National frameworks to guide universities on the ethical conduct of Indigenous research have emerged from a troubling history of ethically dubious inquiry in Australia. Although the development of such frameworks is commendable, we contend that institutionalizing them can have unintended unethical consequences. Through five personal vignettes, we share some of our research experiences where university ethics processes have resulted in neopaternalist, disrespectful, and therefore also unethical situations. These vignettes paint a picture of the challenges that arise when bureaucratic, neoliberal systems of legal accountability interact with systems of Indigenous custom, knowledge, and expectation. We argue that a greater focus on Indigenous knowledges in institutional frameworks would lead to more appropriate research behavior, better research outcomes, and fewer unethical situations.
Successful management of invasive plants (IPs) requires the active participation of diverse communities across land tenures. This can be challenging because communities do not always share the views of scientists and managers. They may directly disagree, have alternative views, or be unwilling to manage IPs. Reviews of IP social science identify opportunities to better understand the role of cultural processes and everyday practices to address these challenges. To scale up and leverage the insights of existing qualitative social science IP research, we used meta‐ethnography to unlock accounts and interpretations of lay perspectives. Meta‐ethnography is a form of qualitative research synthesis increasingly used beyond its origins in health and education to produce interpretive syntheses of an area of research. In the 7 phases of meta‐ethnography, we systematically identified and synthesized 19 qualitative articles pertinent to lay experience and knowledge of IPs in diverse settings. Action and meaning regarding IPs were influenced by 6 meta‐themes in personal and social life: dissonance, priorities, difference, agency, responsibility, and future orientations. Through descriptions and examples of each meta‐theme, we demonstrated how the meta‐themes are higher level structuring concepts across the qualitative research that we analyzed and we retained grounding in the in‐depth qualitative research. We characterized the meta‐themes as leverage points and tensions by which we reframed lay people in terms of capacity for reflective IP management rather than as obstacles. The meta‐ethnography synthesis shows how leverage points and tensions emerge from everyday life and can frame alternative and meaningful starting points for both research and public engagement and deliberation regarding IP management. These insights are not a panacea, but open up new space for reflective and mutual consideration of how to effectively navigate often complex IP problems and address conservation and social and livelihood issues in dynamic social and physical environments.
Herbicide resistance management is often understood as a decision for individual land managers, but their decisions have far-reaching impacts for social-ecological systems. Area-wide management can reduce these impacts by supporting many land managers to cooperatively work towards a shared goal of reducing the spread of resistance. The aim of this research is to identify what support is needed for area-wide herbicide resistance management in cropping systems. Data was collected from 84 interviews with growers, public land managers and weed management advisors. Sixty-five interviews were conducted across three cropping regions of eastern Australia—Darling Downs (Queensland), Riverina (New South Wales) and Sunraysia (Victoria)—and 19 interviews were conducted with stakeholders beyond these regions. The majority (51%) of interviewees expressed concern about the spread of herbicide resistance, but only 14% described involvement in area-wide resistance management programs. Area-wide management was mostly reported to involve sharing information among stakeholders, rather than coordination or joint activities. Key barriers to participation were perceived to be the diverse agricultural industries in each region and the costs of participation. Future area-wide management program designs need to build working relationships among diverse stakeholders, clearly define the boundaries of the program and demonstrate the benefits that accrue from participation.
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