Balpara: A Practical Approach to Working With Ontological Difference in Indigenous Land &amp; Sea Management

Campion, Otto Bulmaniya; West, Simon; Degnian, Katie; Djarrbal, Mali; Ignjic, Emma; Ramandjarri, Charlie; Malibirr, Gladys Womati; Guwankil, Margaret; Djigirr, Peter; Biridjala, Florence; O’Ryan, Solomon; Austin, Beau J.

doi:10.1080/08941920.2023.2199690

Cited by 8 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 51 publications

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“…They are often place-based, relational and practiceoriented (Kovach 2009). In the IMEP, senior ASRAC Ranger Otto Bulmaniya Campion introduced the concept of balpara (Campion et al 2023). Balpara is a Rembarrnga concept that can be translated into English as 'partner' or 'companion.'…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…From 2015 to 2017, the Rangers drew on wulkena Bi approach to planning developed by the Balngarra clan (Campion et al 2023)together with Healthy Country Planning to develop a Healthy Country Plan for the ASRAC region (ASRAC 2017; Appendix S1). Healthy Country Planning initially emerged from the work of the Wunambal Gaambera Traditional Owners, with Bush Heritage Australia (BHA) and others, to adapt the Open Standards for the Practice of Conservation for use in articulating holistic goals and strategies for Indigenous lands (Moorcroft et al 2012).…”

Section: People and Countrymentioning

confidence: 99%

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Monitoring and evaluation of Indigenous Land and Sea Management: An Indigenous‐led approach in the Arafura Swamp, northern Australia

Campion,

Djarrbal,

Ramandjarri

et al. 2023

Eco Management Restoration

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SummaryAs Indigenous Land and Sea Management has grown in scope and scale, there has been increasing focus on monitoring and evaluation to foster learning, strengthen accountability and report on outcomes. A resurgence in Indigenous governance has led to recognition that Indigenous knowledge, law and governance systems are essential to successful conservation initiatives on Indigenous lands. Indigenous‐led monitoring and evaluation involves Indigenous peoples exercising control, direction and informed decisions about monitoring and evaluation practices and signals a greater role for Indigenous methodologies alongside participatory approaches and Western sciences. This paper describes the Intercultural Monitoring and Evaluation Project, led by the Arafura Swamp Rangers Aboriginal Corporation in partnership with Bi and Yolŋu Traditional Owners and clans and non‐Indigenous practitioners and researchers. The Intercultural Monitoring and Evaluation Project aimed to co‐produce an Indigenous‐led and Country‐based monitoring and evaluation system for Arafura Swamp Rangers Aboriginal Corporation's Healthy Country Plan. The Intercultural Monitoring and Evaluation Project recognised that the Rangers from the Arafura Swamp Rangers Aboriginal Corporation are accountable within Bi, Yolŋu and Western governance systems and that monitoring and evaluation at Arafura Swamp Rangers Aboriginal Corporation needed to strengthen relationships between all three. The Intercultural Monitoring and Evaluation Project involved: (i) developing understandings of monitoring and evaluation in Bi, Yolŋu and Western knowledge systems, (ii) generating organisational roadmaps, targets and indicators, (iii) developing Bi, Yolŋu and Western monitoring methods, (iv) building a data management system and seasonal monitoring calendar, (v) initiating a monitoring and evaluation committee to inform Arafura Swamp Rangers Aboriginal Corporation's strategic decision‐making and (vi) sharing the story of the project with others. This approach embedded monitoring and evaluation in Indigenous law and governance, oral knowledge traditions and the intergenerational kinship relationships that sustain people and Country, while also connecting to Western adaptive management frameworks. Indigenous‐led approaches can integrate monitoring and evaluation with Indigenous practices of caring for Country, contributing directly to the multiple ecological, cultural and socio‐economic goals of Indigenous Land and Sea Management.

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Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: People and Countrymentioning

confidence: 99%

Monitoring and evaluation of Indigenous Land and Sea Management: An Indigenous‐led approach in the Arafura Swamp, northern Australia

Campion,

Djarrbal,

Ramandjarri

et al. 2023

Eco Management Restoration

Self Cite

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“…I gradually found myself shifting into a role of volunteering and helping to fulfill one of the (Indigenous-led) projects I had initially come to descriptively study. This project—the Intercultural Monitoring and Evaluation Project (IMEP)—aimed to bring together Indigenous methodologies and participatory action research to build an intercultural monitoring and evaluation system for an Indigenous ranger group as part of ongoing efforts to develop Indigenous-led approaches to land management in the region ( processes of knowing; Campion et al 2023 ). My motivation had therefore changed from seeking to fulfill my own methodological interests toward contributing to the initiative of the Indigenous rangers and Traditional Owners.…”

Section: Operationalizing Ambiguity In Sustainability Sciencementioning

confidence: 99%

“…For example, the development of a monitoring and evaluation (M&E) framework for natural resource management in Australia aimed to avoid the risks of cooption or instrumentalization of Indigenous frames by centering Indigenous methodologies. This process enhanced the framework’s legitimacy in the eyes of Indigenous rangers, while paradoxically reducing its comprehensibility (and thus potentially its legitimacy) for some non-Indigenous scientists, planners, and policy actors (Campion et al 2023 ). Such real-world implications of ambiguity are discussed by Brugnach and Ingram ( 2012 ), who posit that failures of more integrative natural resource management can be attributed to a mishandling of ambiguity.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Operationalizing ambiguity in sustainability science: embracing the elephant in the room

Lazurko,

Haider,

Hertz

et al. 2023

Sustain Sci

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Ambiguity is often recognized as an intrinsic aspect of addressing complex sustainability challenges. Nevertheless, in the practice of transdisciplinary sustainability research, ambiguity is often an ‘elephant in the room’ to be either side-stepped or reduced rather than explicitly mobilized in pursuit of solutions. These responses threaten the salience and legitimacy of sustainability science by masking the pluralism of real-world sustainability challenges and how research renders certain frames visible and invisible. Critical systems thinking (CST) emerged from the efforts of operational researchers to address theoretical and practical aspects of ambiguity. By adapting key concepts, frameworks, and lessons from CST literature and case studies, this paper aims to establish (1) an expansive conceptualization of ambiguity and (2) recommendations for operationalizing ambiguity as a valuable means of addressing sustainability challenges. We conceptualize ambiguity as an emergent feature of the simultaneous and interacting boundary processes associated with being, knowing, and intervening in complex systems, and propose Reflexive Boundary Critique (RBC) as a novel framework to help navigate these boundary processes. Our characterization of ambiguity acknowledges the boundary of a researcher’s subjective orientation and its influence on how ambiguity is exposed and mediated in research (being), characterizes knowledge as produced through the process of making boundary judgments, generating a partial, contextual, and provisional frame (knowing), and situates a researcher as part of the complexity they seek to understand, rendering any boundary process as a form of intervention that reinforces or marginalizes certain frames and, in turn, influences action (intervening). Our recommendations for sustainability scientists to operationalize ambiguity include (1) nurturing the reflexive capacities of transdisciplinary researchers to navigate persistent ambiguity (e.g., using our proposed framework of RBC), and (2) grappling with the potential for and consequences of theoretical incommensurability and discordant pluralism. Our findings can help sustainability scientists give shape to and embrace ambiguity as a fundamental part of rigorous sustainability science.

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Imperilled birds and First Peoples’ land and sea Country in Australia

Lilleyman,

Pascoe,

J. Robinson

et al. 2024

Emu - Austral Ornithology

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Balpara: A Practical Approach to Working With Ontological Difference in Indigenous Land & Sea Management

Cited by 8 publications

References 51 publications

Monitoring and evaluation of Indigenous Land and Sea Management: An Indigenous‐led approach in the Arafura Swamp, northern Australia

Monitoring and evaluation of Indigenous Land and Sea Management: An Indigenous‐led approach in the Arafura Swamp, northern Australia

Operationalizing ambiguity in sustainability science: embracing the elephant in the room

Imperilled birds and First Peoples’ land and sea Country in Australia

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