Planning and
Evaluating Livelihoods in Land
The research
Michael LaFlamme is working with Aboriginal groups in desert
Australia to develop a method, or set of tools, for them to design
and manage innovative livelihoods in land management and caring for
country. This method will make it easier for agencies,
organisations and businesses to support Aboriginal ideas, and for
local groups to organise, communicate and test those ideas in
practice. The method uses many different types of evidence,
including Aboriginal stories and paintings,
internationally-validated livelihood planning frameworks, and
participatory modelling of detailed systems, to build robust yet
flexible evidence-based models.
The tools will enable cross-cultural
and inter-generational groups to work together to identify:
- Ways to express traditional values
and aspirations through contemporary livelihoods
- Clear links between land management
strategies and benefits to country, family well-being, education,
language, governance, health, and other values
- How outside support, in partnership
with local capabilities, consistently impacts on those
benefits
- Ways to integrate multiple
livelihoods to increase community resilience to frequently changing
conditions;
- Evidence of the value of Aboriginal
land management not just for Aboriginal people and land management
agencies, but for other groups including mainstream Australia,
business, and government.
Why this research?
Desert Aboriginal people today face a new and changing array of
political, environmental, social and cultural conditions and
stressors. There are many short-term examples of successful remote
Aboriginal livelihoods, but few sustained examples. This
presents remote groups with a creative challenge. Developing
diverse sustainable livelihoods will require longer-term, closer
and more flexible working relationships between all engaged groups.
It also requires very clear links between local aspirations, agency
policy outcomes, and national indicators.
Policy-makers are showing growing interest in Aboriginal
livelihoods in land management. For some decades, policymakers and
researchers in Aboriginal affairs have recognised that successful
policies require two-way engagement and mutual
accountability. However, in Australia, Aboriginal policies still
tend to foreground Euro-Australian values, rules, language,
governance and ways of organising knowledge. They also tend to
originate from outside of Aboriginal society. As Rose Kunoth-Monks
said at the 2006 Desert Knowledge Symposium, “One of our
problems is that everyone else is trying to think of the solutions
for us instead of resourcing us to learn lessons and make mistakes
on our own.”
Expected Outcomes
This research will provide evidence-based models that will
assist outside investors and remote groups to work together to
develop livelihoods that benefit Aboriginal people and Australia.
This will include the following outputs:
1. Detailed
planning methods to link local stories and paintings with
livelihood frameworks and computer models, to sustain benefits in
changing environments
2. An
analysis of government policies and budgets to show connections and
disconnections between Aboriginal aspirations, policies and
national demand
3.
Scientific support for the value of Aboriginal worldviews for
integrating a wide variety of benefits for communities and for
Australia
4. A
framework that shows the value of using Aboriginal worldviews in
designing desert livelihoods.
Participants
- Michael is working across the Livelihoods inLand project, with
fellow researchers including Karissa Preuss, Jane Walker, Fiona Walsh, Josie Douglas
and others.
- He is developing these tools in partnership with remote
communities and service organizations under the guidance of an
active reference group.
- This research synthesizes much previous work with Aboriginal
landowners and links to a large body of current research.
- A reference group which includes people from Commonwealth and
Northern Territory government departments and Aboriginal
agencies.
Research links:
Livelihoods
inland: Publications and Links
