Paradigms, paradoxes and a propitious niche: conservation and Indigenous social justice policy in Australia

Moorcroft, Heather

doi:10.1080/13549839.2014.1000286

Cited by 19 publications

(21 citation statements)

References 23 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Unclassified

Order By: Relevance

“…In building what seem to be positive relationships with National Parks and environmentalists, Wiradjuri people are rewriting narratives of engagement with institutions that have been interpreted as marginalising or deeply colonising Indigenous knowledges elsewhere (Howitt, ; Rose, ). National parks in Australia were first introduced unilaterally by the settling state in a social and cultural context of deep conflict with Indigenous peoples and official state policies of protectionism that intended to segregate social groups (Moorcroft, ). National parks were an arm of the settling state to further territorial control and attempt to legitimate colonial power.…”

Section: Discussion: Shadow Watersmentioning

confidence: 99%

Shadow waters: Making Australian water cultures visible

McLean

Lonsdale²,

Hammersley

et al. 2018

Trans Inst British Geog

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Connections between people and water have received considerable attention within geographic research. This paper draws on cultural and historical geographies, political ecology and the environmental humanities to extend understandings of the hydrosocial cycle by focusing on the cultural dimensions of society–water relations through the concept of shadow waters. Shadow waters centres attention on the cultures that privilege certain waters while rendering other waters invisible and marginalised. Inspired by Val Plumwood's notion of “shadow places,” shadow waters brings to light the way power intersects with cultural practices. We bring this concept of shadow waters into conversation with Indigenous water knowledges. Shadow waters can be conceptualised vertically, with surface water receiving more policy and research attention than ground water, and also horizontally, as some sub‐catchments, uses and values have been ignored or undervalued in macro‐catchment processes. Temporally, in considering the past, complex and contested histories of human–environment relations are often overlooked in favour of simple historical narratives that ultimately reinforce dominant management structures and trajectories. Shadow waters are thus historically created as particular power structures and narratives are reinforced and “normalised” over time. This paper examines shadow waters in southeastern Australia, elucidating the way two rivers are interwoven and co‐determined in cultures of water use in this context. We show how the rethinking of dominant water cultures, made possible by cross‐cultural engagement, generates new possibilities for reconnection, restoration and protection; a different water ethics based on care and responsibility that addresses power relations and injustices.

show abstract

Section: Discussion: Shadow Watersmentioning

confidence: 99%

Shadow waters: Making Australian water cultures visible

McLean

Lonsdale²,

Hammersley

et al. 2018

Trans Inst British Geog

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…This dual management proposal is following trends in the rest of Australia toward increasing Indigenous involvement and agency in protected land management (Adams 2004, Moorcroft 2016.…”

Section: The Marginalizing Of Aboriginal Tasmaniansmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Put in twenty-first century terms, Indigenous activism calls for the decolonizing of the wilderness paradigm; conservation must be thought about in connection to Indigenous social justice (Moorcroft 2016). Decolonization involves a set of processes which identify and challenge the aspects of colonialism that persist in relations between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians and in the construction of Australia's identity and social institutions (Howitt 1998, 33).…”

Section: Decolonizing Wildernessmentioning

confidence: 99%

Black Country, White Wilderness: Conservation, Colonialism, and Conflict in Tasmania

Ross¹

2017

Journal for Undergraduate Ethnography

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

In 2015, Tasmania's land management plan for the expansive Wilderness World Heritage Area, covering around a fifth of the entire island of south and central Tasmania, was dramatically revised. The new plan expanded dual management of the area with Aboriginal Tasmanians and the Tasmanian state through the creation of an Aboriginal Cultural Business Unit that would generate financial management opportunities for Aboriginals. However, Aboriginal perspectives on the meaning of land often conflicted with white conservationists' wilderness values of remoteness and isolation. In this article, I argue that the reactions from white conservationists to the new plan are illustrative of a wilderness ideology that attempts to limit interactions with nature and consequently marginalizes Aboriginals. Reflexivity is an important aspect of this paper as these critiques of conservation are also critiques of my own beliefs and identity, and my reactions to what I encountered in this research add a layer that would have been absent otherwise. Through reflexive analysis of interviews and participant observation with individuals from environmental organizations, the Tasmanian government, the timber industry, tourism, and an Aboriginal corporation, along with printed materials and websites connected to the Wilderness World Heritage Area, I show that conservationists in Tasmania perpetuate colonial desires and white privilege at the expense of Tasmanian Aboriginals through the racialized ideology of wilderness.

show abstract

“…The historical trajectory of legislative entitlements and agreement provisions has seen Indigenous owned lands, protected areas or otherwise, now comprise a quarter of the Australian continent. Yet, in many cases, the notion of country (and social justice) is being undermined by conservation frameworks that contest Indigenous governance in favour of the protection of nature (Moorcroft ).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…It is in the claims of a nature-culture "universalism per se that we see the roots of injustice" (Howitt and Suchet-Pearson 2006:324). According to Marx (1976), in the struggle to control nature, people are increasingly alienated from lands through the process of production. Indigenous societies, where production systems are scaffolded with social capital or reciprocity, were generally not considered to possess the ability to alienate in the same way (Marx 1976); rather, Indigenous peoples are subject to alienation when the values of their exchange economies are conditionally lost via their participation of, and co-optation into, non-Indigenous protected area narratives.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Protected Areas, Country and Value: The Nature–Culture Tyranny of the IUCN's Protected Area Guidelines for Indigenous Australians

Lee

2015

Antipode

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

“Protected areas” is the formal definition for the global network of conservation places, including marine and terrestrial reserves, which are overseen by the IUCN through instruments such as the Guidelines for Applying Protected Area Management Categories (Guidelines). In the long‐term conservation of nature, the Guidelines embed a nature–culture dualism, upon which the values of each are ascribed and weighted. This binary does not recognise relational values of Indigenous peoples to land or encompass worldviews beyond the restricted choice of the dualism. Through two Australian Aboriginal case studies, I reveal tensions in classifying cultural values for protected areas under the limited Guidelines offerings and provide an alternative engagement, through reassessing the means and scope by which values are assigned, for greater equity to Indigenous peoples.

show abstract

Paradigms, paradoxes and a propitious niche: conservation and Indigenous social justice policy in Australia

Cited by 19 publications

References 23 publications

Shadow waters: Making Australian water cultures visible

Shadow waters: Making Australian water cultures visible

Black Country, White Wilderness: Conservation, Colonialism, and Conflict in Tasmania

Protected Areas, Country and Value: The Nature–Culture Tyranny of the IUCN's Protected Area Guidelines for Indigenous Australians

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About