Protocols, particularities, and problematising Indigenous ‘engagement’ in community-based...

Protocols, particularities, and problematisingIndigenous ‘engagement’ in community-based

environmental management in settled Australiageoj_355 199..213

JENNIFER CARTERSchool of Social Sciences, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, University of the Sunshine Coast,

MAROOCHYDORE DC, Qld, 4558, AustraliaEmail: [email protected]

This paper was accepted for publication in January 2010

Many Aboriginal Australians in regional and urban Australia hold attachments to their homelandsthat have been compromised by policies of removal and dispossession. Government agencies andcommunity groups have ‘protocols’ for engaging with Aboriginal communities, but these protocolshave been transferred from remote parts of Australia where land tenure and rights are relativelysecure and people can readily claim their community of belonging. The efficacy and applicabilityof engagement protocols are rarely evaluated, and have not been evaluated with respect to thediffering tenure regimes of settled Australia under which rights to land and its resources remaincontested and unfolding. This paper describes research conducted in three study areas of regionalAustralia, where resource management practitioners apply projects according to engagement pro-tocols transferred from remote Australia. Analysis of government and community-based documents,and interviews with agency staff and Aboriginal people, identifies that genuine participation,cultural awareness, agreement-making, appropriate representation and the unique place-basedfactors affecting engagement remain key barriers to effective engagement with Aboriginal people byinstitutions in urbanising Australia. In particular, appropriate representation and a need for place-based approaches emerge as critical to engagement in settled Australia. This paper recommends thatengagement be considered as a multi-layered approach in which generic ‘engagement’ threads areselected and re-selected in different combinations to suit contexts, places and purposes. Thus eachplace-based engagement initiative is not readily typified at the local scale, but taken together, makeup a regional mosaic of different engagement structures and processes.

KEY WORDS: Indigenous Australians, engagement, protocols, community-basedenvironmental management

Introduction

The complexities of Aboriginal place attachment insettled Australia

Aboriginal people throughout Australia areincreasingly wanting, or being asked, toengage with a variety of institutional initia-

tives, but historical and social processes of removaland marginalisation have profoundly affected Aborigi-nal people in settled1 parts of Australia. The majority ofAboriginal people now live in metropolitan andregional areas, and do not have land tenure recogn-ised over their traditional lands (HRSCATSIA 1992).

’Segregation’ and ‘protection’ policies were intro-duced in Australia from the mid-1800s under the guise

of working in the interests of Aboriginal people, fol-lowing dispossession and the introduced diseasesthat led to their drastically reduced population(Hollinsworth 2006). For example, the QueenslandAboriginals Protection and Restriction of the Sale ofOpium Act, passed in 1897, gave extraordinarypowers over Aboriginal people to government admin-istrators and police. These included powers to removeAboriginal people from their land, to demolishhousing, to regulate labour and commandeer wages,to incarcerate on locked reserves and missions, to bantraditional languages and religions, and to separatefamily members (Donovan 2002). Later policy objec-tives of assimilation frequently retained much of thisauthoritarianism, and pressured people to break upfringe communities and move to towns. Many

The Geographical Journal, Vol. 176, No. 3, September 2010, pp. 199–213, doi: 10.1111/j.1475-4959.2010.00355.x

The Geographical Journal Vol. 176 No. 3, pp. 199–213, 2010 © 2010 The Author(s). Journal compilation © 2010 The Royal Geographical Society

Aboriginal people were stolen away as children, oftenplaced in institutions, or with foster or adoptiveparents, and are today still establishing connections toland and family. Others were denied knowledge oftheir Aboriginality, after their predecessors had signedcertificates of exemption (Haebich 2000).

Aboriginal people have to date had to prove their‘connection’ to specific tracts of land, under recentsettler legislation, in order to assert their resourcerights and interests. Yet many of the ‘Stolen Genera-tions’ are still discovering, or unable to claim, anyconnection because these historical processes of dis-placement and protection over the period of coloni-sation forced them from their traditional lands ontodistant reserves where they or their descendants reside(Byrne 2003; Hollinsworth 2006; Howitt 2006).

Many Indigenous people now dispersed acrossrural towns and regional areas retain strong sharedcultural, land and historical identities (Hunt and Smith2006). The inter-generational legacy of dispossession,removal, enforced cultural change and familybreak-up continues to complicate Aboriginal efforts toestablish connections to land and have these recogn-ised by non-Aboriginal and other Aboriginal people(Hollinsworth 2006). An inability to prove connectionto ‘country’ results in loss of access to culturallysignificant places, associated duties and rights, andagency refusal to recognise these places as significant,reinforcing the poor understanding within the non-Aboriginal society of the ongoing attachments to land(Byrne and Nugent 2004; Howitt 2006). It elicits verydiverse responses about claims to participation innatural and cultural heritage, with an assumed andmostly incorrect perception on the part of someagency staff, of a weaker attachment to country of themany people removed from their homelands.

Ultimately, and in this context of settled Australia,many Aboriginal people may retain profound placeattachments to ancestral lands, while not physicallyremaining on their ancestral lands or during moretemporary migrations to cities for employment, healthcare or other needs. Some Aboriginal residents notresident on their homelands because of the ongoingand inter-generational effects of these policies wish towork in cultural and natural heritage because of pro-fessional qualifications, personal interest or intermar-riage. Those who have formal qualifications, skills orexperience, for example, in environmental manage-ment, sometimes wish to apply these qualificationswhere they now reside, but may suffer from lackof recognition by their ‘adopted’ community. Thecomplex mix of social and historical processes ofcommunity and connection are still unravelling, cre-ating new identities such as ‘traditional’ and ‘histori-cal’ Indigenous residents that add to the existing mixof intra-group relations (Bauman and Williams 2004).Lane and Corbett (2005) describe both custodialclaims to engagement in community-based environ-mental management (CBEM), based on people’s cul-

tural knowledges and practices, and locational claimsthat are a result of the social and historical processesof removal to other places. Yet the dominant institu-tional discourse privileges traditional authority inmanaging the environment (Carter and Hollinsworth2009).

There are some successful examples of cross-cultural CBEM conducted on lands where Aboriginalpeople won land rights through political struggle2

some decades ago (Kennett 1997; Gambold 2001;Nesbitt et al. 2001; Garnett et al. 2009). Genericmodels and protocols of engagement have beendeveloped for these remote regions of Australia wheretenure has been secured. These same models are notappropriate for less remote places. Land tenure acrossAustralia is complex and its contestation unfolding,complicating the ability to design governancearrangements (Altman and Finlayson 1992). In par-ticular, in regions that are rapidly urbanising, thelegacy of dispossession and removal of Aboriginalpeople complicates identifying and contacting rel-evant people (Agius et al. 2007).

The Commonwealth Native Title Act 1993 (NTA)and its subsequent amendments set up a judicialprocess for determining Indigenous rights to use,manage, and control land resources. The judicialprocess requires that claimants demonstrate theirongoing connection to the land where native titlerights have not been extinguished by deliberative gov-ernment actions (Agius et al. 2002). A claimant groupmust have their claims authorised, then registered, bythe National Native Title Tribunal and Federal Court ofAustralia by satisfying threshold tests set out in theNTA. Leaseback of transferred lands, joint ventures,joint management, employment, site protection andcultural tourism can be negotiated by consent as anIndigenous Land Use Agreement (ILUA) under theauspices of the NTA where native title is subject toclaim (Langton et al. 2004). Agreements take differentforms depending on the status of the native title claimand other interested parties and issues. Most tradi-tional owners3 are unable to meet these strict criteria,especially in settled Australia. Development threatensland claims processes that may not yet be registeredwith the Federal Court, or have yet to be determined.Yet the models of engagement are simply transferredfrom regions where tenure, connection, identities andother social and historical processes that have shapedthat community are vastly different (Bauman and Wil-liams 2004; Hemming 2006).

The complex historical and social layers thatcombine differently in different places present chal-lenges to government and private sector agencieswishing to engage with Aboriginal residents in settledAustralia. The full implications of these challengeswithin differing contexts are yet to be articulatedwithin prescriptive agency engagement protocolsthat are uncritically transferred, as though a universalintercultural engagement process is possible, even

200 Protocols, particularities, and problematising Indigenous ‘engagement’


desirable. Deeper understandings of how thesemyriad influences and interests articulate withinnatural and cultural resource management is yet to befully realised (MDBC 2003; Jackson et al. 2005).

The changing landscape of participation,engagement and protocol

The discourse of engagement has displaced that ofparticipation and participatory processes (Measham etal. 2009). Originally envisioned as a more emancipa-tory approach to increase community power andpromote community ownership (Arnstein 1969), par-ticipation (now read as engagement) is often criticisedas simply co-opting people into predeterminedresearch and activity (Few 2002; Pugh 2005; Quaghe-beur et al. 2004). Yet planning evolved to includegreater public participation as a result of its inherentlypolitical nature (Jackson 1997). Ross et al. (2002,205–6) suggest that ‘there is little recognition thatempowerment is not about a transfer of power per se,but a challenge to existing power structures whichneed to change’. They expand the original lineal par-ticipation model of Arnstein and others into a matrixof power, agency, tenure and the nature or partici-pants, task and duration. This paper addresses tenureas a critical factor to participation that remains largelyunaddressed in Indigenous CBEM.

The switch from participation to ‘engagement’remains obscure, repetitive and not easily called toaccount. For example, terms such as ‘respect’, ‘trust’,‘culturally appropriate’, ‘reciprocity’, ‘ownership’,‘empowerment’, ‘devolution’ and ‘inclusiveness’ arenot defined, or are used in an idiosyncratic fashionto frame the ‘success’ of community engagement,without critical evaluation (Hollinsworth and Carter2006). Indicators and deliverables are reportedbut are frequently meaningless to the ‘engaged’(O’Faircheallaigh 2004; Carter 2008). At the sametime, communities, in particular Indigenous commu-nities, experience consultation fatigue under com-pletely unrealistic and uncoordinated demands fortheir participation and advice in engagement forums(Whelan and Oliver 2005; Carter et al. 2006). Themore recent ‘partnership’ rhetoric, too, has a dangerthat government simply consolidates its control; orpromotes entrepreneurial individuals who representthemselves and their organisations as the legitimateauthority and establish priorities and arrangements onbehalf of unrepresented groups (Craig et al. 2000;Willis 1995; Martin 1997 2001; Folds 2001; Cowl-ishaw 1999 2004). Eventually, governments legitimatea more ‘interventionist’ approach to service deliveryby labelling community ‘resistance’ and ‘unwilling-ness’ to participate in ‘their’ engagement process(Campbell et al. 2005).

Land management agencies, mining companiesand developers legally are obliged to consider culturalheritage implications, water allocation planning pro-

cesses, and research triggers a plethora of institutionsexpressing their need to engage with Aboriginalpeople over their land and resources. There are formalstructures and processes for engaging with Aboriginalpeople held by government, non-government and thecommercial sector, particularly in planning initiatives.Some agencies now have ‘guidelines’ or ‘protocols’.Protocols can be thought of as the ‘rules of engage-ment’, but they tend to be generic and are often setout as a set of prescriptive steps. They detail a range ofprocedures, for example, methods of contact, personswith whom to ‘engage’; mechanisms for engagementsuch as meetings and their frequency; conflict resolu-tion techniques; disclosure of risk; the storage andaccess of cultural heritage information; training; andmonitoring requirements. Their efficacy and applica-bility are rarely evaluated at the operational level(Carter 2008).

Frequently, engagement with Aboriginal people isseen merely as a time-bound obligation to be com-pleted in line with these protocols. Engagement israrely seen as a long-term, multi-layered moral andrelational commitment to redressing social inequali-ties, not only as statistical indicators but on localAboriginal terms (Howitt and Suchet-Pearson 2006;Suchet-Pearson and Howitt 2006; Carter and Hill2007; Altman 2009; Marika et al. 2009). Many outsideagencies are struggling to understand how to imple-ment a project, doing it badly (intentionally or unin-tentionally), or simply avoiding engagement withAboriginal people because it is ‘too hard’ (Carter andHollinsworth 2009).

In many cases, even the procedures for public participa-tion and indigenous inclusion championed by regulatorsand change advocates are constraining and conditional.

Howitt and Suchet-Pearson (2006, 49)

This paper argues that formalising and codifyingengagement relations and processes within static andprescriptive ‘protocols’ will counter any potentialbenefits it seeks, unless protocols are discursively,epistemologically and ontologically examined(following Howitt and Suchet-Pearson 2006; Suchet-Pearson and Howitt 2006), because they ignore thelocal nuances and ongoing processes that continue tomake places (Palmer 2006).

In particular, agencies may not recognise the place-based specificity of Aboriginal people’s attachment toancestral country, the associated place-specific rulesand contexts, and the variety of historical and socialrelationships that have shaped that particular culturallandscape. Just as these attachments, rules and rela-tionships are not captured by codified native titlerights in land or rights to negotiate/be consulted overresources, nor are they encapsulated by genericagency ‘protocols of engagement’. The lack of outsideunderstanding and validation of the vastly differingneeds of Aboriginal people for place-based attach-

Protocols, particularities, and problematising Indigenous ‘engagement’ 201

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ment processes hinders the ability of Aboriginalpeople to engage in environmental and culturalresource management, and may result in less success-ful project implementation from the perspective ofexternal agencies. In effect, the purposes and ultimateadvantages of genuine engagement, which shoulddeliver mutual benefits to all parties, are lost.

More importantly, current protocols are rarelydesigned by the Aboriginal community for the place atwhich the engagement is to be conducted. Applyingbroad-based generic protocols to specific localities inwhich development, research or intervention is tooccur often relies on notions that are outdated orincorrect and hinder project implementation and part-nerships. Many ‘traits’ and preferences have been gen-eralised as stereotypes in ways that lose their localspecificity. For example, some communities choose toavoid display of photographs of the dead, while inother communities in Cape York Peninsula, such pho-tographs were valued as ‘a memory to them’ (tradi-tional owner, February 2001). Other widely used andexpected protocols, such as gender specificity forcertain tasks and relationships, did not apply (tradi-tional owners, May 1996; October 1999). Similarly,presumptions that Aboriginal people would not workwithin western notions of time were similarly dis-missed by Aboriginal people working with the author(various traditional owners 1999–2001). This paperdoes not deny that intercultural principles are criticalas overarching frames for intercultural collaboration(e.g. Carter 2008), but does require that these areexamined critically in specific places.

Study areas

The concept of an Aboriginal Australian communityremains the orthodox one of a discrete, geographi-cally and socially contained community, as oftenfound in a remote area (Bauman and Williams 2004;Carter and Hollinsworth 2009). Yet even this notion ofa ‘community’ in a remote area ignores the diversityand divisions that are expressed in a specific localisedstudy area and social grouping (Bauman and Williams2004; Lane and Corbett 2005).

Most ‘engagement’ protocols assume a single entityor forum for decision-making, with which to negoti-ate, yet the vast majority of Queensland Aboriginalpeople are dispersed amongst the broader population,making issues of representation difficult (Hollinsworthand Carter 2006). The Sunshine Coast and Burnett-Mary regions (Figure 1), to the north of Brisbane, aremuch more typical of Aboriginal Australia in that theAboriginal population is thinly spread throughout thenon-Aboriginal Australian population; or may be clus-tered in towns without recognised land rights andother ways of protecting or advocating their meaning-ful participation in natural and cultural resource man-agement (HRSCATSIA 1992). These regions covervarious geographical and historical contexts and situ-

ations, such as places of world heritage listing, placesof relocation from forced removals, rural landscapesand rapidly urbanising landscapes.

Three study areas in these regions were chosen forthis study. The first is Eidsvold, an inland rural town5 h drive from Brisbane where Aboriginal peoplemake up around 20.1% of the population (ABS2006), and tend to be clustered in the town. There islittle movement to adjacent pastoral and other domi-nant industries, such as mining, in this locale, exceptfor limited, intermittent work despite a long involve-ment as workers in these agro-industries in the past.Some younger people were removed to nearby Cher-bourg, an Aboriginal ‘reserve’, in the 1930s and1940s (traditional owner, August 2006). Aboriginalpeople in Eidsvold are particularly interested in con-tinuing employment with graziers, in environmentalrehabilitation, cultural heritage site protection andplanning, and in employment with local authorities.Contested Native Title claims include Wakka WakkaI, and Wakka Wakka II, where Gayndah WakkaWakka, Eidsvold Wakka Wakka and the southernWakka Wakka group are still in dispute about autho-risation and appropriate representation. It is not clearwhether some Aboriginal people’s attachment to the

Figure 1 Locality map showing the relative location of thethree study areas (Hervey Bay, Eidsvold, and the SunshineCoast) to the city of Brisbane and other places named in

the textSource: GeoScience Australia (www.ga.gov.au/

image_cache/GA3029.gif) accessed 20 November 2009



Eidsvold area is pre-contact, or results from a verylong term of post-settlement exclusions and curfews.Residents recollect itinerant drovers camping onstock routes and a ‘shared area’ for neighbouringgroups being always available and not exclusivelyowned by the ‘Wakka Wakka’ (traditional owner,August 2006).

The second study was conducted at Hervey Bay, 4 hdrive from Brisbane, the capital city of Queensland. Inthis coastal town, Aboriginal people make up only a2.6% of the population (ABS 2006) and are dispersedthroughout the wider society, which has a largelyretirement and in-migration dynamic. Their commu-nity is adjacent to World Heritage listed Fraser Island,a major tourism drawcard. Three native title claimsapply to Fraser Island and its surrounds, and overlap intheir spatial boundaries as well as having commonclaimants. The Wondunna Clan, Badtjala Peopleclaim is an application from a group of families claim-ing descent from a single apical ancestor and appliesto a small tract of land on Fraser Island. Applicants forthe second, broader Butchulla People’s native titleclaim (commencing in 1998) have been selected and(re)selected over a series of authorisation meetings aspart of an approved ‘contemporary’ process of deci-sion making4. A third Butchulla Land and Sea claim iscurrently registered, including claimed rights toaccess, hunt, fish, camp, and gather and use naturalproducts on the land.

The third region, the Sunshine Coast, is only100 km north of Brisbane where Aboriginal peoplemake up 1.2% of the population (ABS 2006). Manyparts of the region retain high levels of unemploy-ment, transnational development interests and highland values that combine to cause increasing waves ofdisplacement of Aboriginal, rural and lower socio-economic groups (Carter et al. 2007). There have beenvarious claims over parts of the Sunshine Coastregion, and to date, Kabi Kabi II and Kabi Kabi III arethe registered claims. These groups regularly meet andmay yet seek mediation to combine their strength. Forexample, claimants of both groups recently negoti-ated the Traveston Crossing Dam Indigenous Land UseAgreement (ISP 2007).

Methodology and methods

This research used case studies as a methodologyin order to understand how protocols are applied,received and operationalised in their real-life context.The localised, contextualised nature of this method-ology helps to examine the tensions between region-alism and localism – that is, the tension betweengeneral guidelines and their specific, contextualisedapplication – which is part of the problem underscrutiny in this paper. Government documents arewritten from the perspective of agency staff who mayneed to deal with many areas and the generic nature

of protocols is intended as simply a guide to theirwork. The critical argument in this paper is in itsappeal to add another layer to these generic protocolsto reach the critical, grounded, ‘situated engagement’of Suchet-Pearson and Howitt (2006), and link betteracross the scale politics introduced by the local-regional tension (e.g. Howitt 1997; Sanders 2005;Sullivan 2005; Muller 2008).

Data from a range of sources were synthesised foreach study area. Firstly, document analysis of 17(mostly state) government cross-cultural engagementand protocol guidelines, relevant to these study areas,was undertaken. Key themes were drawn from thesedocuments and are presented in detail below.

Emergent themes were discussed with Aboriginalpeople from each of the three study areas whileattending 14 regional meetings between December2005 and June 2008. At times, comments from otherAboriginal clan group representatives and staff ofAboriginal representative bodies (native title andincorporated associations), local government, stategovernment representatives and non-resident Aborigi-nal people with links to these areas are used to illus-trate a particular perspective on the emergent themesof the document analysis. Additionally, 62 semi-structured interviews were conducted with individualresidents of the three study areas who did not attendmeetings. While visiting the study areas, fivecommunity-written ‘protocol’ documents were analy-sed to supplement the interview data. While datawere analysed separately for each ‘case’, the broad,conceptual results are described below as support forthe underlying argument of this paper, that Indigenousengagement in CBEM needs more thorough consider-ation of local particularities.

The author was invited to conduct the researchon the basis of her development of collaborativeframeworks for engagement in remote parts of Austra-lia during the 1990s (Carter 2008). In line with agreedarrangements for collaborative research, the authorprovided awareness raising brochures and feedbacknewsletters, outlining the research and its ongoingimplications, to distribute across the region as well asreturning regularly to verbally present and gatherfeedback about all research activities. Draft researchdocuments were discussed and community represen-tatives endorsed all materials, and gave permission touse all information.

Results

Five key themes emerged from the research (Table 1):the continuing need for genuine, coordinated partici-pation (including communication); a need for culturalawareness activities; problems with agreement-making; problems with appropriate representation;and in turn, their implications for conducting a place-based approach to Indigenous engagement.



Table 1 Themes that emerged during documentary analysis and the comments of Aboriginal interviewees in relation toeach theme. These are not meant to be compared, as the data sources are different, but to structure the data analysis and

argument in this paper according to these themes

Analysis of government-written protocol documents

Community perspectives (identified throughcommunity-written protocols and semi-structuredinterviews with Aboriginal meeting attendees and

residents of the three study areas)

Genuine, coordinated participationParticipation at all stages including from the outsetValue the investment of time and resources in a process, not just the outcome

(to fulfil government requirements) and re-engineer projects if necessaryNegotiate procedures and processes to followFlexibility in meetings in case of significant eventsUse a feedback and evaluation loop processUse a variety of information sharing methods (e.g. newsletters, focus groups,

online engagement, videoconferencing, negotiation tables, learning circlesand reference groups).

Ensure communication with Native Title Representative bodies about land andwaters.

Telephone or send a letter prior to the visit with expected arrival departuredates, time needed to talk to people, purpose of the visit and who is visitingand what they are doing.

Seek approval before documenting through photography, video etc

Genuine, coordinated participationA lack of coordinated consultation (between traditional

owners and with government), especially about whenand how traditional owners should be approached

Insufficient information to communicate within thecommunity and with others

A need for Aboriginal input to presentations, signageand displays

Repeated requests to different organisations about thesame consultation and communication issues

Cultural awarenessA need for cross-cultural awareness programs between TOs and agenciesElder welcome to country, government to acknowledge traditional ownersA lack of understanding of Aboriginal knowledge and the need for a

knowledge support plan

Cultural awarenessA need for cross-cultural awareness programs between

TOs and agencies and the wider community to helpcollaboration

A need for meeting protocols including elder welcometo country

AgreementsA need for cultural heritage surveys, including language maintenance

programsProtection of sacred sites and proper access to sitesConsult with people about their heritage as it is their property, and may need

to be stored or accessed or used differentlyCultural heritages places and materials need to be consistent with agreed

national frameworksA need to commit adequate resources to support Aboriginal participation in

projectsCompensation (not just money) is needed for loss of culture, sites of

significance and damage to land and water systems

AgreementsAgreements about hunting and gathering animal and

plants (to prevent over-harvesting)

Issues of representationEnsure transparency and accountability, including during selection to forumsDevelop guidelines on who to involve, how to locate them and make contactEnsure representation on decision-making groupsRepresentation implies a responsibility of TOs to communicate about issues

relating to their country

Issues of representationAn agreed selection method for people selected to

employment and training

Place-basedBe consistent in engagement protocols across all government sectorsSeek consensus about how local protocols will be followed during a meetingFollow cultural protocols or preferences about gender involvement, equity and

representation; appropriate ways to communicate; and authority to speakAcknowledge government planning areas are different from clan boundaries

and decision-makingPlans should include information about the region’s Aboriginal interests,

heritage and history and their interests in natural resourcesRecognise that protocols vary with time and space; focus on the local

communityBuild long-term partnerships, including with the wider Aboriginal community/

historical people and share responsibilities

Place-basedProtocols are a guide, they do not replace consultation

and participation



Genuine, coordinated participation

Despite decades of literature around participation andengagement, this research shows a clear finding thatgenuine participation remains elusive. There weresubstantial generic rules for, or interests in, participa-tion evident across the government documents anddiscourse, indicating in-principle support for Indig-enous engagement in CBEM. Yet government proto-cols were criticised as banal, not legally binding andnot embedded in agency practice. For example,people explained that protocols ‘are no good – wecan’t make anybody talk to Aboriginal people’ (tradi-tional owner, August 2006, emphasis original). Thiscomment was made in frustration that their represen-tative community-based body had its own set of pro-tocols that no persons outside the study area heededwhen a CBEM initiative was undertaken.

From community perspectives, there is no ‘reci-procity’ in relationships, implying that governmentagencies might involve people in more substantiveways, and be prepared to assist with a range of mattersin response to voluntary community participation,rather than what may be criticised as tokenistic par-ticipation. Part of reciprocity is regular communica-tion including transparent answers to ‘who owns theseplans when they are finished, where are they availableand who controls their use?’ (traditional owner, July2007).

Community members were frustrated at an appar-ent lack of listening by government staff to repeatedrequests about important issues. Interviewees con-tinue to request tangible outcomes that would enablethem to participate gainfully in future developments.People reported that their ‘real interest is how to getqualifications for projects’, for example landscaping(traditional owner, January 2006), during initiatives intheir study area. They recognise that ‘education is akey problem because people can’t get positionswithout qualifications’ (traditional owner, July 2007).

Despite the in-principle agreement to collaborate,some government officers were concerned aboutinter-government confusion and antagonism whenattempting to coordinate engagement activities. Theymentioned they had ‘been attacked’ by other agenciesfor establishing expectations that those agencies wereunwilling to fulfil – such as coordinating engagementto reduce community fatigue (government officer,August 2006).

Cultural awareness

Both government and community data sources stipu-late that ‘cross-cultural awareness’ be embedded inengagement processes, but further detail is absentfrom this broad principle. Some documents suggestedresource-minimalist protocols, such as an elderwelcome to country5 with no further attention to due

process, and thus failed to recognise existing mecha-nisms of domination embedded within agency–community interaction.

Instead, a type of professional literacy is neededthat is quite separate, and a precursor to, interculturalengagement. Agency education requires more thanembodying essentialised and exoticised pleas to ‘cul-tural difference’; it requires a discursive and criticalreflection on government engagement practice thatcritiques its own entrenched power. These includeanti-racist strategies and pedagogical underpinningsthat critique the ontological nature of, and the needfor, ‘systemic capacities’ in intercultural collaboration(Hollinsworth 2006; Suchet-Pearson and Howitt2006).

Government officers stressed their lack of under-standing of Aboriginal culture6 and its relevance totheir professional activities, yet, as discussed aboveand evidenced below, people in many parts of south-east Queensland may have limited knowledge abouttheir ancestral and cultural backgrounds. Theserequests exemplify the professional understandingsthat are needed in terms of Aboriginal post-contacthistory and its effects. Such post-contact history is atleast as much, or even more, necessary for interactionthan an assumed extant ‘cultural heritage’ (Choo andHollbach 2003), which is ultimately the prerogative ofAboriginal people, should they wish to share thisknowledge. At the moment, many Aboriginal peoplerealise that government officers respond when theyassert cultural heritage, but are less responsive to ref-erences about post-contact history, making ‘culture’an effective political strategy for asserting rights toland (Palmer 2006). Professional literacies requirestrong attention to deep learning about the impacts ofsocial and historical processes in different places, andwhy a transfer of protocols for engagement fromremote places where classical knowledges are largelyintact may not be appropriate, or may further margina-lise regional communities from CBEM.

Agreements

Often government and community members insist onnegotiated agreements about resources recognisingthat ‘the Native Title Act offers almost nothing becausethere’s almost no unallocated crown land . . . culturalheritage is more important’ (Lawyer for Native TitleRepresentative Body, August 2006)7. The governmentagency protocols examined in this study were clearlydesigned to reach agreements that would help toachieve mandated requirements to conduct culturalsurveys, protect sites, meet national benchmarks andcompensate or resource people for cultural heritagework. Cultural, rather than material, interests werethose most easily ‘given over’ to Aboriginal interests,and may result from a perception that Aboriginalpeople need only undertake cultural activity related



to their authentic Aboriginality such as dancing orgathering resources for artefacts (see Carter andHollinsworth 2009).

An agency staff member explained the lack of envi-ronmental agreements as due to the difficulty ofimplementing land use agreements in a context where‘native title rights and relationships have fluctuatedand there is no mechanism for people to worktogether’ (government officer, December 2005).In response, Aboriginal interviewees generallyarticulated a strong desire for formalised agreementsthat protect natural (and cultural) resources, theirparticipation in them, and that agreements specifymutual benefits to each party in CBEM.

A range of other small, yet important, features mighteasily be incorporated into agreements. One personsuggested that clauses might specify which ‘equip-ment goes to the [Wakka Wakka Eidsvold] Corpora-tion’ (native title claimant, September 2006). None ofthese types of requests are new or unanticipated, andthere are numerous examples of localised and time-specific agreements that can provide more equitablebenefits to Aboriginal people in CBEM, and that, onceagreed to, leave behind a range of capacities andequipments for further use.

Representation

Representation emerged as a cornerstone issue,particularly during interviews. Both government andcommunity wanted agreed, transparent processes bywhich community members may ‘represent’ others.Government officers felt confused about representa-tion maintaining that their ‘supervisors tell them it’s alltoo hard’ (government officer, July 2007) to keepabreast of changing native title applicants and claims.Agency staff adopt a minimalist, legalistic, risk man-agement strategy of consulting only with the last reg-istered native title applicant, as they are legallyrequired to do, despite others’ claims to authenticityand even when a traditional owner is no longer sup-ported by due process or by their ‘community’. In oneinstance, they had no knowledge that a lead nativetitle applicant had been replaced, and continued toconsult with the person nominated on their protocoldocument. This type of static document is not useful inclaim processes where authorised representatives maychange.

Aboriginal interviewees explained that governmentand commercial interests, once they had a knowncontact or representative, often continued to workwith the same person. In the past they had:

picked a working group committee for [governmentagency]. They also picked proxies. We never heard backfrom the Minister, why? They said it never eventuated.Now there is only one Aboriginal person . . . why not oneof the registered applicants? [Name] always nominates[another name] and now [another name] just found out

she had an Aboriginal grandmother and asked [name] todo the traditional welcome. At that speech she extendedthe boundaries into Kabi Kabi and Wakka Wakka areas.The [government agency] is using yet another person,who they just use now as their consultant while [localgovernment agency] uses the last registered native titleapplicant.

Traditional owner (May 2007)

That person felt that protocols were most beneficialbetween Aboriginal groups, and reflected Howitt’s(2001) suggestion that agreements between Aborigi-nal groups are a necessary precursor to consultation,which occurs:

by families separately . . . come out and spend time, thenhave a memorandum of understanding between eachclan group. That way we can speak collectively with onevoice but only claim for our country. Problems withincommunities as well as outside can then be solved by aset of our own [localised] protocols.

Traditional owner (August 2006).

The problem of privileging ‘known’ individualsbecause of their ease of access to government iscommon. In 2005, a university commenced anupgrade of a waste treatment system at a campsite inthe World Heritage Area and mailed the native titlerepresentative body, with only days’ notice beforework commenced. Representative native title bodiesexplained that they needed substantial time to raiselegal requests to send out notices to all claimants(including those living in distant places) through theirsolicitors, who were often absent in the field for longperiods. At the time, only a single person representedall claimants and advised the university on the poten-tial impacts of their works on Aboriginal cultural heri-tage. Although that person has since been replaced asthe lead applicant, ‘the university continues to selectthis person in consultancies regarding its facilities’(traditional owner, May 2007). Static documentsand procedures are unable to keep pace withthe complexities and fluidity of native title andcultural heritage processes characteristic of settledAustralia.

Government staff confirmed the very short timeframes for information sharing: ‘my department sendsout requests for traditional owner responses . . . andin 28 days a null response is interpreted as no objec-tion to the proposed action’ (government officer,August 2006). Other officers felt that performancemeasures push representative bodies to prematurelyresolve claims. A particular person:

was not getting information from proponents of futureacts and therefore not able to send it to our list of people-. . . [and some companies] . . . are not contacting usdirectly and cutting us out of the loop. People need to bean authorised person on the claim to have the information



sent directly to them . . . [but native title applicants willhave] . . . no further capacity to work . . . because ourfunding runs out and we have had no successful deter-minations.

Lawyer for Native Title Representative Body (August 2006)

Government staff felt that representation required del-egates to communicate more widely with each otherand their communities, and to fulfil their ‘expected’roles and functions as ‘representatives’. There are arange of reasons why this person had not carried outtheir ‘expected’ role, which Aboriginal intervieweesattributed to inadequate resourcing to do so, or lack oftransport. Interviewees requested specific benefits,such as resourcing, employment and training;or simply to speak with more authority duringnegotiation.

In a similar instance in 2006, the university, thestate government and tourism providers signed amemorandum of agreement with one traditionalowner group, whose claim to native title remainsundetermined, to progress tourism and hospitalitytraining, even though the university’s leasehold isoutside that group’s claimed area. In yet another inci-dent, at another bureaucratic level, and despite unre-solved native title claims, the Commonwealthgovernment negotiated a Shared Responsibility Agree-ment with one person who set up the K’gari Educa-tional and Cultural Centre on Fraser Island but who isnot a native title applicant for any claim8. Morebroadly, representation needs to be:

a group or structure [that] would act as a unified modelrather than simply being a single person selected to com-mittees or jobs as is currently the practice of most insti-tutions and which doesn’t work because one person can’trepresent the diversity of perspectives and needs of allAboriginal people.

Traditional owner (July 2007)

New blends of representation that are co-constructed,rather than designed according to pre-existing proto-cols, might more equitably spread employment,resourcing and social and environmental capital.

Place-based approaches

A fifth emergent theme is most directly aligned withthe argument of this paper, that generic protocols aresimply guides and cannot replace the context of theunique locale in which CBEM is occurring. Genderequity, for example, appears as an important protocolin many government documents, yet there is littleevidence to suggest a strict gender gap exists in theAboriginal or non-Aboriginal community of SouthEast Queensland. This reflects the dominant rhetoricwhere Aboriginal people are expected to conform toagency held stereotyped expectations about howAboriginal people should be, yet in most instances,

even in remote Australia, gender segregation is oftenpart of another context. In an example of the problemsof stereotypes transferred from successful engagementelsewhere, a senior traditional owner complained thatagency staff ‘make an assumption that I have knowl-edge but I haven’t – although I could learn’ (traditionalowner, December 2005). Another traditional ownerexplained that people had needed to move away tocapital cities to obtain work for many years, and hadnot had opportunities to learn land-based culture.One said that ‘I don’t want to return to the bush – I’ma city girl now!’ (traditional owner, September2006).

The mix of traditional owners and historical resi-dents was well recognised and many suggested a needto ‘speak with historical people as well as traditionalowners’ (traditional owner, December 2005). Hybridwork models might take the form of ‘traditionalowners [who] can work in land management and helpto teach and work alongside people who come fromother places and young people who are not taughtsome of the knowledge and skills’ (traditional owner,July 2007). This combination based on expertise aswell as inherited rights to land has implications for thedifferent meanings of representation that are dis-cussed below. Although government agencies areunder no legal obligation to talk to historicalresidents, and often native title claimants don’t recog-nise their rights or interests, this is a highly contestedarea, but one that is clearly changing.

Government documentation stipulated the impor-tance of a place-based approach. On closer exami-nation, these understandings seem limited todocumenting people’s aspirations, heritage, and thehistory and spatial understandings of jurisdictionalmandates. This type of mandated requirementbecomes routinely employed without examining thesubsequent implications for governance, representa-tion and agreement making which are all intertwinedwith locale, tenure and rights, and the unique socialand historical processes, manifestations and mixesthat constitute each place.

Interestingly, some government documents calledfor consistency in protocols across government agen-cies (probably reflecting a managerial approach togeneric protocol and engagement), but these werecontradicted by a strong recognition of differencesbetween locales held by individual government staff,especially those working in communities. At firstglance, consistency of protocol may be seen as aresponse to community requests for coordinationacross government, but consistency in approachand coordination across departments are unrelatednotions. The challenge of ‘joined-up’ government isnot solved by generic protocols across multipleprojects. It is as though the differences in locale arethought of as a separate phenomenon to be docu-mented and displayed in their documentation, ratherthan an underlying theme where the tenure, history,



social processes and natural landscape are inter-wined, affect engagement and require deep reflectionand appropriate process.

Aboriginal interviewees strongly concurred withusing a place-based approach, even in areas close tocapital cities. They explained that one agency has‘an Aboriginal Engagement Unit but it is located inBrisbane and they need to reach locals and try tocreate jobs in this region’ (traditional owner, July2007). Although some felt an ‘Aboriginal place’ (ordrop-in community centre) in each region was usefulfor information sharing, many felt ‘this might be dif-ficult in terms of it being located in one place’ (com-munity member, July 2007). Many settled regions ofAustralia not only show Aboriginal people dispersedwithin the dominant non-Indigenous population, butare made of discrete, separated small towns withpoorly coordinated transport so that people cannotcommunicate or easily gather with their neighboursin the region. A single drop-in space, similarly to asingle representative structure, cannot coordinate,reach nor serve these spatially separated groups ofpeople. Thus, singular spatially and socially univer-salising solutions often fail to reach the majority ofpeople.

Representation and place: implicationsfor engagement

The last two themes of appropriate representation andplace-based approaches were most strongly advo-cated at each of the three case study areas and arehere discussed in light of their utility to future Indig-enous ‘engagement’ in CBEM in settled Australia.Firstly, it is instructive to explore the multiple mean-ings inherent in the notion of representation, based onHollinsworth and Carter’s (2006) synthesis of contem-porary scholarship (for example, Rowse 2001; Martin2005; Sanders 2005) on representation, and its asso-ciated functions, community roles, and effects (addi-tional work has since complemented this synthesis,e.g. Hunt et al. 2008, and others.) They proposedvarious models of representation, explaining thatthese:

different understandings of representation can overlap orcombine in different ways in specific contexts, but areuseful ideal ‘types’ to assist analysis and discussion ofappropriate representative structures and mechanisms.Each of the different understandings of representationimply particular forms and responsibilities in terms ofaccountability to the particular parties involved, andpresent specific challenges in terms of reporting, moni-toring and endorsement.

Hollinsworth and Carter (2006, 2)

Representation is sometimes conceptualised as a per-sonal trait, that is, the personal nature of the ‘repre-sentative’ is such that they are not obliged to actively

seek the views of their constituency on specific issues.Instead, they are deemed to have an inherent capacityto interpret the needs and wishes of their constituency,whether their ability is based on lived experience orsome other perceived quality. A delegate, on the otherhand, is elected by their constituency and has aseverely curtailed capacity to ‘interpret’ their constitu-ency voice. The delegate must accurately deliver deci-sions and messages, or undertake actions determinedby the group, and any independence from the group isseen as illegitimate and unrepresentative. Anotherapplication of ‘representative’ is that of the advocate,one who speaks on behalf of a constituent group. Theyare in regular contact with the community about inter-ests and concerns, advocating for the communitywishes, and constantly inform the community as todecisions and actions.

Increasingly the notion of a broker or negotiator isgaining prominence in community–government inter-actions, especially for consultation and capacitybuilding (Woodward 2008). The broker plays an activerole in gathering diverse community views and input,but rationalises and imposes compromises to theexternal body. Although decisions taken outside thecommunity are relayed back to them for further nego-tiation, the popularity of brokers with governmentslies in their ability to manage complex informationflow from an apparent neutral, independent position.They may not be community residents, but gain theirposition based on their fluency in government pro-cesses and their ability to communicate these withcommunity groups.

Lastly, a representative may be selected for their‘expertise’ and evidence-based knowledge, on thebasis of their (personal or) professional knowledgeand experience, rather than on their membership of,or support from, an interest group. The legitimacy ofthis representative is based on the quality of adviceprovided, rather than on its origins within, or endorse-ment by, the public it represents. In this type of rep-resentation, anybody may be explicitly framed asindependent, and therefore is not representative of acommunity.

These various expectations of Indigenous represen-tation complicate the understandings of engagementstructures held by both government and community,and have implications for nominating and selecting‘representatives’ to committees, workshops, or as anon-ground project manager. The difficulties of obtain-ing and selecting a single Indigenous voice in settledAustralia, let alone articulating the different roles andfunctions of that representative, is never questioned,and particularly not once the views of the ‘Indigenoussector’ are obtained.

Representative structures have the effect of silenc-ing most Indigenous peoples’ interests and capacities,whilst all the while presenting the face of ‘engaging’Indigenous people in natural resources management(Lane and Robinson 2009). At the regional scale, they



often ignore or eliminate existing Indigenous tenures,authorities and geopolitics (Howitt 1997). Similarly, asingle representative on any committee, and uncriticalunderstandings of their aligned roles and functions,will most likely suppress the multiple voices and iden-tities that characterise CBEM in settled Australia. Insettled regions, then, the construction and reconstruc-tion of a range of differing representational typesmight better suit the particularities of place. Evenneighbouring places might be quite different in theirchoice of the structure and process that is most inclu-sive of its Indigenous residents and those with place-based attachments.

Not only do the tenurially based processes of dis-possession and reconnection require thoughtful newrepresentational arrangements, engagement struc-tures might also represent the socio-economic divi-sions within communities that are themselves subjectto rupture on age, gender, educational and interestgroups of each place. New hybrid representationalstructures, blending traditional and historical resi-dents, as well as gender and educationally based dif-ference, might be designed. Just as Agius et al.(2007) point out that contested representation mustbe attributed, at least in part, to the technocratic andlegalistic requirements of native title legislation, sotoo are any technocratic and prescriptive notions ofgeneric protocols for engagement likely to disrupt aharmonious and equitable CBEM approach in settledAustralia.

In addition to representational pluralism, eachengagement process may have multiple strategies andmechanisms that are variously combined and recon-structed in ways most appropriate to their constituent,localised community of place. Interleaving represen-tative networks with place-based particularities is nec-essary because there is:

no one polity in a region, there are many and they haveoverlapping membership. The legitimacy of representa-tive voices is limited not only to locality but also tocontext, thus different people speak for different areas ofexpertise or responsibility within one region, sub-regionor locality.

Sullivan (2005, 12)

Places by their very nature are full of heterogeneousidentities that resist communal expressions (Lane andCorbett 2005). The design of any new process islocated in a context already occupied by differentindividuals, factions, organisations and practices thatcome together in different ways for different purposes(Smith 2004) – and must do so for CBEM. No standar-dised set of protocols is culturally neutral, as ‘prefer-encing a particular procedural approach maysignificantly advantage the needs and interests of onegroup over another’ (Bauman and Williams 2004, 15).Universalising engagement approaches fails toaddress, and in fact can amplify, the very social dis-

ruptions and power elites they claim to equalise,unless they are constantly reconstructed according totheir locational context.

A place-based approach aligns with the socialdynamics of many Indigenous groups that histori-cally allowed overlapping, fuzzy, fluid, seasonal andmoving boundaries between different groups (Ram-baldi et al. 2006). Places are conceptual as well asspatial, and broader conceptualisations of place asfluid and ‘in-process’ allows for such dynamic andchanging boundaries and situations. If places are inprocess, then so too should be engagement pro-cesses. Marika et al. (2009) recently urged that Indig-enous people be reconceptualised as ‘in place’rather than as remote; and although their study wasconducted in spatially remote areas, this researchreflects their contention that ‘socially remote’ groupsmight equally benefit from reimagining Indigenouspeople as ‘in place’. Their idea of Indigenous-centricpositioning, so that the ideas of Indigenous peopleare not remote, but core to the relationship betweenpeople and place, was designed to apply across thespectrum of remote, rural, peri-urban and urbanspaces.

Each place-based historical and social situation isintertwined with engagement structure and process;for example, each place has implications for who andhow representatives are chosen, and in operationalis-ing how decisions of representative structures alignwith the many local expressions of managing thenatural and cultural landscape. As such, place-basedapproaches and representational arrangements arenecessarily intertwined. A range of questions springsto mind when considering an engagement process insettled Australia, for example:

• how representatives, the interests of other residentstakeholders, and other bodies should be deter-mined;

• how representatives should and can best commu-nicate with the whole group including historicaland social residents and the wider Indigenous com-munity;

• who is involved in negotiating and authorisingstructures and processes for engagement;

• who may validly claim interest in which matters ofnatural and cultural heritage;

• what forms of expertise are appropriate and in whatinstance/s.

These questions might easily be embedded in morecritical and discursive, but mandated, reflection onengagement, if professional literacy in this field isencouraged, as outlined above. In true participatoryfashion, community and agency co-construct theirideal structure, after which appropriate process isdesigned and regularly evaluated. In this way, thecomplexity of process is matched with the complexityof representation.



The assumption that if we get the structures right every-thing else will follow is as naïve now as it was during thefirst round of community government formations back inthe 1980s . . . and community governance structuresalone will not manage or resolve the tensions between[local and regional] forces.

Sanders (2005, 61–2)

Since Alpert (1995), many scholars (see Carter 2001)have stressed that an appropriate, localised process isa precursor to achieving desired outcomes, or evenmore critical than implementing robust, rigorous andreplicable methods or procedures. With multipleprongs to the structures of engagement, and with dueattention to the specific process necessary for theparticularities of place, engagement might morenearly reach Suchet-Pearson and Howitt’s (2006, 125)‘embrace of lived, embodied experience and a multi-scalar approach’ or, simply restated, their notion of‘situated engagement’. Situated engagement is thecontext for operationalising Bauman and Williams’(2004) underlying tenet that the ‘business of process’be more strongly advocated.

A regional mosaic of multi-layered engagement

For decades, proponents of participatory approacheschampioned flexibility as their underpinning prin-ciple, with the practitioner’s ‘grab-bag’ of tools andapproaches that are easily adapted to the local cir-cumstance. Although generic institutional protocolsprovide useful pointers to engagement, they often sup-press flexibility at the local scale. Practitioners alsomaintained that sufficient time must be invested tobuild relationships with a community, but a time-intensive process inevitably involves high expenditureof social and financial resources, which some agen-cies seek to avoid by using generic protocols.

Generic protocols can be abused, when seen asontologically reductionist, that is, when steps, rulesand standards dictate engagement as a pre-determined task to be uncritically completed (Muller2008). Conceptualising protocols in this way implies aprocess that is universal in its applicability, one that iseasily followed by the detached and objective agent ofengagement. Methods and approaches, processes andmodels captured in standardised protocols can simply‘universalise’ the most critical issue, a well designedand appropriate process (Alpert 1995; Carter 2001;Bauman and Williams 2004), which in itself is simul-taneously a science and an art. In the end, publicengagement remains ‘simply a mechanism to achievea policy agenda’ (Measham et al. 2009, 19), andperpetuates bureaucratic expansion through addi-tional layers of governance and community champi-ons. Yet, as outlined above, CBEM originated fromits notion of empowerment, one that is aligned withpromoting the needs of the community. These are twocompeting discourses – one cannot champion the

community-based approach, yet uncritically apply aset of generic protocols of engagement that are devel-oped from a detached, ‘objective’ gaze (Hunt 2005).

Engagement needs to be reconfigured, signifying areturn to power or the politics of place-making assignificant to Indigenous environmental management(Palmer 2006). A multi-layered approach to commu-nity engagement interleaves pluralistic representationand a process that is appropriate to the local particu-larities of place including tenure, decision-makingauthority and the processes that shaped the local cul-tural landscape (Howitt 1997). This multi-layeredapproach to engagement would require understand-ing the social and historical influences in place, andvariously constructing and reconstructing differentcombinations of strategy, representational type,communication mode, mechanism, and tool in amulti-layered synthesis of ‘engagement’.

Environmental practitioners working with Aborigi-nal people in settled Australia need to be fully awareof the complications of representation and particulari-ties in place, and their implications for CBEM withIndigenous people, especially in settled Australia.Transferring Indigenous people’s participation fromregions of remote Australia, where land tenure andclassical knowledge are relatively secure, is notappropriate for large parts of settled Australia. Instead,they need to rely on the expertise of community andprofessionals to co-construct appropriate place-basedprocess. By attending firstly to the processes that haveformed each natural and cultural place, thoseremoved, those newcomers, those with expertise andso forth become important and part of the local place,as it continues shaping its fluid and dynamic future(demonstrating regionness – regions as evolving pro-cesses following Hettne and Soderbaum 2000).

Generic protocols have their place – as a regionaland heuristic guide for engagement – that helps gov-ernment staff to articulate with communities. But eachstructure and process needs to capture the fluidity andmovements of aggregation and disaggregation thathave historically resulted in the Aboriginal landscapeof today, especially in settled Australia. Each regionmight manifest as a spatial and social mosaic of loca-lised dynamic structures and processes that incorpo-rate the historical as well as cultural awarenessnecessary to maintain inclusivities under differingcontexts. This will be expensive and slow and impos-sible without political and long-term commitment.These core principles of participation have been lostin quick-fix ‘engagement through protocol’, butengagement need not be the same across space andtime. Instead, different combinations of engagementstructures and processes, strategies and mechanisms,are variously constructed and reconstructed to suit thelocal, and are strategically mapped as a regionalmosaic of combinations of structure and process.Regional bodies have a mandate to link local struc-tures and processes which is easily achieved through



mapping this suggested strategic mosaic of multi-layered engagement (Hollinsworth and Carter 2006).Taken together, they constitute a regional mosaic ofmulti-layered engagement that accounts for the com-plexities of the local.

Many of our basic conceptual and methodological toolsare also poorly equipped to tackle the complexities of thecultural landscapes of indigenous Australia.

Howitt and Suchet-Pearson (2006, 52)

Just as there is danger in reducing process to a single,universal, uncritical, lineal and reductionist setof steps and tasks, applying generic protocols ofengagement is likely to remain embedded in localcontest, confusion and complexity.

Acknowledgements

I wish to thank members of the Butchulla, WakkaWakka and Kabi Kabi language groups and otherAboriginal residents of the three study areas, as well asthose government staff who provided valuable com-ments about their work. Adjunct Professor David Hol-linsworth commented on drafts of this paper for whichI express my gratitude. My thanks also to the anony-mous reviewers of this manuscript for their supportive,detailed and critical perspectives.

Notes

1 Settled Australia refers to southeast Queensland, New SouthWales, Victoria, South Australia, the southwest of WesternAustralia, Tasmania in contrast to remote Australia (see theclassic collection edited by Keen 1991).

2 Land rights were won in parts of the Northern Territory in1976, in South Australia in 1981, and in New South Wales in1983.

3 Traditional owner is the term used to refer to the senior land-owner(s) of an Aboriginal clan estate.

4 This process combines the consent of senior members of thegroup (i.e. those with the longest evidenced connection to thearea) with consensus (debate and dialogue between allmembers of the native title claim group). This kind of agreedalternative decision process is valid in cases where there is notraditional decision-making process based on traditional lawsand customs.

5 ‘Welcome to country’ is a formal acknowledgement of Indig-enous ownership of the land at the commencement of meet-ings and formal occasions. A representative of the traditionalowners may welcome participants or the convenor of meet-ings may thank (absent) traditional owners in recognition thatthe activity takes place on Aboriginal land. Everett (2009)critiques this practice because it is minimalist in its engage-ment, a ‘safe’ gesture of recognition which remains unneces-sary and unenforceable.

6 This is deliberately in the singular to recognise that thesegovernment informants largely ignore diversity within Aborigi-nal groups.

7 Although applicants can fail the Federal native title registrationtest there is a requirement under the Queensland legislationthat agencies conducting works consult with traditionalowners on matters of cultural heritage. Currently, notificationto the native title claimants is required for any works per-formed by leaseholders that may impact on cultural heritage.Traditional owners hold no rights over whether these worksoccur or the manner in which they are carried out.

8 Shared Responsibility Agreements are a Commonwealth gov-ernment contract for discretionary funding in which ‘commu-nity’ members specify desirable benefits and the commitmentsthey can offer to funded programs.

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From the archive

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Protocols, particularities, and problematising Indigenous ‘engagement’ in community-based...

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