Transforming cross‐cultural water research through trust, participation and place

Woodward, Emma; McTaggart, Patricia Marrfurra

doi:10.1111/1745-5871.12136

Cited by 29 publications

(42 citation statements)

References 49 publications

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“…Australian research has made important contributions to this literature, highlighting the differences between indigenous and settler Australian water relations (Gibbs, 2006;Jackson, 2006;Rose, 2004;Toussaint, Sullivan & Yu, 2005;Weir, 2009;Woodward & McTaggart, 2016). Broadly, indigenous understandings of water are relational, based on 'an ontology of interconnection, reciprocity, and responsibility, in which landscape is living and life giving, inseparable from human existence' (Gibbs, 2010, p.365; see also Bawaka et al, 2013).…”

Section: Relational Perspectives On Watermentioning

confidence: 99%

Irrigator relations with water in the Sunraysia region, northwestern Victoria

Head

Klocker

Dun

et al. 2017

Geographical Research

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Irrigated agriculture faces significant challenges under climate change, and may not be feasible in parts of the Murray‐Darling Basin beyond 2050. Recent research into the cultural politics of water has paid limited attention to the water cultures and relations of irrigators in Minority World countries. We analyse the water relations of grape farm irrigators in the Sunraysia region of Victoria using interviews and farm tours undertaken between 2014 and 2016. Findings are summarised under five themes: (1) the sociality of irrigation water, (2) temporal and spatial relations, (3) the risk of rain, (4) the micro‐scale of water knowledge, and (5) environment as actor. These themes shed light on the diverse relations that constitute both environmental and irrigation water. Irrigators are embedded in these relations at multiple scales, local and distant, mediated by technology and infrastructure. The scale of our focus makes visible water and other forms of environmental knowledge that often go unnoticed in broader debates over irrigation. The concept of “the environment”, understood as an embodied actor in policy discourse and by irrigators, is an emergent trend that warrants ongoing research attention.

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Section: Relational Perspectives On Watermentioning

confidence: 99%

Irrigator relations with water in the Sunraysia region, northwestern Victoria

Head

Klocker

Dun

et al. 2017

Geographical Research

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“…Participation was voluntary, and participants could withdraw from the project and any project activities at any time. This project process recognised the importance of building trust, relationships, and placebased learning (Woodward & McTaggart, 2016). The project facilitated Indigenous leadership by providing space for Traditional Owners within the planning process to address each group's key concerns about a changing climate related to the natural resources sector; develop some strategies to address these for inclusion in the adaptation plan; and identify the conditions that affect their adaptation responses.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Protecting what is left after colonisation: embedding climate adaptation planning in traditional owner narratives

Lyons

Hill

Deshong

et al. 2020

Geographical Research

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In this case study, Traditional Owners in the Great Barrier Reef identified that protecting what is left of Indigenous material culture and socio-cultural relationships provides the best approach to climate adaptation planning. Protecting what is left supports decolonising and strengthens Indigenous customary practices and governance, thereby supporting their strategies for cultural renewal and survival. AbstractClimate change is disproportionally affecting Indigenous peoples' livelihoods across the globe. Despite this fact, climate adaptation planning and responses are not immediate concerns for most Indigenous people, whose key challenges are deeply embedded in colonial history. Through collaborative research centred on climate adaptation planning with the Yuibera and Koinmerburra Traditional Owner groups on the Great Barrier Reef catchments, we demonstrate that Traditional Owners' primary concerns are in aligning the climate adaptation opportunity with their own strategies for Indigenous cultural renewal and survival. Their Indigenous identity generates a responsibility to protect cultural landscapes, sites, and their connections with these places. In this case study, to "protect what is left" of Indigenous material culture and socio-cultural relationships emerged as the best approach to climate adaptation planning, providing both the decolonisation narrative and the means to strengthen their Indigenous practices. Planning for climate change adaptation is useful for Indigenous peoples when it supports decolonising, strengthens Indigenous customary practices, and recognises customary governance.

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“…Detailed methods by which the co-authors and senior Aboriginal knowledge-holders subsequently partnered to document and compile local seasonal calendars of aquatic resource use, are described elsewhere (13,32). Participatory research methods were adopted, and due to the relatively long time frame of research engagement (over three years) and healthy project resourcing, the research partnerships were able to evolve slowly as trust between partners built, responding to the interests and concerns of all participants involved (13).…”

Section: Methods: Co-developing the Seasonal Calendarmentioning

confidence: 99%

Co-developing Indigenous seasonal calendars to support ‘healthy Country, healthy people’ outcomes

Woodward

McTaggart²

2019

Glob Health Promot

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In caring for Country, Indigenous Australians draw on laws, knowledge and customs that have been inherited from ancestors and ancestral beings, to ensure the continued health of lands and seas with which they have a traditional attachment or relationship. This is a reciprocal relationship, whereby land is understood to become wild/sick if not managed by its people, and in turn individuals and communities suffer without a maintained connection to Country. It is well understood by Indigenous people that if you ‘look after country, country will look after you’. Indigenous knowledge systems that underpin the local care (including use and management) of Country are both unique and complex. These knowledge systems have been built through strong observational, practice-based methods that continue to be enacted and tested, and have sustained consecutive generations by adapting continually, if incrementally, to the local context over time. This paper describes a research partnership that involved the sharing and teaching of Ngan’gi Aboriginal ecological knowledge in order to reveal and promote the complex attachment of Ngan’gi language speakers of the Daly River, Australia, to water places. This engagement further led to the incremental co-development of an Indigenous seasonal calendar of aquatic resource use. The seasonal calendar emerged as an effective tool for supporting healthy Country, healthy people outcomes. It did this by facilitating the communication of resource management knowledge and connection with water-dependent ecosystems both inter-generationally within the Ngan’gi language group, as well as externally to non-Indigenous government water resource managers. The Indigenous seasonal calendar form has subsequently emerged as a tool Indigenous language groups are independently engaging with to document and communicate their own knowledge and understanding of Country, to build recognition and respect for their knowledge, and to make it accessible to future generations.

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Transforming cross‐cultural water research through trust, participation and place

Cited by 29 publications

References 49 publications

Irrigator relations with water in the Sunraysia region, northwestern Victoria

Irrigator relations with water in the Sunraysia region, northwestern Victoria

Protecting what is left after colonisation: embedding climate adaptation planning in traditional owner narratives

Co-developing Indigenous seasonal calendars to support ‘healthy Country, healthy people’ outcomes

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