Capital assets and intercultural borderlands: socio-cultural challenges for natural resource management

Abstract

In their design or implementation, many natural resource management (NRM) programs ignore critical socio-cultural dimensions of the challenge to advance sustainability. Building on particular ideas about culture and human ecosystems, we combine the strengths of the capital assets model of sustainability and the idea of intercultural borderlands to respond to this gap. To advance our thesis about the utility of these tools, we critically reviewed and analysed a cross-disciplinary literature relating to the socio-cultural dimensions of NRM. This paper stems from that labour and examines particular tensions that arise in land management as a result of Australians' speci®c colonial and postcolonial legacies. These tensionsÐrelated to ethnicity, gender, population, age and healthÐare among the threads in the larger tapestry that comprises the socio-cultural dimensions of NRM. For the Australian case, they are central, longstanding and persistent, and thus worthy of analysis; and they are applicable in general terms to other places with similar histories of settlement and land use.

Explaining landholders' decisions about riparian zone management: The role of behavioural, normative, and control beliefs

“…It also points to the critical role of beliefs as antecedents to intentions and behaviour and highlights the need for research to identify the salient beliefs associated with sustainable practices. As Stratford and Davidson (2002) argue, there has been a lack of appreciation in natural resource management of how social factors shape responses to sustainability policies and recommendations. It follows that policies and programs that promote the use of specific sustainable practices, but do not recognise or acknowledge the beliefs that are associated with the practices and how these may impact on landholders' decisions, may have limited success.…”

Towards Equity in Indigenous Co-Management of Protected Areas: Cultural Planning by Miriuwung-Gajerrong People in the Kimberley, Western Australia

“…This analysis corroborates the findings of previous research in relation to many of the design concepts including the role of bridging organisations like the Park Council (Berkes, 2009), participatory planning on country (Walsh and Mitchell, 2002), payment of traditional owners (Robinson et al ., 2005), and of people capable of negotiating effective human relationships (Natcher et al ., 2005). However, the concept of intercultural spaces, and the role of Indigenous‐controlled planning in enabling these to emerge, have received little attention in co‐management (Hibbard et al ., 2008; Stratford and Davidson, 2002). The nature of intercultural spaces, created and affected by encounters between Indigenous and non‐Indigenous societies with distinct cultural backgrounds, is gaining attention in relation to Indigenous policy analysis both globally and in Australia (Merlan, 2005; Synott, 2003).…”

Diversifying Ethnicity in Australia's Population and Environment Debates

“…Similarly, while rural geographers in Australia (as in the UK) have begun to debunk suggestions that rural areas are devoid of ethnic diversity (Askins 2009;Panelli et al 2009;Dufty and Liu 2011), research on sustainable land and natural resource management practices has scarcely engaged with this theme (Stratford and Davidson 2002;Missingham et al 2006). Yet, as Alston (2004, p. 40) has noted, 'there is a great deal of ethnic diversity in [Australian] farm families', and this has been present for some time.…”