Can we move beyond ‘Indigenous good, non-Indigenous bad’ in thinking about people and the environment?

Abstract

Abstract Bucknell and Mannion (2007) commented that student responses in the 2006 VCE Outdoor and Environmental Studies (OES) exam could be boiled down to a pat answer of "Indigenous good, non-Indigenous bad" (p. 8). They suggest that the subject of OES is too rich for such a simple answer. This paper uses the expression of 'Indigenous good/non-Indigenous bad' as a springboard to explore some of the ways notions of the environment, race and ethnicity intersect and how this might lead to an exam question being answered in such a uniform and simplistic way by some students. The aim of this paper is to highlight some of the productive tensions of environment, race and ethnicity as a strategy for richer and more complex debates around peoples' interactions with the environment. Introduction The suggestion that the answer to a question about the historical relationships between people and the environment can be reduced to Indigenous good/ non-Indigenous bad raises some questions about what is occurring around the Victorian Outdoor and Environmental Studies (OES) curriculum to enable such a pat answer. There is a need for caution when using students' exam responses to make inferences about curriculum and the way it is taught. However, in this paper I use the OES curriculum as a context to examine some of the broader social processes at work that may be informing what Bucknell & Mannion (2007) perceive to be such a uniformly reductionist response of Indigenous good/non-Indigenous bad. Curriculum does not stand alone; rather it is "shaped by and reflects the content and organisation of society, including the distribution and relationships of power" (Reid, 2004, p. 59). As such, curriculum documents are a rich site to explore the content and organisation of society. I would suggest that the OES curriculum is not unique in producing a 'pat' response of Indigenous good/non-Indigenous bad, but rather, this response reflects broader social discourses. The intent of this paper is to explore the content and organisation of society through the OES curriculum, rather than a critique of this curriculum area as such. This paper starts with a brief description of the OES curriculum to provide a context through which to examine the ways in which race, ethnicity and environment intersect. This is further located in the outdoor and environmental education literature. Then I turn to a discussion on some of the ways in which race and environment are written about. I return to the curriculum documents and look how the terms Indigenous and Australians are portrayed in this curriculum area via the text book that supports it. The paper finishes with a discussion foregrounding whiteness as a strategy to engage with questions of race, ethnicity and environment. Before proceeding, it is important to point out that this paper is written from the perspective of a white educator who is grappling with how to meaningfully engage with questions concerned with relationships with the natural environment. These questions have come into focus more sharply since moving from New Zealand to Australia in 2005 as I try to make sense of new landscapes and new curricula. The 'we' I refer to in the paper's title and in the text is to non-Indigenous people given that, as I argue in the paper, stories around race usually serve the needs of non-Indigenous people. Outdoor and Environmental Studies The Victorian Certificate of Education (VCE) refers to the final two years of secondary schooling in Victoria. The rationale for Outdoor Environmental Studies (OES) is as follows: Outdoor and Environmental Studies is a study of the ways humans interact with and relate to natural environments. Natural environments are understood to include environments that have minimum influence from humans, but they may also include environments that have been subject to human intervention. Ultimately, the study is directed towards enabling students to make critically informed comment on questions of environmental sustainability and to understand the importance of environmental health, particularly in local contexts. …