Aboriginal Owners Research Articles

Planetary media: Decolonizing the space industry through Indigenous ownership

The colonial relationship between Indigenous people and people of European origin has been characterized by conflicts, economic exclusions, and epistemological discriminations as well as the mutual sharing of knowledge, practices, and technologies. In many cases, the industrial development of space technologies such as telescopes and rocket test sites has continued the exploitative nature of colonialism. This article, however, offers a different story and concept of Indigenous decolonization that is not antagonistic but complementary to the space industry and Western liberalism more generally. The case is Space Enterprises, a company and Earth station owned by the Center for Appropriate Technologies in Alice Springs, Northern Territories, Australia and conceived by its Aboriginal owners, workers, and board of directors as representing a beneficial integration of their Indigenous self-determination and the space industry. This essay offers synthetic decolonization as an example of this integration with Western liberalism. Understanding the flows between the Indigenous-owned Earth station and satellites, as well as the connections between Indigenous and Western liberal planetary imaginaries, requires a theory of mediation. Towards that goal, planetary media is offered as a way of conceptualizing the flows of information between local Indigenous and planetary spaces and imaginaries. This essay argues that another decolonization is possible, one based on mediation between Indigenous and Western liberal systems of thought.

A seat at the table? Planning, meetings and the ‘stable relation’ of a joint managed National Park in northern Australia

Over the last fifteen years, most national parks in Cape York Peninsula, far north-east Australia, have been transferred to Aboriginal ownership and are now jointly managed by the Queensland Parks and Wildlife Service and the relevant Aboriginal traditional owner groups. The park in which this research was conducted has been jointly managed for just over a decade, but the transition to joint management is entwined with challenges related to the bringing together of different knowledge and management systems. The main forum for discussing and implementing change is in the mutual space of formal joint management meetings. However, this mutual space is not co-produced on equal terms. Joint management meetings and the production of management plans function as a way for Queensland Parks to fulfil their obligations to Aboriginal traditional owners while simultaneously reaffirming their status as the more powerful co-managing institution. Rather than fostering a space of indeterminacy, in which management partners could co-create new forms of managing and caring for land, meetings and management plans function to construct a ‘stable relation’ between Aboriginal traditional owners and Queensland Parks.

The Fallacy of Year-Round Breeding in Polyphagous Tropical Fruit Flies (Diptera: Tephritidae): Evidence for a Seasonal Reproductive Arrestment in Bactrocera Species.

The genus Bactrocera (Diptera: Tephritidae) is endemic to the monsoonal rainforests of South-east Asia and the western Pacific where the larvae breed in ripe, fleshy fruits. While most Bactrocera remain rainforest restricted, species such as Bactrocera dorsalis, Bactrocera zonata and Bactrocera tryoni are internationally significant pests of horticulture, being both highly invasive and highly polyphagous. Almost universally in the literature it is assumed that Bactrocera breed continuously if temperature and hosts are not limiting. However, despite that, these flies show distinct seasonality. If discussed, seasonality is generally attributed to the fruiting of a particular breeding host (almost invariably mango or guava), but the question appears not to have been asked why flies do not breed at other times of the year despite other hosts being available. Focusing initially on B. tryoni, for which more literature is available, we demonstrate that the seasonality exhibited by that species is closely correlated with the seasons of its endemic rainforest environment as recognised by traditional Aboriginal owners. Evidence suggests the presence of a seasonal reproductive arrest which helps the fly survive the first two-thirds of the dry season, when ripe fruits are scarce, followed by a rapid increase in breeding at the end of the dry season as humidity and the availability of ripe fruit increases. This seasonal phenology continues to be expressed in human-modified landscapes and, while suppressed, it also partially expresses in long-term cultures. We subsequently demonstrate that B. dorsalis, across both its endemic and invasive ranges, shows a very similar seasonality although reversed in the northern hemisphere. While high variability in the timing of B. dorsalis population peaks is exhibited across sites, a four-month period when flies are rare in traps (Dec-Mar) is highly consistent, as is the fact that nearly all sites only have one, generally very sharp, population peak per year. While literature to support or deny a reproductive arrest in B. dorsalis is not available, available data is clear that continuous breeding does not occur in this species and that there are seasonal differences in reproductive investment. Throughout the paper we reinforce the point that our argument for a complex reproductive physiology in Bactrocera is based on inductive reasoning and requires specific, hypothesis-testing experiments to confirm or deny, but we do believe there is ample evidence to prioritise such research. If it is found that species in the genus undergo a true reproductive diapause then there are very significant implications for within-field management, market access, and biosecurity risk planning which are discussed. Arguably the most important of these is that insects in diapause have greater stress resistance and cold tolerance, which could explain how tropical Bactrocera species have managed to successfully invade cool temperate regions.

Unsettling Australia: Disturbing White Settler Homemaking in Peter Carey’s True History of the Kelly Gang

Proceeding from Australia’s specific situation as a settler colony, this article discusses how the ambivalences and fissures of settler subjectivity shape processes of homemaking. Settler homemaking depends on the disturbance of Indigenous Australians’ homelands via dispossession, exclusion, and genocide, but it equally depends upon the creation of a white settler subject as innocent, entitled, and belonging to what has been called ‘white indigeneity’. The article traces this double disturbance in Peter Carey’s novel True History of the Kelly Gang (2000). Carey’s rewriting of the iconic Kelly legend uncovers the dangers of a possessive, male, white indigeneity based on effacement and exclusion. The novel’s critical staging of Ned Kelly’s construction of Australia as a home for a new class of ‘natives’ challenges an essentialist white Australianness and its narratives of embattled settlement, independence, mateship, and the Bush. The novel shows that the creation of this national character is based on the denial of Aboriginal ownership and agency. Ned’s narrative of Irish victimhood and his formation of a new sense of Australianness is therefore doomed to repeat the violence, discrimination, and exclusion of colonialism that he seems to decry.

Dog and Cat Interactions in a Remote Aboriginal Community.

Simple SummaryAustralian remote Aboriginal communities commonly have large, free-roaming dog populations and relatively small cat populations. However, cats are becoming increasingly popular pets in these communities and it is essential to determine their potential impacts on wildlife to inform animal management practices. In a small island community, this study provided baseline population demographics and investigated dog and cat roaming behaviours and interspecific interactions. The dog population, estimated at 343 dogs, showed active periods at dawn and dusk. The cat population had doubled in 6 months to approximately 83 cats. Cats were observed roaming mainly from dawn until dusk, possibly avoiding periods when dogs were most active. The majority of cats were observed nonroaming. Three cats, however, were captured roaming during the night when all flightless wildlife were observed on our camera traps, suggesting potential impact on local wildlife through their hunting activities. These baseline data provide evidence on which to base management programs that include cats and their impacts on native wildlife. Further research using the multiple methods piloted in this study are warranted to monitor dog and cat populations and their interactions in this island community.This study examined dog and cat demographics, roaming behaviours, and interspecific interactions in a remote Aboriginal island community using multiple methods. Our results revealed temporal differences between the roaming behaviours of dogs, cats, and wildlife. Dogs showed crepuscular behaviour, being active around dawn (5:30 a.m. to 9:30 a.m.) and dusk (6:00 p.m. and 11:35 p.m.). The majority of cats were active between dawn (6:30 a.m.) and dusk (7:30 p.m.) and travelled shorter distances than dogs. However, some cats were also observed roaming between dusk and dawn, and were likely to be hunting since flightless wildlife were also recorded on our remote-sensing cameras during this time. These baseline data provide evidence to suggest that new management programs are needed to reduce the number of roaming cats and therefore their potential impacts on native wildlife. Collaborations between Aboriginal owners and other stakeholders is necessary to design innovative and effective animal management and policy on the island.

"We Will Show the Country": Bringing History to Life

"We Will Show the Country": Bringing History to Life

Intersections of History, Media, and Culture

Intersections of History, Media, and Culture

Traditional Urban Aboriginal Religion

This paper represents a group of Aboriginal people who claim traditional Aboriginal ownership of a large Australian metropolis. They have struggled for at least the last 25 to 30 years to articulate and represent their contemporary group identity to the wider Australian society that very often does not take their expressions seriously. This is largely because dominant discourses claim that ‘authentic’ Aboriginal culture only exists in remote, pristine areas far away from western society and that urban Aboriginal traditions, especially urban religious traditions are, today, defunct. This paper is an account of one occasion on which such traditional Aboriginal religious practice was performed before the eyes of a group of tourists.

The value of work and ‘common discourse’ in the joint management of Kakadu National Park

Joint management at Kakadu National Park has been marked by conflict and discontent among the major actors, its Traditional Aboriginal Owners and the White rangers (and other staff) of the state. Despite such conflict, and structured differences between these groups of actors, the park continues to function. In this article I argue that the structures and actions perpetuating difference and conflict are usually more or less balanced by opposing structures and actions that draw the two groups of actors together. I further argue that the most important of such cohering structures and actions, what I call ‘common discourse’, derives from the work that both Aboriginal and White rangers perform in the field. This form of under‐recognised discourse acts against the corrosive discourses of the separate groups that tend to perpetuate separateness.

Whither the Aborigine

Whither the Aborigine

An Aboriginal shield collected in 1770 at Kamay Botany Bay: an indicator of pre-colonial exchange systems in south-eastern Australia

A bark shield now in the British Museum can be identified from documentary and pictorial evidence as one collected by Captain Cook during his first voyage to Australia in 1770. Such shields often had special value to their Australian Aboriginal owners and hence might have been exchanged over considerable distances. This particular shield is known to have been collected in Kamay Botany Bay but analysis of the bark of which it is made revealed it to be of red mangrove, a tropical species found today more than 500km distant on the New South Wales north coast. It hence bears valuable testimony to the long-distance exchange networks operating in eastern Australia in the period before the disruption caused by European colonisation.

Clinical trials in a remote Aboriginal setting: lessons from the BOABS smoking cessation study.

BackgroundThere is limited evidence regarding the best approaches to helping Indigenous Australians to stop smoking. The composite analysis of the only two smoking cessation randomised controlled trials (RCTs) investigating this suggests that one-on-one extra support delivered by and provided to Indigenous Australians in a primary health care setting appears to be more effective than usual care in encouraging smoking cessation. This paper describes the lessons learnt from one of these studies, the Be Our Ally Beat Smoking (BOABS) Study, and how to develop and implement an integrated smoking cessation program.MethodsQualitative study using data collected from multiple documentary sources related to the BOABS Study. As the project neared completion the research team participated in four workshops to review and conduct thematic analyses of these documents.ResultsChallenges we encountered during the relatively complex BOABS Study included recruiting sufficient number of participants; managing the project in two distant locations and ensuring high quality work across both sites; providing appropriate training and support to Aboriginal researchers; significant staff absences, staff shortages and high workforce turnover; determining where and how the project fitted in the clinics and consequent siloing of the Aboriginal researchers relating to the requirements of RCTs; resistance to change, and maintaining organisational commitment and priority for the project. The results of this study also demonstrated the importance of local Aboriginal ownership, commitment, participation and control. This included knowledge of local communities, the flexibility to adapt interventions to local settings and circumstances, and taking sufficient time to allow this to occur.ConclusionsThe keys to the success of the BOABS Study were local development, ownership and participation, worker professional development and support, and operating within a framework of cultural safety. There were difficulties associated with the BOABS Study being an RCT, and many of these are shared with stand-alone programs. Interventions targeted at particular health problems are best integrated with usual primary health care. Research to investigate complex interventions in Indigenous health should not be limited to randomised clinical trials and funding needs to reflect the additional, but necessary, cost of providing for local control of planning and implementation.

Seeking control: Disentangling the difficult sociality of Kakadu National Park’s joint management

This article discusses joint management in Kakadu National Park, Australia’s biggest and arguably most complex protected area, where the policy is devised to allow sharing of power between the state and the area’s traditional Aboriginal owners. Although power is shared, this happens in a clumsy and difficult-to-understand way, confusing a divided group of actors. Most of them are convinced that most power lies with the other group and that they themselves are powerless to deal with contesting forms of cultural capital. In arguing this position I show how structure and habitus have become entrenched in one domain of the park’s management but radically changed in another.

The Australian monsoonal tropics: An opportunity to protect unique biodiversity and secure benefits for Aboriginal communities.

The Australian monsoonal tropics region contains one of the planet’s largest, relatively intact tropical savannas and has been continually occupied by humans for at least 50,000 years. The region, spanning Cape York Peninsula, the Top End and the Kimberley of northern Australia has long been known to host high biodiversity, but only now is the true extent of locally unique (endemic) species and genetic diversity within each of these areas becoming apparent. Though some critical regions have been included in the national reserve system, including the iconic Kakadu National Park, the ecological and evolutionary dynamics are such that large interconnected swathes of the region need to be actively managed to sustain this unique diversity in the face of escalating anthropogenic impacts and species decline. The growth in Indigenous Protected Areas and Indigenous-owned land where Traditional Owners aspire to “care for their Country” offers an opportunity to contribute to the broader conservation effort in the region. The conservation imperative is also entwined with Aboriginal cultural aspirations. Over the last few decades there has been a resurgence of effort by Aboriginal landowners to maintain their cultural responsibilities and knowledge, pursue socio-economic development opportunities, as well as to protect the bio-cultural values of their ancestral country. In the Australian monsoonal tropics, over 40% of the landscape is under some form of Aboriginal ownership or control and emerging initiatives such as the Indigenous Protected Area programme, representing a partnership of community, government and sometimes NGOs offer one (though not the only) constructive way forward. As the biological uniqueness of the landscape is uncovered, this should bolster the perceived biodiversity value and encourage further investment in protecting it, especially through programmes that promote engagement with, and employment of, Aboriginal communities. For this to be sustainable, the discovery and management of the region’s biodiversity needs to be driven increasingly by Aboriginal land owners with clear cultural and community, as well as biodiversity, benefits. This

Fuel, Cars and the Geography of Petrol Sniffing

The petrol which kids and adults are sniffing, well it's really bad. It makes people Ustless, and will make you sick. It will burn you away, your lungs, liver, brains, heart, eyes. Tell them immediately to stop, you mothers, fathers and anyone else. The PoUce and the Council have said [this]. Your children, and your sibUngs, tell them off quick. They could increase in number, and their breathing could be impaired from sniffing. If they sniff all the time it will increase. Petrol isn't milk, cool drink, or water, no - it belongs to motor vehicles. You aren't a car, no you're a person. Take it easy, drink water, cool drinks, milk.1 Inhaling petrol fumes in order to achieve a euphoric mood is usually discussed as a form of social pathology - after all, it is a deviance made more ilUcit and peculiar because the substance (petrol) is not intended, or designed, to be a drug; its real purpose lies elsewhere. The intensification of the drug-using activity we have come to know as 'petrol sniffing' was intimately Unked to the exponential rise in Aboriginal ownership of vehicles and the availabihty of petrol. Ironically though, it has been the fuel itself in a modified form that has, in the end, helped to curb the practice. This essay provides a brief ethnographic review of sniffing and the unanticipated consequences of automobiUty. Many of the ideas here draw on original anthropological fieldwork undertaken by the author in several parts of remote Australia.2 Most people are surprised to learn that the deliberate sniffing of petrol has been reported among Aboriginal AustraUans for more than 60 years. Two prominent Aboriginal men, the late Charles Perkins and Bob Randall, recalled that, as children in the 1940s, they had experimented with petrol sniffing at the institution known as The Bungalow in Alice Springs.3 Apart from this specific report, a folklore of sniffing has become established, attributing its origins to imitative behaviour in which Aboriginal people were said to have copied the activities of American servicemen stationed on northern coasts during World War II. Verifying this rumour is difficult; there are no official reports of servicemen inhaling petrol fumes.4 Perhaps it is worth remembering that American servicemen were said to be responsible for the advent of glue sniffing in the United Kingdom as well.5 In Australia the first written documentation of the practice dates from 1950, when a report noted that Aboriginal people were sniffing petrol on the Co bourg Peninsula, a tract of tropical land north-east of Darwin. Historians know the peninsula because it was the site of two failed nineteenth-century British settlements, at Raffles Bay and Port Essington. The petrol being sniffed on this occasion was not sourced from cars - it came from a sawmill that had started operations in the 1920s and which employed Aboriginal men from the surrounding region. These men were accompanied by their wives and children. In 1950, a government patrol officer found that some of the 'natives' were 'disposed to inhale the fumes' of the petrol powering the mill, and he locked it up out of harm's way.6 When these people returned to their communities - mostly dotted along the coastline to the east of the peninsula - those who had been experimenting with sniffing the fumes took with them the knowledge they had acquired. They had learned that petrol fumes could make you see and hear imaginary things - an experience not felt before. These returning workers inadvertently sparked the diffusion of a substance use that spread across Arnhem Land 'like fire' (as one local Aboriginal man put it), which was to cause angst, despair and death in the decades to come.7 Using petrol as a drug is not confined to Aboriginal people in Australia, but is part of a global landscape of drug use. It seems inevitably to be a fringe drug - a substance used by a subset of young people who are themselves a minority group within a society. …

Mapping outside the square: cultural mapping in the south-east Kimberley

In June 2005 I carried out a 'cultural mapping' project at the invitation of the Walmajarri Aboriginal owners of Paruku (Lake Gregory) in the south-east Kimberley. The team of white people with their varied expertise who assisted me were geomorphologist Jim Bowler from the Department of Earth Sciences at the University of Melbourne, tourism consultant and trainer Petrine McCrohan from Kimberley TAFE, anthropologist Catherine Wohlan from Broome, linguist Eirlys Richards, also from Broome, Mark Ditcham, co-ordinator of the Paruku Indigenous Protected Area, and John Carty, an anthropology doctoral student working for the Palyalatju traditional medicine organisation based at the nearby Balgo community.

Private Investment in Biodiversity Conservation. A Growing Trend in the Western World?

Abstract The paper examines the increasing trend of philanthropic bodies and private individuals to invest in the conservation of Australia’s biodiversity. This is seen as part of a more general Western trend in which Australian organizations are linked to bodies such as the large US-based Nature Conservancy. It is part of a response to the need to integrate conservation measures on public land with those on private land. The paper reviews two cases of private conservation reserves being created in the 1930s and 1940s. Private conservation through covenants on relatively small parcels of land was facilitated by the Victorian State Government in the 1970s. In the 1990s, the Australian Wildlife Conservancy and the Bush Heritage Trust were formed as charitable trusts which now own and manage 2.6 million ha of land in 55 reserves. The case study of the Thomas Foundation and its relationship with the Nature Conservancy is presented. The Nature Conservancy’s model of corporate fund-raising use was found to be successful in Australia for purchasing land and conserving it to preserve biodiversity. By 2010, private philanthropy and corporate sponsorship had almost 4 million ha of land under protection and managed for conservation. Th e paper ends by considering four issues that may influence the future of private investment in Australian conservation. One concerns the effect of the Global Financial Crisis on the flow of investment funds for conservation. A particular concern is whether governments might transfer their funding for conservation as private support increases. Private support depends on favorable tax treatment for charitable giving. It is hoped that the greater transparency now being required will maintain community support for tax arrangements. A fourth concern which is now starting to be addressed is the relations between the bodies managing private conservation reserves and the traditional Aboriginal owners of the land.

Growing Together? Land Rights and the Northern Territory Intervention

According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the term coalition comes from the Latin coalescere or ‘coalesce’, meaning “come or bring together to form one mass or whole”. Coalesce refers to the unity affirmed as something grows: co – “together”, alesce – “to grow up”. While coalition is commonly associated with formalised alliances and political strategy in the name of self-interest and common goals, this paper will draw as well on the broader etymological understanding of coalition as “growing together” in order to discuss the Australian government’s recent changes to land rights legislation, the 2007 Emergency Intervention into the Northern Territory, and its decision to use Indigenous land in the Northern Territory as a dumping ground for nuclear waste.

Haida Marine Planning: First Nations as a Partner in Marine Conservation

The Haida Nation is involved in an integrated marine planning initiative in northern British Columbia, Canada. The Haida continue to occupy traditional territory in and around Haida Gwaii, or the Queen Charlotte Islands, and are engaged in a larger planning process for the Pacific North Coast Integrated Management Area (PNCIMA). This initiative is in the early planning stage, focused on capacity building and creating enabling conditions for co-governance. Court decisions, government policies, and a modern treaty process are driving short- and long-term efforts to resolve issues of Aboriginal ownership and resource access, both on land and in the ocean. As a result, the PNCIMA process is being led by two levels of government, First Nations and federal, reflecting changing perceptions of Aboriginal title and rights in British Columbia. The Haida have been resource owners and managers on Haida Gwaii for millennia, and continue to apply traditional knowledge and experience to marine-use planning and fisheries management. The Haida approach is place based and guided by fundamental Haida ethics and values such as respect, balance, and reciprocity. We describe these values and discuss the emerging role of First Nations in integrated oceans management in the context of the six themes: lessons from land-use planning; the PNCIMA governance structure; the relationship of values to planning outcomes; developing an ecosystem- based management framework; applications of traditional knowledge, based on a study of Haida marine traditional knowledge currently in progress; and linking marine planning at various scales. On Haida Gwaii, collaborative marine planning is expected to result in improved protection of Haida Gwaii waters for future generations, greater Haida participation in management decisions, and increasing emphasis on sustainability of both local fisheries and communities.

Divergent Regional Trajectories in Australia's Tropical Savannas: Indicators of a Multifunctional Rural Transition

AbstractAs elsewhere in affluent, western nations, Australia's tropical savanna zone is experiencing a complex transition towards multifunctional occupance in which emerging consumption, protection and Indigenous values are contesting the former dominance of production values, tied to extensive pastoral occupance and agricultural development projects. This transition is contributing to increased complexity and diversity within and between regions. Divergent regional functional trajectories, evident over the three decades from 1976 to 2006, can be identified and depicted within the triangular relativities between production, consumption and protection values. Core pastoral regions have experienced discernible, if variable, functional trajectories while retaining a modified productivist orientation. In marginal, ‘frontier’ regions limited scope for capital accumulation has created an expansive space for both market and non‐market interests and ideologies to propel functional transitions towards more complex, contested occupance modes. Lack of success in pursuit of productivist goals enhances capability in satisfying emerging national aspirations in recognising Indigenous land rights, in preserving unique biota and valued semi‐natural landscapes, in fostering sustainable resource use and in promoting distinctive styles of tourism and recreation. The Darwin region has experienced a transition towards urban amenity occupance shaped by consumption and protection values. Tenure changes recognising Aboriginal ownership in the Arnhem region have facilitated regionwide self‐managed Indigenous occupance. Divergent regional functional trajectories are starkly revealed in a comparison of driving forces, decision processes and functional trajectories between the Barkly Tableland and the adjoining Gulf Country.