Abstract:BioOne Complete (complete.BioOne.org) is a full-text database of 200 subscribed and open-access titles in the biological, ecological, and environmental sciences published by nonprofit societies, associations, museums, institutions, and presses.
“…Tjilpi Robin’s persistence in continually repeating the Tjukurpa to his children is consistent with how oral Indigenous knowledge, stories and songs are maintained (Fernandez‐Llamazares and Cabeza 2018; Curran et al . 2019). Their commitment was also living on Country and leading by example, a key factor in the success of early Walalkara land management work and later, the IPA, according to Laura Mitchell, Will Powrie and Joe Benshemesh, former land management colleagues of the Robin family since the 1990s: ‘Tjilpi and his family proved their legitimacy as nguraṟitja [traditional knowledge custodians] by being on Country, being on the land, and connected to the Tjukurpa.…”
Section: Resultsmentioning
confidence: 99%
“…In the western and central deserts of Australia, Aboriginal people from at least six language groups, including Pitjantjatjara, Yankunytjatjara, Ngaanyatjarra, Pintupi, Luritja and Warlpiri, refer to their Dreaming Law and Songlines of the creation ancestors as Tjukurpa or Jukurrpa (James 2009; Preuss and Dixon 2012; Curran et al . 2019; Williams 2019). Tjukurpa encompasses ancestral stories that criss‐cross the land, containing knowledge, responsibilities and cultural Law that guides relationships with people, places, plants and animals that occur in non‐linear continuous time and often over large areas (James 2015).…”
Section: Introductionmentioning
confidence: 99%
“…2013; Curran et al . 2019). Indigenous and non‐Indigenous conservation partners have instead focussed on the importance of ‘caring for Country’, which has been the foundation of contemporary Indigenous land and sea management in Australia since the 1980s (Smyth 1994; Davies et al .…”
Section: Introductionmentioning
confidence: 99%
“…James and Treganza 2014;Williams 2019; Fig. 1), but has yet to be fully integrated and accepted broadly in nature conservation literature and on-ground practices (but see Holmes and Jampijinpa 2013;Walsh et al 2013;Curran et al 2019).…”
Summary
Nature conservation in both theory and practice is increasingly looking to understand different knowledge systems, including Indigenous worldviews, to achieve complementary conservation and socio‐cultural goals. Here, we share stories from one of the longest running Indigenous Protected Areas (IPAs), Walalkara IPA, by Langaliki Robin, daughter of the founders of the IPA, who reflected on her parents’ lessons about how Tjukurpa (Dreaming Law) is essential for conservation. Grounded theory analysis of her interview identified the importance of Tjukurpa and the role of Langaliki’s parents, particularly her father Tjilpi Robin Kankapankatja in the establishment of the IPA. Tjukurpa was asserted as a core cultural knowledge system that provides Indigenous people with motivation, strength and well‐being, allowing them to maintain access to Country and work cross‐culturally. Tjukurpa influenced the initial declaration, roads and physical layout of the protected area and continues to guide the daily work activities of IPA rangers. According to Langaliki, the key to maintaining strong people and Country is to pass on cultural knowledge and Tjukurpa from generation to generation, especially to younger people. This research suggested that by knowing who the key knowledge holders are, respecting that Tjukurpa exists without being privy to the details, and continuing multi‐generational access to Country, conservation programmes that embrace Indigenous ways of knowing and doing can achieve successful outcomes for nature conservation and Indigenous well‐being.
“…Tjilpi Robin’s persistence in continually repeating the Tjukurpa to his children is consistent with how oral Indigenous knowledge, stories and songs are maintained (Fernandez‐Llamazares and Cabeza 2018; Curran et al . 2019). Their commitment was also living on Country and leading by example, a key factor in the success of early Walalkara land management work and later, the IPA, according to Laura Mitchell, Will Powrie and Joe Benshemesh, former land management colleagues of the Robin family since the 1990s: ‘Tjilpi and his family proved their legitimacy as nguraṟitja [traditional knowledge custodians] by being on Country, being on the land, and connected to the Tjukurpa.…”
Section: Resultsmentioning
confidence: 99%
“…In the western and central deserts of Australia, Aboriginal people from at least six language groups, including Pitjantjatjara, Yankunytjatjara, Ngaanyatjarra, Pintupi, Luritja and Warlpiri, refer to their Dreaming Law and Songlines of the creation ancestors as Tjukurpa or Jukurrpa (James 2009; Preuss and Dixon 2012; Curran et al . 2019; Williams 2019). Tjukurpa encompasses ancestral stories that criss‐cross the land, containing knowledge, responsibilities and cultural Law that guides relationships with people, places, plants and animals that occur in non‐linear continuous time and often over large areas (James 2015).…”
Section: Introductionmentioning
confidence: 99%
“…2013; Curran et al . 2019). Indigenous and non‐Indigenous conservation partners have instead focussed on the importance of ‘caring for Country’, which has been the foundation of contemporary Indigenous land and sea management in Australia since the 1980s (Smyth 1994; Davies et al .…”
Section: Introductionmentioning
confidence: 99%
“…James and Treganza 2014;Williams 2019; Fig. 1), but has yet to be fully integrated and accepted broadly in nature conservation literature and on-ground practices (but see Holmes and Jampijinpa 2013;Walsh et al 2013;Curran et al 2019).…”
Summary
Nature conservation in both theory and practice is increasingly looking to understand different knowledge systems, including Indigenous worldviews, to achieve complementary conservation and socio‐cultural goals. Here, we share stories from one of the longest running Indigenous Protected Areas (IPAs), Walalkara IPA, by Langaliki Robin, daughter of the founders of the IPA, who reflected on her parents’ lessons about how Tjukurpa (Dreaming Law) is essential for conservation. Grounded theory analysis of her interview identified the importance of Tjukurpa and the role of Langaliki’s parents, particularly her father Tjilpi Robin Kankapankatja in the establishment of the IPA. Tjukurpa was asserted as a core cultural knowledge system that provides Indigenous people with motivation, strength and well‐being, allowing them to maintain access to Country and work cross‐culturally. Tjukurpa influenced the initial declaration, roads and physical layout of the protected area and continues to guide the daily work activities of IPA rangers. According to Langaliki, the key to maintaining strong people and Country is to pass on cultural knowledge and Tjukurpa from generation to generation, especially to younger people. This research suggested that by knowing who the key knowledge holders are, respecting that Tjukurpa exists without being privy to the details, and continuing multi‐generational access to Country, conservation programmes that embrace Indigenous ways of knowing and doing can achieve successful outcomes for nature conservation and Indigenous well‐being.
“…Dreaming tracks often extend across the territories of neighboring groups and some traverse the entire continent. These songline networks form mental maps that link locations, people, and resources in space and can only be traversed by memorizing the appropriate song cycles [17, 64, 21] in a tradition often described as “singing up” the landscape [23]. Stars and constellations are then used to build star maps facilitating travel along dreaming tracks [59, 58, 31].…”
Two defining features of human sociality are large brains with neurally-dense cerebral cortices and the propensity to form complex social networks with non-kin. Large brains and the social networks in which they are embedded facilitate flows of fitness-enhancing information at multiple scales, but are also energetically expensive. In this paper, we consider how flows of energy and information interact to shape the macroscopic features of hunter-gatherer socioecology. Collective computation is the processing of information by complex adaptive systems to generate inferences in order to solve adaptive problems. In hunter-gatherer societies the adaptive problem is how to maximize fitness by optimizing information processing given the energy constraints of complex environments. The solution is the emergent macroscopic structure of the socioecology. Here, we show how computation is extended across social networks to form the decentralized knowledge systems characteristic of hunter-gatherer societies. Data show that hunter-gatherer bands of co-residing families constitute computationally powerful networks that are embedded within hierarchically modular social networks that form complex metapopulations bound by fission-fusion dynamics at multiple scales facilitating the flow of information far beyond local interactions. These dynamics lead to the emergence of hunter-gatherer small-worlds where highly clustered local interactions are embedded within much larger, but sparsely connected metapopulations. Hunter-gatherers optimize local energy budgets in small groups but maintain interactions with much larger social net-works while avoiding many of the ecological costs.
Advancing research and practice that recognize diverse worldviews, knowledge systems, and value orientations is essential to enable transformative change towards sustainability. Biocultural approaches recognize the diverse ways in which people relate to nature, offering a potential pathway for sustainability transformations. However, recent scholarship on biocultural approaches to sustainability has highlighted that social aspects such as equity and justice have not been substantively addressed, whereby gender issues have been overlooked to a great extent.
Through qualitative content analysis, this review synthesizes the conceptualizations of gender and social difference within the literature on biocultural approaches to sustainability published in English and Spanish.
The biocultural literature predominantly focuses on describing knowledge and management practices, neglecting power and gender relations that affect access and control over resources, and how different axes of social difference matter across different social‐ecological contexts. Overall, we found that gender considerations within the literature reviewed do not build upon feminist and gender theories.
Based on these findings, we provide insights into how more nuanced engagements, especially in relation to feminist theories and tools as intersectionality and decolonial perspectives, can allow for more just scholarly efforts to address biocultural relations.
Finally, we draw attention to responsible and engaged praxis towards promoting biocultural approaches that include the diverse perspectives of those who can contribute to transformative change, and which prevent the reinforcement of gender‐based power relations.
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