated and effective repatriation process for all.
Franchesca Cubillo / National Aboriginal Cultural Institute - Tandanya /
Cautionary tales
Michael Pickering
Government departments, collecting institutions, and individuals are becoming involved in the increasingly topical repatriation process. However, many of these participants are not always aware of many of the complexities of the process. In particular the cultural contexts of many remains, sacred, and secular objects.
It is time to consolidate the experiences of the institutions and people active in the field of repatriation for the purpose of informing and improving future repatriation debate and activity. This paper describes some of the National Museum of Australia’s experiences.
Michael Pickering / National Museum of Australia / email address
Aboriginal ancestral remains. Does a common ground exist? - Academia vs Community, and how does this influence the public?
Mark Dugay-Grist
This paper will revisit the issues surrounding the study and repatriation of Indigenous ancestral remains over the past twenty years. An insight will be sort as to the issues surrounding the debate as to who owns the remains both legally and morally.
Mark Dugay-Grist / Manager of Statewide Heritage Programs, Department for Victorian Communities /
Developing protocols: Five years negotiating repatriation in the Pilbara and Kimberley, Western Australia
Kim Akerman and Bruce Thomas
Wangka Maya is an independent Aboriginal community-driven organisation in the Pilbara region. Restitution of ceremonial objects and skeletal remains has been an objective of Wangka Maya for many years. Chairperson of Wangka Maya Bruce Thomas and Wangka Maya's Consultant Cultural Anthropologist Kim Akerman have spent five years in the process of determining differing Aboriginal community aspirations and needs and protocols in the Pilbara, and ensuring that these are met in coordinating the return of materials from museums around Australia to the Pilbara. Sacred objects from museums from all over Australia were successfully repatriated in November of 2004. The return of skeletal remains is an ongoing situation.
Kim Akerman / Consultant Cultural Anthropologist, Hobart / Bruce Thomas / Wangka Maya
Session 7: Sharing Land and the Politics of Property
KEYNOTE ADDRESS: Great expectations: The Treaty settlement process in New Zealand
Chief Judge Joe Williams
No abstract available
Chief Judge Joe Williams / Maori Land Court /
Land rights: premises and promises
Colin Tatz
In an inaugural professorial lecture I argued that land in the race politics of South Africa, Australia, Canada and New Zealand was a focal point - because only by land ownership can people have a stake, or a sense of stake, in a community. That was in 1972. Land, I concluded with many colleagues, is a ‘spiritual thing’, a phenomenon from which culture and religion derive. It is neither buyable nor sellable; and land is not private property. In the indigenous perception, land was and is endowed with a magical quality, involving a relationship to the sun and the water and the earth and the animals all together - for the collective use of all.
Amid these flourishes of 32 years ago, my belief was that land would heal and repair. It would enable what the Germans call wiedergutmachung, a making good again, a reparation and restitution to help fill the great emptinesses in post-colonial life.
From 1966, or at least 1976, land grants became a reality in some of the remote regions of Australia. There have been enormous gains in land titles and acreage across the continent since then. But has land, as a ‘spiritual thing’, fulfilled the premises and promises, the great expectations? Is daily life, family life, the life of children, better now, with land, than in the years without?
As a long-time participant observer, my conclusion is no. On any number and category of indicators, the quality of Aboriginal life today is less, or lesser. Questions abound. Were the expectations based on faulty premises? Was the emphasis on spirituality, on spiritual attachment to land, misconceived? Is there hard evidence that land has healed, repaired and made people whole again? if not, does the fault lie with the nature of land granting mechanisms? Or has land granting, and its mechanisms, succeeded at one level only to be overwhelmed by newer social and political forces?
Colin Tatz / AIATSIS / email address
Sharing the process: native title and comprehensive settlements
Stuart Bradfield
The return of land to Indigenous peoples in Australia has not meant an obvious and widespread improvement in living conditions, even after four decades. It has not satisfied demands for increased autonomy, whether at local, regional or national levels. While there are many complex reasons why this may be so, this paper seeks to investigate just one. The suggestion is made that all processes of returning land have largely been devised by and for Whitefellas. As such, they were limited from the start in how much they could deliver Indigenous people, and beyond that, the extent to which they could transform (rather than manage) relationships of dependence. Despite the early hopes of many Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians, this has largely proven to be the case with native title as well. This paper investigates the constrained development of native title which has proved to be a poor mechanism for returning land, given that in the words of one High Court Judge, the ‘deck is stacked against native title holders’. Despite this, the recognition of native title has opened up new possibilities for sharing land via the negotiation of local and regional agreements, and potentially, broader comprehensive political settlements. The long term success of these settlements depends in part on the extent to which they reflect the aspirations of Indigenous as well as non-Indigenous peoples. Sustainable and integrated Indigenous cultural, economic and political development depends not just on returning land, but sharing the processes by which land is returned.
Stuart Bradfield / AIATSIS / email address
Land rights: A personal reflection since the Woodward Commission
Nicolas Peterson
Land rights are more about socio-political issues and relations than purely legal ones, especially in Australia where recognition of Indigenous rights to land has been so long in coming. While for Indigenous Australians recognition of their rights in land is above all else an act of natural restorative justice, this is clearly only one of the reasons for the recognising of such rights by the community at large. Recognition of rights in land is also expected to make a difference to Aboriginal people’s lives and to go some considerable way to resolving the social and political problems that come between them and the wider community. Among other things, land rights is expected to promote social harmony by removing, so far as possible, legitimate causes of complaint, to provide an economic base for people who are economically depressed, to sustain Indigenous cultural life and links with the land and to enhance Australia’s standing in the world community.
That the wider community has always expected land rights to make a practical difference in Aboriginal people’s lives and to go some way to taking ‘Aboriginal problems’ off the political agenda, was made absolutely explicit in the review of the Northern Territory statutory land rights regime in 1998. The whole thrust of the review report was that the Aboriginal Land Rights (Northern Territory) Act 1976 needed amending in order to ensure that land ownership contributed more to the economic well-being of Aboriginal people there.
In this paper I will outline some of the key assumptions underlying the approach of the Commission in respect of these broader social and political objectives, look at those aspects of the recommendations that have worked well, the areas where the Commission could have done things differently and better and where land rights issues might go in the future.
Nicolas Peterson / School of Archaeology and Anthropology, The Australian National University, Canberra 0200 / email address
Native title and property law: Instituting cultural memory and practices
Lee Godden
I examine the relative 'grounds' of property and native title within Australia as points for the generation and re-generation of cultural memory and images strained through the idiosyncrasies of legal discourse. In particular, these memory points of culture are examined in relation to how they manifest as physical, factual inscriptions of the land and waters. Despite law's pretension to abstract right and unknowable foundation, I argue that property in its inaugural moment conceals its ground in materiality and factual manifestation, so that it may be distanced from the embedded, factually dependent and culturally relative conception that is 'recognised' as native title. Such a 'grounding' for native title renders it accurately vulnerable to 'the tide of history' that brought property to Australia. The consequence of this 'history' for indigenous peoples is considered primarily in relation to the recent Yorta Yorta High Court decision.
Lee Godden / University of Melbourne
Between a rock and a hard place: Land rights or native title?
Darryl Pearce
No abstract available
Darryl Pearce / South West Aboriginal Land and Sea Council /
Pretending it didn’t hurt: Colonisation and the doctrine of continuity
Chief Judge Joe Williams
Settlements between Maori and the Crown over the last two decades or so have been premised, almost exclusively, on breaches of the principles of the Treaty of Waitangi. Many other indigenous groups have sought to exercise and enforce any extant customary rights they might have pursuant to the common law doctrine of aboriginal title, and in doing so are required to focus on the continuity of rights.
In this paper, I attempt to compare and contrast these two approaches to settlement. They are, to a great extent, mutually-exclusive concepts. For example, trying to prove breach on the one hand would usually weaken an applicant’s arguments in proving continuity of rights on the other.
The 2003 case of Ngati Apa and others v. Attorney-General, ([2003] 3 NZLR 643) subsequent government action and a Waitangi Tribunal report provides an interesting discussion point. The Foreshore and Seabed Bill 2004 is due to pass in December 2004, and I will briefly explain the content of that proposed piece of legislation.
The Ngati Apa case had the potential to reverse the trend of focussing solely on breach. I will attempt to theorise on what could have been, should the legislation not pass in its current form, and what the impact of the hitherto focus on breaches of the Treaty is likely to be on both any applications for aboriginal title, and upon applications under the new legislation.
Chief Judge Joe Williams / Maori Land Court /
Land reform: Southern African perspectives
Bertus de Villiers
Land reform remains a keystone on which the democratic transition and economic reforms of southern Africa will be tested. Expectations of the elite, middle class and the poor are that the ownership of land will be radically transformed over the next decade or two. The motivation that drives the respective classes may differ but they are united in their desire to effect land reform.
White dominance of ownership of, access to, and control of land have been the hallmarks of apartheid and had been a rallying point of the liberation movements for many decades. In South Africa where social engineering in land ownership and access has been the strongest, only 13% of land was accessible to 87% of the population until the 1990s. The remainder was at the disposal of the minority 12%. Similar patters of minority to control over land were found in other parts of southern Africa. Anything but a radical redistribution of land will be hard for the newly established democratic governments to explain. Zimbabwe has the longest track record - moving from orderly land reform to lawless occupation and confiscation of land. Namibia and South Africa are basing their hopes on market-driven land reform but that takes lots of money and time – two commodities that are very scarce in the two countries.
There is wide consensus in the body politic of southern Africa that drastic land reform is required. That however is where the consensus ends. Divergent views and deep cleavages exist as to questions regarding: (i) Objectives of land reform; (ii) Content and meaning of land reform; (iii) Mechanisms for land en tenure reform; and (iv) Benchmarks to evaluate land reform. During the past decade a lot of progress has been made in southern Africa in effecting land reform. The outcome is a mixed bag. In some instances communities have been successfully returned to their land and have established commercial ventures, in other instances communities have received cash compensation to make up for the loss suffered but without effective land reform occurring, and in other instances communities drifted into failure due to inadequate planning, training, resources and expertise.
This paper will attempt to address the core elements of each of the above questions by reference to developments in Zimbabwe, Namibia and South Africa. An analysis will be given of the progress that has been made in each of these areas, issues that remain to be addressed and a prognosis for the next five to ten years ahead.
Bertus de Villiers / Goldfields Land and Sea Council /
Session 8: Mapping the Shared Terrain: Indigenous and Non-Indigenous Concepts of Landscape
KEYNOTE ADDRESS: Becoming our own cartographic masters
Alvin Warren
As indigenous peoples, we have had no choice but to map. Faced with dominant cultures that continue to use Western cartography to dispossess and exclude us, we have rightly focused in recent decades on learning to wield their weapon of choice. This "external" use of "counter-mapping" by indigenous peoples has yielded crucial victories in title recognition and gaining management control of traditional territories. However, Western cartographic maps are embedded with restrictions and assumptions that are incompatible with many indigenous ways of knowing about, and relationships to, place. Though powerful when used externally against governments and corporations, these maps may also become another means of indigenous peoples negotiating against ourselves by having to force our relationships to our territories into the narrow frame of the map. Used internally, the risk can be even greater. In North America, as in other parts of the world, indigenous peoples are beginning to bring maps from the courtroom to the classroom. Justly aimed at reversing the rapid loss of traditional geographic knowledge among many indigenous youth, this use of Western cartographic maps -- particularly as rendered by Geographic Information Systems software - may threaten to undermine our recent victories. The very tool that can enable us to regain title and management, used improperly, may also estrange us from our ancient relationships to our lands.
Now, a new generation of indigenous mappers, academics and practitioners alike, are endeavoring to reform and redefine the use of mapping by indigenous peoples. My presentation will focus on some of these efforts. I will share stories from the first International Forum on Indigenous Mapping held in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada in March of this year, which involved two hundred participants from twenty-four countries around the world. I will also discuss lessons from the recently concluded Indigenous Communities Mapping Initiative that supported mapping projects by four indigenous communities in the United States and focused on encouraging "critical" indigenous mapping. Finally, as an indigenous mapper of fifteen years I will suggest strategies for improving understanding of different conceptualizations and representations of place and bringing what has been too much an academic discussion to the attention of a greater number of indigenous mapping practitioners.
Alvin Warren / Tewa / Santa Clara Pueblo, Espanola, Director, Tribal Lands Program, the Trust for Public Land, Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA /
Landscape categories in Yindjibarndi: ontology, environment, and language
David Mark and Andrew Turk
Ethnophysiography is a new term coined by the Mark and Turk (2003) to refer to an ethnoscience of landforms. Ethnophysiography seeks to document and compare terms used in various languages and cultures to refer to the natural landscape and its parts, and to understand the meanings of those terms. Ethnophysiography is an important part of efforts to construct ontologies of the geographic domain because the categories of landforms, water bodies, etc. are not clearly differentiated in nature the way terms for kinds of plants and animals typically are. Landscape terms and their meanings appear to subdivide reality differently in different cultures. David Mark and Andrew Turk have been investigating landscape terms used by the Yindjibarndi people from the Pilbara region in Western Australia over the last two years. They have also carried out fieldwork in 2004 with the Dine (Navajo) and Hopi peoples of the South West region of the USA. This paper will discuss the basis of Ethnophysiography research and some of the results of the fieldwork.
Andrew Turk / Murdoch University / email address / and David Mark / University at Buffalo
Cartography, property and the aesthetics of place: mapping native title in Australia
Alexander Reilly
The concept of native title has challenged the law to think outside its traditional categories of property for ways to accommodate a relationship to land otherwise foreign to it. At the same time, it uses many of its traditional sources of knowledge and technology to represent native title and to explain its position within existing forms of land tenure. The paper examines the use of cartography in the representation of native title rights. Cartography is used in the native title claims process to translate Indigenous relationships to place into a spatial form which is more easily contained within law’s jurisdiction. The paper argues that the potential for the legal recognition of native title is limited by the requirements of its spatial representation, and that there needs to be a reconsideration of property in terms of ontic and epistemic commitments to place that are not constrained by such representations.
Alexander Reilly / Macquarie University /
Working with multiplicity in knowledge of weather and land: narrating and performing diverse spatial and temporal ontologies in the tension of Bothness
David Turnbull
In every sphere of life, in Australia and elsewhere, the recognition of the need to work with multiplicity seems to have reached critical mass. International biodiversity databases have now to be augmented to allow for the addition of cultural diversity; US and Australia Bureaus of Meteorology are incorporating indigenous weather knowledge; the National Parks Service is acknowledging the necessity of adopting Aboriginal fire management techniques; Indigenous communities are adopting GIS in cultural mapping; Native Title claims require the merging of differing cartographies; Turk and Mark’s Ethno-physiography project exemplifies the proliferation of ethnoscience; the advent of Indigenous Archaeology reveals the need for partnership, Indigenous control and incommensurable epistemologies. The list goes on. At the same time, of course, there is a continuing reassertion of the universal rationality of western science. This papers considers some examples from biodiversity, meteorology, archaeology and native title claims to develop a framework in which diverse ontologies can be held in tension with one another so as to a dialogic fecundity can be allowed to develop without the subsumption of differing epistemologies into western scientific categories.
David Turnbull / Honorary Research Associate/Fellow: Arts Faculty, Deakin University; History and Philosophy of Science, University of Melbourne; Centre for Australian Indigenous Studies, Monash University; Sociology, Lancaster University / email address
Old people’s details: Yanyuwa geography and meaning
John Bradley
This paper will explore some of the issues of mapping a sense of Yanyuwa geography. The details of this paper are drawn from the Yanyuwa Atlas project which has involved the bringing together of 25 years of information in relation to country. The atlas project involved detailed and long term conversations with senior Yanyuwa men and women, who also represent the last speakers of that language. The questions that come out of this research are, what do Yanyuwa people see geography as being, what do the linguistic features of naming landscape forms tell about cultural perceptions of that landscape. The paper will concentrate on a detailed cross-sectional map that was constructed by Bradley in conjunction with the Yanyuwa land owners.
John Bradley / University of Queensland /
Following the Swan
Luise Hercus
The Yaluyandi/Wangkangurru myth of the Swan describes how the Swan, sometimes simply called Widla Pirna ‘the Old Woman’, leaves the Simpson Desert and travels along the channels of the Georgina to Goyders Lagoon. She ends up far to the south at Lake Gregory. Her sad story is known from a deeply moving song-cycle and is reflected not just in place names but in the vision of the landscape.
Luise Hercus / The Australian National University, Canberra /
Accountability across cultures: contesting concepts of accountability in land and environmental management programs
Samantha Muller
Social constructions of ‘accountability’ have served to bring communities in line with a range of agendas of what community development should be. Increasing reliance on external funding, with requirements for excessive documentation, has seen the term ‘accountability’ reduced to a financial issue, which in turn has led to concerns about the loss of autonomy in community organisations. My research critiques these uses of accountability and seeks to find a more balanced approach in which accountability contributes towards processes and outcomes that are more socially and environmentally just in land and environmental management programs. It considers the ways that accountability is constructed differently by different cultures, from North American Indians, Islamic organisations and Buddhist concepts. Understanding these different concepts contributes to understanding how accountability on national and international scales differ to and conflict with concepts of what it is to be accountable in Indigenous world views. My research develops an understanding of how to create processes that contest dominating accountability regimes, such that communities can assert their own ideas and practices of what it is to be accountable to their own people. My primary case study will be in Nhulunbuy in Arnhem Land, considering the Dhimurru Indigenous Protected Area (IPA) and the Lanhapuy Rangers in the establishment of their IPA. My other case studies are in Nepal and the Philippines, as communities in international situations are facing similar issues.
Samantha Muller / Macquarie University /
The Gamilaraay Resource Use Project: Documenting Indigenous natural resource use in northern New South Wales
Members of the Gamilaraay (Kamilaroi) community with Maria Cotter and Iain Davidson
Resource use and land management decisions in Australia have been overwhelmingly concentrated on non-Indigenous resources and values. It is clear that in some instances this has been disastrous ecologically (e.g. through salinity, erosion, water pollution) and, most importantly, has not given due weight to Indigenous ecological knowledge or the cultural, environmental, spiritual, social and economic value of resources that are native to Australia. Where Indigenous ecological knowledge has been sought (e.g. in arid and/or tropical northern Australia) it is in those areas where it is perceived ‘traditional Aboriginal life-ways’ are retained. In opposition to such stereotypes the Gamilaraay Resource Use Project is a three-year collaborative research project focussed on the documentation of modern and historical Aboriginal knowledge of resources, resource-use and resource management in the Namoi, Gwydir and Border River catchments of northern New South Wales. The project has been designed and coordinated by members of the Gamilaraay community of northern NSW in full partnership with academic researchers and the government instrumentality (Department of Infrastructure Planning and Natural Resources) responsible for land use decisions in Gamilaraay country. In this paper we detail some of the practical elements of this partnership, and comment on our attempts to deliver ethical outcomes for the Gamilaraay community with regard to their resource management aspirations.
We emphasise a research framework that has worked to recognise and maintain Gamilaraay ownership of the ecological knowledge obtained in the research process and that has worked to recognise and action measures that have developed and/or enhanced the capacity of the Gamilaraay community to participate in all levels of the research project. In this region of rural New South Wales such traditional life-ways are generally publicly perceived as being lost. Yet it is readily identifiable that Aboriginal traditional ecological knowledge of natural resources within Gamilaraay country is substantial and ongoing and of continuing social and cultural importance to the Gamilaraay community. It is also readily identifiable that this knowledge has been maintained despite an ever-increasing decline in access to such culturally important resources. We broadly discuss some of our research findings in the context of a changing bureaucratic landscape both in terms of resource management, and Indigenous representation in New South Wales.
Members of the Gamilaraay (Kamilaroi) community with Maria Cotter and Iain Davidson / Heritage Futures Research Centre, University of New England, Armidale 2351 / email address
Managing a shared landscape – Cultural Heritage Program, Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park
Mick Starkey, Shane Wright, Troy Mallie (Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park) and Jasmine Foxlee (University of Western Sydney)
Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park is a living cultural landscape jointly managed by Anangu, the traditional owners of the Park, and Parks Australia. Tjukurpa (Anangu Law) is the fundamental value guiding all management in the Park, and working together is an ethos which underpins the joint management approach. With an emphasis on protecting the cultural landscape values of the Park, a comprehensive Cultural Heritage Program has been developed that is primarily driven by Anangu. Information technology and collaborative research are two components of this Program which illustrate how complex aspects of this shared cultural landscape are being understood and managed.
The Cultural Heritage Program covers work such as: maintaining traditional management practices; protecting and recording people’s history; cultural site monitoring and maintenance; looking after records, photos, documents and objects; and training and supporting cultural heritage staff. One of the key tools developed for the Program is an innovative system that documents and manages information about places. Another system documents and manages information that relates to people’s history and stories.
Research is also used by the Cultural Heritage Program to understand how the cultural landscape of the Park is understood by minga (tourists). Working collaboratively with a university partner, research is currently being undertaken to understand the existing, and growing collection of ‘sorry rocks’. This significant collection of materials is the result of minga returning rocks and sand, previously taken from the Park. Often accompanied by letters of apology, the sorry rocks offer interesting insights on the nature of the visitor experience at Uluru-Kata Tjuta as a cultural landscape, and the interpretation they receive. Examining the significance of this phenomenon at both the local and international scale, the collaborative research process will identify appropriate options for managing the sorry rocks, and presenting a story about them from both non-Indigenous and Anangu perspectives.
Mick Starkey, Shane Wright, Troy Mallie / Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park / and Jasmine Foxlee / PhD Candidate, Tourism Research for Healthy Futures, School of Environment and Agriculture, University of Western Sydney / email address
Session 9: Towards a National Strategy for Intellectual Property and the Protection of Indigenous Knowledge
I: International Developments in Protecting Indigenous Knowledge
International policy for traditional knowledge: Setting the scene
Sam Johnston
No abstract available
Sam Johnston / Senior Research Fellow, United Nations University Institute of Advanced Studies
Genetic resources, benefit sharing and the protection of traditional knowledge: towards a set of principles
Henrietta Marrie
No abstract available
Henrietta Marrie / Program Officer, Northern Australia and Melanesia Christensen Fund
WIPO and the work of the Inter-governmental Committee on Intellectual Property and Genetic Resources, Traditional Knowledge and Folklore
Tony Taubman
No abstract available
Tony Taubman / World Intellectual Property Organisation
A treaty on traditional knowledge - what might it look like?
Peter Drahos
A treaty on TK should focus on the enforcement. Specifically this would involve members in the establishment of a Global Bio-Collecting Society that would coordinate enforcement work so as to constitute an international enforcement pyramid. The treaty should also establish a review mechanism and a set of indicators that could be used to evaluate that progress of states on the regulation of TK. A treaty that is modest in setting substantive standards, but strong on coordinating national enforcement activities will be far more likely to avoid the fate, which befalls many treaties, of becoming a dead letter.
Peter Drahos / Professor in Law and the Head of Program of the Regulatory Institutions Network, Australian National University, email address
II: Thinking through the law
Global communications and Intellectual Property activism - whose cultural agenda is being advanced?
Kathy Bowrey
IP activism advocates a new model of global property rights. There is a push to support and strengthen the public domain or cultural commons. This is an act of resistance to the expansionist reach of global corporations and the US government, that has been expressed through the new trade treaties and revised IP laws. While there are concessions to concerns for protection of indigenous knowledge and biopiracy, these are not seen as mainstream IP issues. In terms of global politics, IP activism relegates indigenous questions to a special case of postcolonial human rights, rectified by new international treaties sponsoring the development of sui generis models of protection. What are the politics that drives this characterisation of the problem of global information production? What are the pragmatic implications for indigenous rights and for Australian cultural production? And what does it say about the culture of property jurisprudence in the domains of IP?
Kathy Bowrey / Senior Lecturer, Law Faculty, University of New South Wales
Towards an Indigenous public domain?
Brad Sherman
I will provide a critical review of some recent proposals that have been mooted to protect and promote Indigenous intellectual property. I will begin by examining some of the recent proposals that draw upon the public domain as a starting point for reform. I will also critically evaluate some of the proposals for International-based solutions to the piracy of Indigenous knowledge. I argue that we need to reconceptualise the way we think about legal spaces in intellectual property law. I also offer some suggestions as to how intellectual property law can be adapted to improve the protection for Indigenous intellectual property.
Brad Sherman / Director, Australian Centre for Intellectual Property in Agriculture
The Pragmatic Politics of Protocols
Jane Anderson
The last three years has seen the development of intellectual property protocols for Indigenous knowledge protection. These protocols cover a matrix of interests and audiences and range from the specific to the more general. Protocols provide guidelines for behaviour. In this sense they seek to change people's understanding of an issue, and in this context they seek to encourage reflective behaviour when it comes to Indigenous knowledge use and misuse. This paper will argue for the pragmatic utility of protocols. As they are not dependent upon the adoption of a new legislation, it is possible for them to be driven by contextual needs and expectations of law. While they are not legally enforceable, protocols do provide one tool for the protection of Indigenous knowledge. The paper will discuss this current trend, considering what works, and what doesn't, and why protocols offer a practical possibility for protecting Indigenous knowledge.
Jane Anderson / Visiting Research Fellow, Intellectual Property, AIATSIS
III: National Contexts: Initiatives and Problematisations
TK and Frustration at the CBD
Geoff Burton
I will talk about my experience in pursuing progress on Article 8J of the convention on biological diversity and suggest some reasons why progress has been hampered and make some suggestions about the way forward.
Geoff Burton / Director, Genetic Resources Management Natural Resources Management Branch, Department of Environment and Heritage
Public domain: Catalyst for conservation or appropriation? Indigenous and traditional knowledge in biodiversity conservation
Margaret Raven
Indigenous and traditional knowledge, innovations and practices and biological and genetic resources have all been classified as public domain in traditional ‘western’ legal and economic systems. Public domain information is considered to have the characteristics of free and open access, not be restricted by intellectual property rights and to be a ‘public good’. This paper takes a glance at the ‘public domain’ as a means for understanding some of the broader issues and conflicts surrounding the use and sharing of indigenous and traditional knowledge, innovations and practices in the context of biodiversity conservation. It outlines the drivers of defending public domain information as ‘economic value of information’ and ‘access to information’ as essential for sustainable development and biodiversity conservation. The paper also highlights the underlying assumptions of the public domain as ‘free and open access’, ‘public good’, ‘global public domain’, ‘common heritage of mankind’ and a ‘bounded space. Through this I argue that assumptions and drivers of public domain work towards defining its’ role as a source for the provision of information for innovation and invention and for biodiversity conservation. I also argue that these assumptions enforce rigid boundaries which privilege public over private, and global over local. Public domain as it is currently conceived views knowledge as socially and culturally homogenous and excludes the possibility of different forms of knowledge management. This can be used as a justification for the misappropriation of indigenous and traditional knowledge. I conclude by arguing that, while the public domain can also act as a catalyst for the ‘protection’ of indigenous and traditional knowledge.
Margaret Raven /
Session 10: National and World Heritage Nominations and the Impact of Native Title and Agreement Making
Indigenous heritage places and the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act
Chrissy Grant
The new heritage amendments to the EPBC Act provides an opportunity for Indigenous people to nominate their significant heritage places for listing on the newly established National Heritage List where the place has outstanding heritage value to the nation and the Commonwealth Heritage List the place has significant heritage value.
One of the major concerns Indigenous people have about their heritage is to have effective protection and involvement in the management of the place. The provisions of the EPBC Act provide for more effective protection with very real penalties and management plans are a requirement for places listed. Recognition is given to Indigenous people as being the primary source of information on the value of their heritage. Their active participation in identification, assessment and management is integral to the effective protection of Indigenous heritage values.
The Indigenous Heritage Assessment Section has been proactively working with communities who have either nominated their place to the National Heritage List or where there is potential for national heritage values being present. This presentation will provide an insight into the range of places and values that could challenge the myths held by non-Indigenous Australians about the importance of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people’s heritage and cultures.
Chrissy Grant / Director Indigenous Assessment Section, Department of Environment and Heritage / email address
Separation anxiety: what we left behind in the Nature/Culture schism
Jane Harrington
Over time, nature and culture have become increasingly opposed, culminating in the intellectual division of human and natural sciences. One effect has been a reification of nature and culture as scientific concepts, and the emergence in biology (and later anthropology) of a tradition of objective knowledge that led to the apprehension that our knowledge of nature was independent of our relationships with it. While this conceptualisation has been subject to more recent argument, debate and revision, it continues to influence contemporary approaches to ‘heritage’, reinforcing a separation of knowledge and experience that challenges an understanding of how people engage with and attribute meaning and value to nature and the ‘natural’ environment. In particular this has been reinforced at the international level through natural and cultural heritage assessment processes that operate through the UNESCO World Heritage Convention. This paper considers how nature and culture have become so divided, and discusses the challenges that continue to influence contemporary constructions of heritage.
Jane Harrington / Project Manager, Jo McDonald Cultural Heritage Management / email address
Willandra Lakes Region World Heritage Area three traditional tribal groups (Mutthi Mutthi, Ngiyampaa, Paakinji) Elders’ plan of management: vision, aspirations and management
Dave Johnston, Archaeologist, Canberra and Mary Pappin, Mutthi Mutthi Elder
No abstract available
Dave Johnston / Archaeologist, Canberra, and Chairman Willandra Lakes World Heritage Area Three Traditional Tribal Groups Elders Council Aboriginal Corporation, NSW / email address and Mary Pappin / Mutthi Mutthi Elder and Board Member