Дисертації з теми "Indigenous Land Corporation (Australia)"

Sustainability in north Australia is intimately connected with the future of Indigenous peoples and their lands. However, the current context on Indigenous lands more frequently features political marginalisation, welfare economies and poor health and well-being, which detract from sustainability. This thesis engages with the political and practical context for creating sustainable futures in north Australia through recognition of the current and potential value of Indigenous land and sea management. It also explores the potential to create sustainable economies based on this recognition. It analyses Commonwealth policy and discourse between 2005 and 2007 and juxtaposes this with parallel discourses that are more supportive of Indigenous settlement on country. The thesis presents the culture-based economy framework, which has evolved collaboratively throughout the research and connects it to sustainability and the national interest. Although this framework does not use the term culture in a strictly academic sense, when compared to academic discourse on culture and development, some core insights emerge. They make clear that to take culture seriously in development is to recognise the rights of people to determine their own development futures and that power and agency, dialogue and deliberation are central to sustainable development. In concluding, an argument is created whereby recognising the value of Indigenous land and sea management implies transition towards policy and practice that supports Indigenous country management and settlement on traditional lands.

This arts-based research project responds to the denial of Indigenous sovereignty and ongoing processes of colonisation in Australia from a white non-Indigenous perspective. The intimate relationship between colonisation and landscape painting is highlighted through identifying a thread of uncertainty, disquiet, doubt, and discomfort in Australian landscape painting history. This establishes a legacy of white non-Indigenous responsiveness to colonisation within which to contextualise my own visual responses. The cited examples in this legacy routinely distance and depersonalise colonisation in spatial, temporal, and corporeal ways, which omits from consideration the fact that colonisation is an everyday process perpetrated by everyday people living their everyday lives. Analysis of the whiteness studies and white anti-racism discourses laid foundations for my understanding of some of the dilemmas associated with centering ‘the personal’ in my visual responses to colonisation. Subsequently, utilisng writings by Clare Land and Donna Haraway, I position whiteness as a detail of my specific subjective, locational, and historical situatedness that actually compels, constrains, shapes, informs, binds and limits the nature of my own responses to colonisation. I contend that a personal white non-Indigenous response to colonisation has the capacity to address how colonisation facilitated my existence on stolen Indigenous lands, how colonisation manifests in the shape and appearance of my personal surroundings, and how I sustain colonisation while living my everyday life. Works by contemporary white non-Indigenous artists Mark Shorter, Joan Ross, and Helen Johnson are analysed to reveal what might be described as common strategies for a critical responsiveness to colonisation. Namely: ‘critical ambiguity’, collage methods, humour and attendance to issues of subjectivity. However, while issues of subjectivity are raised by all three artists, the personal and everyday nature of colonisation is obscured in various ways, which continues the depersonalization of colonisation identified in Australian landscape painting history. The visual outcomes of this research utilise digital collage, painting, and focus on my own life. That is, they derive from a personal photographic archive of ‘details’ relating to colonisation as it is evident in my own backyard, habits, and possessions. Both the process of gathering this archive and the process of making collage-paintings from it, can be understood in relation to Haraway’s terms of ‘staying with the trouble’. That is: I have chosen the awkwardness of intensely inhabiting and documenting the specificities of my own body, time, and place in order to respond. The collage-paintings that are the outcomes of this research, locate and visualise everyday manifestations of colonisation in order to acknowledge that colonisation is an everyday process perpetrated by everyday people living their everyday lives. These works are visual manifestations of my personal situatedness in relation to, or rather my white non-Indigenous relationship with, colonisation. This research, both written and visual, does not claim to resolve tensions, answer questions, offer solutions, or ameliorate disputes. Nor does it exist in the interests of overcoming Australia’s colonial past and present. Rather it might be apprehended in terms of ‘living with’ this colonial past and present in material and symbolic terms.
Thesis (PhD Doctorate)
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
Queensland College of Art
Arts, Education and Law
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This thesis is a work of Christian theology. Its purpose is twofold: firstly to develop an adequate understanding of reconciliation at the level of peoples and nations; and secondly to make a practical contribution to resolving the problems in Australia for the welfare of all the peoples, and of the land itself. The history of the relationships between the Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples in Australia has left many problems, and no matter what the non-Indigenous people try to do, the Indigenous peoples of Australia continue to experience themselves as being in a state of siege. Trying to understand what is happening, and what can be done to resolve the problems for the peoples of Australia and the land, have been the implicit drivers for the theological development in this thesis. This thesis argues that the present generation in any trans-generational dispute is likely to continue to sin in ways that are shaped by the sins of the past, which explains why Indigenous peoples in Australia find themselves in a stage of siege, even when the non-Indigenous peoples are trying to pursue policies which they believe are for the welfare of all. The only way to resolve this is for the peoples of Australia to seek reconciliation. In particular, the non-Indigenous peoples need to repent, both of their own sins, and the sins of their forebears. Reconciliation processes have become part of the international political landscape. However, there are real concerns about the justice of pursuing reconciliation. An important part of the theological development of this thesis is therefore to show that pursuing reconciliation establishes justice. It is shown that the nature of justice, and of repentance, can only be established by pursuing reconciliation. Reconciliation is possible because God has made it possible, and is working in the world to bring reconciliation. Because land is an essential part of Indigenous identity in Australia, the history of land in court cases and legislation in Australia over the past half century forms an important case study in this work. It is shown that, although there was significant repentance within the non-Indigenous legal system in Australia, the degree of repentance available through that legal system is inherently limited, and so a more radical approach is needed in order to seek reconciliation in Australia. A final chapter considers what the non-Indigenous people of Australia need to do in order to repent.

This thesis examines the responses of non-indigenous pastoralists in Central Australian rangelands to two social movements that profoundly challenge their occupancy, use and management of land. Contemporary environmentalism and Aboriginal land rights have both challenged the status of pastoralists as valued primary producers and bearers of a worthy pioneer heritage. Instead, pastoralists have become associated with land degradation, biodiversity loss, and Aboriginal dispossession. Such pressure has intensified in the 1990s in the wake of the native Title debate, and various conservation campaigns in the arid and semi-arid rangelands. The pressure on pastoralists occur in the context of wider reassessment of the social and economic values or rangelands in which pastoralism is seen as having declined in value compared to ???post-production??? land uses. Reassessments of rangelands in turn are part of the global changes in the status of rural areas, and of the growing flexibility in the very meaning of ???rural???. Through ethnographic fieldwork among largely non-indigenous pastoralists in Central Australia, this thesis investigates the nature and foundations of pastoralists??? responses to these changes and critiques. Through memory, history, labour and experience of land, non-indigenous pastoralists construct a narrative of land, themselves and others in which the presence of pastoralism in Central Australia is naturalised, and Central Australia is narrated as an inherently pastoral landscape. Particular types of environmental knowledge and experience, based in actual environmental events and processes form the foundation for a discourse of pastoral property rights. Pastoralists accommodate environmental concerns, through advocating environmental stewardship. They do this in such a way that Central Australia is maintained as a singularly pastoral landscape, and one in which a European, or ???white???, frame of reference continues to dominate. In this way the domesticated pastoral landscapes of colonialism and nationalism are reproduced. The thesis also examines Aboriginal pastoralism as a distinctive form of pastoralism, which fulfils distinctly Aboriginal land use and cultural aspirations, and undermines the conventional meaning of ???pastoralism??? itself. The thesis ends by suggesting that improved dialogue over rangelands futures depends on greater understanding of the details and complexities of local relationships between groups of people, and between people and land.

The archaeology of contact rock art in Australia is an emerging field exploring Indigenous reactions to encounters with outsiders, which has gained momentum over the past couple of decades. In this research, the impact of contact seen in rock art and archaeology was assessed, with a focus on the Northern Territory, Australia. Specifically, in Arnhem Land, the Djulirri rock shelter was chosen as the key case study because of its excellent and unique collection of contact rock art. To understand contact narratives more broadly, this thesis focuses on how hybridity (merging of cultures), conservatism (reluctance for change) and innovation (innovations coming from contact) impacted on the nature of recent rock art production at Djulirri’s Main Gallery, through the superimposition of rock art. This superimposition was detailed by digitally tracing each motif so that the stratigraphic profile of the motifs could be determined and an understanding of contact could be made. It is through this analysis that the contact narrative is made, exploring what new forms of rock art emerged, and what techniques can be applied to provide a more detailed understanding of contact rock art. I conclude this thesis by arguing that hybridity, conservatism and innovation were all factors in the contact archaeology of Djulirri. I argue that contact was a turbulent time for Indigenous Australians and that the rock art produced at Djulirri was completed to inform people about a changing world. This rock art was not carried out over prolonged periods, but as bursts of activity as a reaction to a particular event or change. Artists created hybrid ways of producing rock art, where they were innovative in their responses to this contact, but still held conservative values of how this information was delivered. Senior Traditional Owner R. Lamilami called Djulirri a library for his people. Through the process of digitally interrogating the stratigraphic profile of the site, placing the motifs in a chronological context, and understanding hybridity, conservatism and innovation, R. Lamilami’s beliefs are reinforced.
Thesis (PhD Doctorate)
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
School of Hum, Lang & Soc Sc
Arts, Education and Law
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This study takes as its focus the contrasting manner in which the Nyoongar indigenous people and the early European settlers utilised three wetland environments in southwest Australia over the century between 1829 and 1939. The thesis offers both an ecological and a landscape perspective to changes in the wetlands of Herdsman Lake, Lake Joondalup and Loch McNess. The chain of interconnecting linear lakes provides some of the largest permanent sources of fresh water masses on the Swan Coastal Plain. This thesis acknowledges the importance of the wetland system to the Nyoongar indigenous people. The aim of this research is to interpret the human intervention into the wetland ecosystems by using a methodology that combines cultural landscape, historical and biophysical concepts as guiding themes. Assisted by historical maps and field observations, this study offers an ecological perspective on the wetlands, depicting changes in the human footprint on its landscape, and mapping the changes since the indigenous people’s sustainable ecology and guardianship were removed. These data can be used and compared with current information to gain insights into how and why modification to these wetlands occurred. An emphasis is on the impact of human settlement and land use on natural systems. In the colonial period wetlands were not generally viewed as visually pleasing; they were perceived as alien and hostile environments. Settlers saw the land as an economic commodity to be exploited in a money economy. Thus the effects of a sequence of occupances and their transformation of environments as traditional Aboriginal resource use gave way to early European settlement, which brought about an evolution and cultural change in the wetland ecosystems, and attitudes towards them.

Cette thèse cherche à rendre compte des réponses que les Aborigènes Noongars du sud-ouest de l’Australie Occidentale déploient face aux discours sur la « tradition » et la « modernité » qui sont construits au sein des institutions et par les acteurs de l’État avec lesquels ils interagissent et auxquels ils sont tour à tour confrontés. L’étude de ces discours, des conditions de leur production et de leurs effets permet d’envisager les concepts de « tradition » et de « modernité » comme des moyens d’action et des techniques sociales mobilisés pour éliminer la différence culturelle dans la mise en œuvre d’un « devenir commun ».L’État australien produit ses propres définitions antagonistes de la « tradition » et de la « modernité », catégories pensées comme étant mutuellement exclusives. Dans certains contextes, il est attendu des Noongars d’être « traditionnels », alors que dans d’autres ils doivent se montrer « modernes ». Les Noongars se trouvent ainsi pris dans une contradiction : ils tendent vers la « modernité » pour rester « traditionnels » et, inversement, ils sont maintenus dans leurs « traditions » lorsqu’ils doivent faire preuve de « modernité ». Dans leurs diverses tentatives de s’intégrer à la nation australienne tout en conservant leurs spécificités, les Noongars redéfinissent leur « identité culturelle ». Pour cela, ils s’approprient, contestent et négocient l’image de l’Aboriginalité qui leur est présentée et se façonnent une identité contemporaine propre, sans pour autant s’opposer radicalement au mythe national de l’Aboriginalité.En analysant les divers processus par lesquels les Aborigènes Noongars revendiquent leur reconnaissance et tentent d’acquérir un degré de souveraineté au sein d’un État-nation, cette thèse enrichit les réflexions sur l’autochtonie en tant que catégorie politique et contingente. Il s’agit d’aborder les questions autochtones comme des réalités discursives devant être analysées dans les contextes ethnographiques particuliers où elles sont produites et articulées
This thesis seeks to account for the responses that the Noongar Aborigines from the South West of Western Australia display to the discourses of "tradition" and "modernity" that are built within institutions and by state actors, with whom they interact and to which they are in turn confronted. The study of these discourses, the conditions of their production and their effects makes it possible to consider the concepts of “tradition” and “modernity” as means of action and social techniques mobilised to eliminate cultural difference in the implementation of a “common becoming”.The Australian state produces its own antagonistic definitions of “tradition” and “modernity”, categories thought to be mutually exclusive. In some contexts, Noongars are expected to be “traditional”, while in others they must be “modern”. The Noongars are thus caught in a contradiction: they tend towards “modernity” to remain “traditional” and, conversely, they are kept in their “traditions” when they have to show “modernity”. In their various attempts to integrate into the Australian nation, while retaining their specificities, the Noongars are redefining their “cultural identity”. For this, they appropriate, challenge, negotiate the image of the Aboriginality presented to them and shape their own contemporary identity, without radically opposing the national myth of Aboriginality.By analysing the various processes by which the Noongar Aborigines claim their recognition and attempt to acquire a degree of sovereignty within a nation-state, this thesis enriches reflections on Indigeneity as a political and contingent category. It is about addressing indigenous issues as discursive realities that need to be analysed in the particular ethnographic contexts in which they are produced and articulated

"August 2006"
Thesis (PhD) -- Macquarie University, Division of Law, 2007.
Bibliography: p. 343-364.
Abstract -- Candidate's certification -- Acknowledgements -- Acronyms -- Chapter one -- Chapter two: Linking public participation to environmental decision making and natural resources management -- Chapter three: The right to public participation -- Chapter four: Implementing the right to public participation in environmental decision making : the participation of indigenous peoples in the conservation and management of protected areas -- Chapter five: The legal and policy regime for the participation of indigenous peoples in the conservation and management of protected areas in Australia -- Chapter six: The legal and policy regime for the participation of indigenous peoples in the conservation and management of protected areas in Uganda -- Chapter seven: Implementing public participation in environmental decision making in Australia and Uganda : a comparative analysis -- Chapter eight: The right to public participation in enviromental decision making and natural resources management : summary and conclusions -- Bibliography.
In recognition of the importance of public participation as a basis for good governance and democracy, Mr Kofi Annan, Secretary General to the United Nations, has noted that: "Good governance demands the consent and participation of the governed and the full participation and lasting involvement of all citizens in the future of their nation. The will of the people must be the basis of governmental authority. That is the foundation of democracy. That is the foundation of good governance Good governance will give every citizen, young or old, man or woman, a real and lasting stake in the future of his or her society". The above quotation encapsulates the essence of what this thesis has set out to do; to examine the concept of public participation and its application in environmental governance within the context of the participation of indigenous peoples in the conservation and management of protected areas in Australia and Uganda. The concept of public participation is of such intrinsic importance that it has emerged as one of the fundamental principles underpinning environmental governance and therefore forms the basis for this study. -- Environmental governance, as a concept that captures the ideal of public participation, is basically about decisions and the manner in which they are made. It is about who has 'a seat at the table' during deliberations and how the interests of affected communities and ecosystems are represented. It is also about how decision makers are held responsible for the integrity of the process and for the results of their decisions. It relates to business people, property owners, farmers and consumers. Environmental governance is also about the management of actions relating to the environment and sustainable development. It includes individual choices and actions like participating in public hearings or joining local watchdog groups or, as consumers, choosing to purchase environmentally friendly products. -- The basic principles behind good governance and good environmental decision making have been accepted for more than a decade. The 178 nations that attended the Rio Summit in 1992 all endorsed these nvironmental governance principles when they signed the Rio Declaration on Environment and Development (Rio Declaration) - a charter of 27 principles meant to guide the world community towards sustainable development. The international community re-emphasised the importance of these principles at the World Summit on Sustainable Development in 2002. -- The right to public participation in nvironmental decision making and natural resources management is one of the 27 principles endorsed by the nations of the world and is embodied in the provisions of Principle 10 of the Rio Declaration.
Environmental decisions occur in many contexts. They range from personal choices like whether to walk or drive to work, how much firewood to burn, or whether to have another child. They encompass the business decisions that communities or corporations make about where to locate their facilities, how much to emphasise eco-friendly product design and how much land to preserve. They include national laws enacted to conserve the environment, to regulate pollution, manage public land or regulate trade. They take into account international commitments made to regulate trade in endangered species or limit acid rain or C02 emissions. -- Environmental decisions also involve a wide range of actors: individuals; local, state and national governments; community and tribal authorities such as indigenous peoples; civic organisations; interested groups; labour unions; national and transactional corporations; scientists; and international bodies such as the United Nations, the European Union, and the World Trade Organisation. -- Each of the actors have different interests, different levels of authority and different information, making their actions complex and frequently putting their decisions at odds with each other and with ecological processes that sustain the natural systems we depend on. -- Accordingly, this thesis aims to examine participation in environmental decision making in a way that demonstrates these complexities and interdependencies. It will explore the theoretical and conceptual basis for public participation and how it is incorporated into international and domestic environmental and natural resources law and policy. -- It will examine public participation in the context of the legal and policy framework for the conservation and management of protected areas and will use case studies involving the participation of indigeneous peoples in Australia and Uganda to provide the basis for a comparative analysis. -- The thesis will also faces on a comparative analysis of the effectiveness and meaningfulness of the process for public participation in environmental decision making in Australia and Uganda. There is extensive literature on the purposes to which participation may be put; the stages in the project cycle at which it should be employed; the level and power with regard to the decision making process which should be afforded to the participants; the methods which may be appropriate under the different circumstances, as well as detailed descriptions of methods; approaches and forms or typologies of public participation; and the benefits and problems of such participation.
However, there is not much significant literature that examines and analyses the meaningfulness and effectiveness of the contextual processes of such participation. This is despite the widespread belief in the importance and value of public participation, particularly by local and indigenous communities, even in the face of disillusionment caused by deceit, manipulation and tokenism. Accordingly, the thesis will use case studies to demonstrate the meaningfulness and effectiveness or otherwise of public participation in environmental decision making in protected area management. -- Increasingly, the terminology of sustainable development is more appropriate to describe contemporary policy objectives in this area, with an emphasis on promoting local livelihood and poverty alleviation within the constraints of ecosystem management. However, the domestic legal frameworks, and institutional development, in Australia and Uganda tend to reflect earlier concepts of environmental and natural resources management (referred to as environmental management in this thesis). There are some significant differences between a North (developed) nation and a South (developing) nation, in terms of the emphasis on economic objectives, political stability, resources and legal and administrative capacity. The thesis intends to explore these differences for the comparative analysis and to draw on them to highlight the complexities and interdependencies of public participation by indigenous peoples in environmental decision making, natural resources and protected area management.
Mode of access: World Wide Web.
377 p

En Australie du Nord, une nouvelle catégorie d'acteurs sociaux aborigènes a émergé dans les années 1990 : les « rangers ». Fondés sur la professionnalisation et la formalisation de responsabilités « traditionnelles » envers la terre et la mer, leurs emplois et programmes sont présentés comme des mécanismes de « gestion des ressources naturelles » et de conservation de la biodiversité contrôlés par les communautés autochtones, tout comme un support de « développement » local. Cette thèse propose un regard critique sur le système des rangers en partant de la question suivante : constitue-t-il une manifestation « d'impérialisme écologique » ? L'ethnographie (2009-2010) des interactions sociales mises en jeu par les activités du groupe de rangers de la communauté de Ngukurr (Terre d'Arnhem, Territoire du Nord) y est associée à une contextualisation et à une analyse articulant échelles locale, régionale et nationale et discours international. Le système des rangers reflète diverses logiques endogènes et exogènes qui dépassent ses objectifs affichés de résilience environnementale et socio-économique. Il repose sur des rapports de pouvoir et des négociations complexes entre les différents acteurs impliqués (dont l'État australien), entre « savoirs écologiques traditionnels » et science, et entre rapports sociaux locaux et bureaucratiques. Cette étude met au jour le processus de bureaucratisation et les multiples ingérences et ambivalences inhérents à ce système, qui (re)produit des distinctions et tensions sociales. Elle souligne également la fonction de médiateurs qu'endossent les rangers ainsi que l'ambiguïté de la position de chercheur dans un tel contexte
In Northern Australia, a new category of Indigenous social actors emerged in the 1990s: “rangers”. Their jobs and programmes are based on the professionalization and formalization of “traditional” responsibilities for the land and sea. They are presented as natural resource management and biodiversity conservation mechanisms controlled by Indigenous communities and as a basis for local “development”.This thesis proposes a critical view of the ranger system, starting from the following question: is this system a form of “ecological imperialism”? The ethnography (2009-2010) of the social interactions at work in the activities of the Ngukurr community's ranger group (Arnhem Land, Northern Territory) is combined with a contextualization and an analysis linking local, regional and national levels with the international discourse.The ranger system reflects various endogenous and exogenous logics that go beyond its stated aims of environmental and socioeconomic resilience. It is based on complex power relations and negotiations between the different actors involved (including the Australian State), between “traditional ecological knowledge” and science, and between local and bureaucratic social relationships. This study reveals the bureaucratization process and the many external interventions and ambivalences inherent in this system which (re)produces social distinctions and tensions. It also highlights the mediator or broker role played by the rangers as well as the ambiguous position of the researcher in such a context

This thesis draws on David Harvey’s concept of “accumulation by dispossession” and an international political economy (IPE) approach centred on the institutional arrangements and power structures that privilege certain actors and values, in order to critique current capitalist practices of primitive accumulation by the global corporate extractive industry. The thesis examines how accumulation by dispossession by the global extractive industry is facilitated by the “free entry” or “free mining” principle. It does so by focusing on Canada as a leader in the global extractive industry and the spread of this country’s mining laws to other countries – in other words, the transnationalisation of norms in the global extractive industry – so as to maintain a consistent and familiar operating environment for Canadian extractive companies. The transnationalisation of norms is further promoted by key international institutions such as the World Bank, which is also the world’s largest development lender and also plays a key role in shaping the regulations that govern natural resource extraction. The thesis briefly investigates some Canadian examples of resource extraction projects, in order to demonstrate the weaknesses of Canadian mining laws, particularly the lack of protection of landowners’ rights under the free entry system and the subsequent need for “free, prior and informed consent” (FPIC). The thesis also considers some of the challenges to the adoption and implementation of the right to FPIC. These challenges include embedded institutional structures like the free entry mining system, international political economy (IPE) as shaped by international institutions and powerful corporations, as well as concerns regarding ‘local’ power structures or the legitimacy of representatives of communities affected by extractive projects. The thesis concludes that in order for Canada to be truly recognized as a leader in the global extractive industry, it must establish legal norms domestically to ensure that Canadian mining companies and residents can be held accountable when there is evidence of environmental and/or human rights violations associated with the activities of Canadian mining companies abroad. The thesis also concludes that Canada needs to address underlying structural issues such as the free entry mining system and implement FPIC, in order to curb “accumulation by dispossession” by the extractive industry, both domestically and abroad.

This thesis argues that native title rights are fundamental to Indigenous citizenship in Australia. It does this by developing a normative conception of citizenship in connection with a model of constitutionalism. Here, citizenship is more than a legal status. It refers to the norms of individual rights coupled with democratic responsibility that are attached to the person in a liberal-democracy. Constitutionalism provides the framework for understanding the manner in which Australian society realizes these norms. This thesis focuses on a society attempting to grapple with issues of postcolonialism. A fundamental question faced in these societies is the legitimacy of group rights based in pre-colonization norms. This thesis argues that these rights can be legitimized when constitutionalism is understood as originating in the deliberations connecting civil society with the state; which deliberations reconcile individual rights with group rights in such a way as to resolve the issue of their competing claims to legitimacy. Civil society is the social space in which politico-legal norms collide with action. The argument constructed here is that native title is built on norms that have the potential (it is a counterfactual argument) to contribute to a postcolonial civil society. This is one in which colonizer and colonized coordinate their action in a mutual search for acceptable solutions to the question 'how do we live together?'. The optimistic analysis is tempered by a consideration of the development of native title law. The jurisprudence of the High Court after the Wik's Case has undermined the potential of native title to play a transformative role. It has undermined Indigenous Australians' place in civil society, and their status as equal individuals and responsible citizens. In seeking to explain this, the thesis turns from jurisprudence to political sociology, and argues that an alternative model of constitutionalism and civil society has supplanted the postcolonial; viz., the neoliberal.

This thesis is about survival in the Far West Coast town of Ceduna, South Australia. In particular, the idea of ‘being Ceduna’ is discussed in the context of the survival ethic which permeates, and forms a prevailing condition for, sociality in the town. I have aimed at producing a substantial ethnography about white people living in rural and remote South Australia which can be used as a basis for comparison with other culture. The work describes various classifications of person in Ceduna (ranging from old local, New locals, new person, newcomer and blow-in) and shows how the town’s survival ethic is promulgated through various forms of Ceduna Person. Issues relating to being Ceduna are tackled, for it is essential for a person to display particular behaviours to show their Cedunaness and that they contribute to the town’s survival ethic in specific ways. This can lead to acceptance which is essential to being Ceduna but comes with a flip-side: rejection. The importance of joining groups to being Ceduna is likewise described. Groups are seen to encourage survival because they force people to come together for the good of the community. The thesis also depicts and analyses Ceduna People’s ambivalent feelings towards their physical environment. In a way, the entire thesis leads towards the final chapter, wherein Ceduna People’s emotional responses to their country are drawn out. The relationship that Ceduna People have with their surrounds feeds into, and is fed by, the survival ethic, which then manifests itself in people’s love and respect for the landscape. On a more general level, the thesis attempts, through ethnographic descriptions and analysis, to supply a critique of occidentalised views of Western society as a whole, and of rural people in particular. It does this via discussions of, for instance, Ceduna People’s responses to individualism and landscape, demonstrating the conventional anthropological understandings of western sociality are very different from Ceduna’s ethnographic reality.

Collaborative community-university partnerships are an ethical approach to conduct research with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders, to achieve outcomes relevant to these communities. In 2016, a research project was conducted in collaboration with, and directed by, the Yirralka Miyalk (Women’s) Rangers (YMR) of Laynhapuy Homelands, Arnhem Land, Northern Territory, Australia and the National Institute of Complementary Medicine (NICM) at Western Sydney University. As a continuation of this collaboration, the research documented in this thesis investigates the bush products manufactured by YMR and the related traditional medicinal plants used to produce them- Eucalyptus tetrodonta, Melaleuca dealbata and Litsea glutinosa through a mixed method research strategy. Apart of the participatory action research and community-university partnerships framework adopted for this research, semi-structured interviews and focus groups were conducted with YMR members and Laynhapuy staff to identify focus areas for further study. The medicinal and therapeutic value of E. tetrodonta, M. dealbata and L. glutinosa were identified as areas of interest and guided the subsequent research reported in this thesis. To assess the medicinal and therapeutic value of the three species, qualitative, semi-quantitative and quantitative methods were employed. Through the observations made in this thesis, and through continued collaboration following participatory action research (PAR) frameworks and mixed method research, it is hoped that the scientific evidence gained will continue to support the YMR members and their bush products.

After four and a half years evaluating the viability of the establishment of the Browse LNG Precinct onshore at James Price Point in the Kimberley, Woodside and its Joint Venture Partners decided to abandon the project in April 2013. How Indigenous people in the Kimberley made their voices manifest in resource development discussions through their own internal governance system and through their interactions with the institutions of Government and transnational companies is the subject of my thesis. The Browse LNG Precinct proposal was contentious and caused deep divisions within family members, friends and employers in Broome. It became the site of a struggle for recognition of the many voices representing the competing interests of economic development, Aboriginal cultural heritage protection, and environmental conservation. My particular focus is the notion of development by Indigenous people and by the Western Australian government particularly when Traditional Law intersects with Australian mainstream law over land held in common. I examine how notions of development and related values were manifested in practice at mining sites that overlapped with Indigenous sacred sites at Noonkanbah, Argyle and James Price Point. I have found that essentially, the Indigenous people’s voices are represented through the recognition space of state institutional apparatus. The design and operation of legislative acts enabled a system of control over how Aboriginal interests are to be governed within the framework of Australia’s governance of mineral and natural resources. Co-existence between Aboriginal and Western cosmology constitutes dynamic processes and the interplay for mutual recognition. In practice, the dominant system of control filters the Indigenous voice by its translation within the institutional practices of the Australian state and legal system.

This thesis argues that the ‘rule of law’ was not followed in colonial and post-federation Australia in relation to a fundamental principle of the common law. According to the rule in Calvin’s Case (1608), no person born as a ‘subject’ in any part of the King’s dominions could be an ‘alien’. This was the legal position in Australia from the reception of English law until well after federation. In colonial and post-federation Australia the racial meaning of ‘alien’ was consistently used in political and legal contexts instead of its proper legal meaning. In legislation and parliamentary debates, cases and prosecutions, inter-colonial conferences and conventions it was employed to refer not merely to those who were ‘aliens’ under the common law but also to people regarded as ‘aliens’ in the broader or racial sense of the word, especially those of non-European background. Chinese and Indian settlers, Pacific islanders and even indigenous Australians were treated as ‘aliens’ in Australia even if under British law they were actually ‘subjects’ of the Crown and not ‘aliens’ at all in the accepted legal sense. In the 1820s and 1830s the New South Wales Supreme Court thought it inconceivable that ‘barbarous’ indigenous inhabitants could ‘owe fealty’ or allegiance to the British Crown, considering their legal position analogous to that of ‘foreigners’ or ‘strangers’. In debates on exclusionary legislation in the 1870s and 1880s, parliamentarians in the Australian colonies portrayed all Chinese settlers as ‘aliens’, despite acknowledging that many came from Hong Kong, the Straits Settlements or other British possessions. Immigrants from British India were generally treated the same way. Delegates to Australia’s constitutional conventions in the 1890s, including prominent legal figures, repeated this mistake. And in the 1900s Pacific islanders born in Australia as British subjects were deported as ‘aliens’ with the approval of the Australian High Court. The misuse of ‘alien’ in this case contributed to a defective judgment still cited today in support of the Commonwealth’s claims to extensive exclusionary power. Between federation and the Second World War, Queensland’s dictation test legislation and industrial awards regulating various occupations provide many examples of the misuse and manipulation of the term ‘alien’ in a legal context. In prosecutions under these laws the word was used as a weapon against non-Europeans whether they were ‘aliens’ under the law or not. Commentators both in the early years of federation and in more recent times have failed to identify the misuse of ‘alien’– and have made the same error themselves. This mistake is critical because of the continued force of the term in Australian law. The Commonwealth’s sweeping power to define who shall be citizens of Australia and to exclude, detain indefinitely without trial and deport ‘aliens’ is still justified by reference to colonial and post-federation cases and constitutional convention debates where ‘alien’ was incorrectly used in its racial sense contrary to the rule of law.

Human-environment interactions will be profoundly affected by anthropogenic climate change. Coastal communities, dependent on freshwater ecosystems for their livelihoods and cultural practices, are likely to be seriously impacted by rising sea level. For communities already subject to marginalising forces of remoteness, poverty or the legacies of colonisation, climate change impacts will likely compound existing stressors. The freshwater floodplains of the Alligator Rivers Region in the Northern Territory, spanning Kakadu National Park and part of West Arnhem Land, represent such a place. This area is at risk from sea level rise, particularly saltwater intrusion, while also home to Aboriginal Australians continuing to practice customary or subsistence harvesting based on freshwater resources. In seeking to support sustainable adaptation to climate change in this context, this thesis examines Indigenous people’s experiences, in living memory, of responding to past and persisting social-ecological change. A place-based, contextual framing approach was used to examine vulnerability and adaptive capacity. Through semi-structured interviews, trips on country, cultural resource mapping and archival work, contemporary patterns of freshwater resource use and Aboriginal people’s perceptions of changes to their freshwater hunting, fishing and gathering activities (collectively termed ‘harvesting’) were examined. Qualitative models were used to conceptualise factors influencing an individual’s ability to engage in freshwater customary harvesting and the determinants shaping adaptive capacity for customary harvesting. The social-ecological drivers of change in freshwater harvesting practices raised by respondents included: existing threats from introduced animals and plants, altered floodplain fire regimes and the ‘bust then boom’ in saltwater crocodile population following recovery from commercial hunting. These all had implications for sustaining customary harvesting practices including restricting access and the transmission of knowledge. Impacts driven by the introduced cane toad, invasive para grass and saltwater crocodile population change, represent examples of solastalgia, particularly for women’s harvesting practices. In addition to environmental conditions, determinants of adaptive capacity of customary harvesting included; mobility on country- particularly supported through on country livelihoods and outstations, social networks facilitating access and knowledge sharing, health and well-being and inter-generational knowledge transmission. Past experience of saltwater intrusion facilitated by feral water buffalo in Kakadu was examined through the lens of social learning, as a historical analogue for future sea level rise. These experiences were shown to influence contemporary perceptions of risk and adaptive preferences for future sea level rise. Customary harvesting was also found to offer unique opportunities to improve remote Indigenous development outcomes across diverse sectors. To build adaptive capacity supporting freshwater customary harvesting practices in this context it will be essential to; understand historical trajectories of social-ecological change, recognise the potential for diversity within groups- including a gendered analysis of adaptive capacity, address existing social-ecological stressors and foster knowledge collaborations for supporting knowledge transmission, the co-production of knowledge and sustaining social networks. Facilitating a social learning environment will be particularly crucial in supporting local autonomy, leadership and experimental learning, and is particularly beneficial in jointly managed protected area contexts. Most importantly, incorporating local Indigenous knowledge, values, perceptions of change and risk into locally-developed adaptation strategies will be essential in developing more culturally relevant and thus sustainable, adaptation pathways.