Intercultural capacity deficits: Contested geographies of coexistence in natural resource management

Intercultural capacity deficits: Contested geographiesof coexistence in natural resource management

Richard Howitt,* Kim Doohan,*,† Sandie Suchet-Pearson,* Sherrie Cross,*Rebecca Lawrence,*,‡ Gaim James Lunkapis,*,§ Samantha Muller,*,¶

Sarah Prout*,** and Siri Veland*,††*Department of Environment & Geography, Macquarie University, North Ryde NSW 2109, Australia. Email:

[email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected]†Mintupela Consultants, Albany, WA 6332, USA. Email: [email protected]

‡Political Science, Umeå University, Umeå SE-901 87, Sweden. Email: [email protected]§Faculty of Social Science, University of Malaysia Sabah, Kota Kinabalu 88999, Sabah, Malaysia. Email: [email protected]

¶School of the Environment, Flinders University, Adelaide, SA 5001, Australia. Email: [email protected]**School of Earth and Environment, University of Western Australia, Crawley, WA 6009, Australia. Email:

[email protected]††Environmental Change Initiative, Brown University, Providence, RI 02912, USA. Email: [email protected]

Abstract: Focusing on the coexistence of competing and contested interests in intercultural naturalresource management (NRM) systems in Australia and Malaysia, this paper explores the ways inwhich ontological pluralism and the interplay of socio-cultural, political–economic and biophysicalinfluences shape NRM systems. We aim to foster a discursive space in which to reframe thechallenges of capacity building in the rapidly changing spaces of intercultural NRM systems. Thepaper synthesizes the conceptual arguments of field research to conclude that capacity deficits ofdominant institutions, processes and knowledge systems drive many systemic failures in land and seamanagement affecting Indigenous peoples. We advocate urgent action to build intercultural com-petence and new capacities and competencies in those institutions. The paper reframes interculturalNRM in terms of coexistence and invites wider debate about these ‘new geographies of coexistence’in intercultural NRM systems.

Keywords: coexistence, indigenous rights, intercultural competence, intercultural natural resourcemanagement systems

Introduction

Intercultural natural resource management(NRM) systems exist in settings where diverseinterests in and claims to natural resourcescoexist. These systems bring together localinterests, including Indigenous or customaryowners, with state agencies and commercialinterests. They embody relationships and insti-tutional structures that manage and regulateboth the natural resources and the relationshipsinvolved. Many of these innovative systems arewell intended, aiming to secure and sustainmutual social, economic and environmentalbenefits through shared management of placesand resources. Good intention, however, isinsufficient to overcome the complex legacies

of social, economic and environmental injus-tice and involvement of multiple cultural groupsthat characterise many intercultural settings.Layers of historically constructed power rela-tions and patterns of disadvantage and advan-tage are deeply entrenched in social, politicaland economic realities on the ground. This iscertainly the experience in Australia and Malay-sia, where new arrangements have reinforcedthose patterns more often than they have mobi-lised resources to resolve outstanding localclaims in just and sustainable ways. Whilearrangements might acknowledge competingclaims to responsibilities, interests and rights inplaces and resources, they generally continue tofavour state and commercial interests over localcommunities.

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Asia Pacific Viewpoint, Vol. 54, No. 2, August 2013ISSN 1360-7456, pp126–140

© 2013 Victoria University of Wellington doi: 10.1111/apv.12014

Our starting point in this paper is to recognisethat intercultural NRM systems across theAsia-Pacific region typically encompass incom-mensurable differences in understanding ofhuman–nature relations best characterised asontological pluralism (Howitt and Suchet-Pearson, 2003, 2006). Developing managementdiscourses and practices that are responsive tosuch pluralism continues to be fraught andconflictual in most settings. Individuals, com-munities, institutions and agencies exhibit‘capacity deficits’ – shortfalls in knowledge,skills, understanding and values that limit theireffectiveness in particular circumstances – thataffect both intercultural communication andthe operational effectiveness of even well-intentioned arrangements. Allenby offers aconcise account of the sort of deficit in under-standing that affects many intercultural NRMsystems. Discussing the development of sustain-ability science, he refers to the need for conven-tional scientists to develop and value:

an ability to sympathetically perceive, andintegrate, mutually exclusive but at least con-ditionally valid ontologies . . . to understandone’s own belief structures as contingentand limited, and accept and respect otherworldviews that may be not just different, butcontrary, to one’s own (Allenby, 2006: 8).

There is a dominant discourse about capacitybuilding in intercultural NRM systems that privi-leges national development goals and targetsthe need for capacity of Indigenous, minorityand local participants to develop the skills andknowledge to make state NRM systems work. Inintercultural NRM systems, this approach tocapacity building is inadequate, mis-informedand fundamentally mis-directed.

This paper draws on extensive field engage-ment in intercultural NRM systems – includingmining operations and Indigenous protectedareas in Australia; tourism and co-managementsystems in Australia and Malaysia; and coastalzone management in Malaysia – as well as arange of post-colonial and political ecologicalthinking, to advocate a shift in focus to thecapacity deficits of NRM agents, agencies andinstitutions. Lack of intercultural competence inkey agencies dramatically affects the efficacy ofintercultural systems and restricts achievement

of just and sustainable outcomes for localparticipants in these systems. The paper firstconsiders the nature of coexistence in intercul-tural NRM systems, reviews limitations ofco-management as a means of resolving compet-ing Indigenous and state claims to resources andthen reframes the challenge of intercultural com-petence in NRM.The concluding discussion pro-poses a more just and sustainable approach tocapacity building in intercultural NRM.

Coexistence, co-management andintercultural NRM systems

In many countries around the Asia-Pacificregion, as elsewhere, the property rights andeconomic benefits generated in NRM systemsconstitute a significant element of states’ claimsagainst Indigenous rights to contemporary self-determination (Stewart-Harawira, 2005; Howitt,2012). The coexistence of persistent Indigenouscultures, communities, institutions and govern-ances alongside cultures, communities, institu-tions and governances that trace their power,values and priorities to colonial and post-colonial sources present substantial political,social and environmental challenges.1 Com-peting claims, overlapping jurisdictions anddiverse populations are co-located, withcomplex consequences. In framing our discus-sion in terms of coexistence and capacitydeficits, we hope to draw attention to theunderlying reality of inter-mixed and changingvalues, priorities and practices that influencethe cultures, communities, institutions and gov-ernances implicated in intercultural NRMsystems. We aim to foster just and sustainablesolutions that address intercultural capacitydeficits in dominant NRM institutions.

Co-management emerged in the 1990s as animportant approach to building institutions forintercultural NRM. Co-management systems cutacross jurisdictional scales, across cultural dif-ference and across diverse purposes, and havedeveloped rapidly in recent years (Natcheret al., 2005; Berkes, 2009). Yet despite thepassage of the United Nations Declaration ofthe Rights of Indigenous Peoples in 2007, whichsupports such approaches to secure Indigenouspeoples’ rights, there are no unproblematicexamples of sustainable systemic resolution ofcompeting Indigenous–state claims to natural

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resources. Even where there is rhetorical com-mitment to Indigenous rights and well-being aspolicy, NRM systems often continue operatingto simply erase, dismiss or, at best, constrainand marginalise Indigenous rights.

Deep colonising NRM systems2 typicallyprivilege resource exploitation for commercialbenefit (including both conventional extractiveand protective modes of environmental man-agement). Management structures, proceduresand plans restrict and reconfigure Indigenouspeoples’ access to, control over and benefitfrom their traditional territories and resources.Even in jurisdictions that extend some recogni-tion of Indigenous rights, these are typicallygoverned under terms and within institutionsdefined by and accountable to the statewhose claims and power to allocate resourcerights to third parties are founded on historicaland continuing Indigenous dispossession,marginalisation and exclusion. For many Indig-enous groups, political processes and propertylaws deny and criminalise their customaryrights and responsibilities, making IndigenousNRM governance within long-standing tradi-tional governance systems simply impossibleand, as Lunkapis (2010) notes, a shadow ofpast Indigenous systems – and even illegal. Forexample, legislation to manage areas for con-servation purposes has often failed to attend tocustomary use of resources. Nursey-Bray et al.(2010) discuss the many obstacles an award-winning dugong management plan developedby the North Queensland Aboriginal commu-nity at Hopevale faced in trying to find ways tosimultaneously protect dugong and green turtlehabitat and maintain and protect traditionalknowledge and hunting practices. Finn andJackson (2011) note the inadequacy of environ-mental flows as a surrogate for Indigenousneeds and cultural interests in Australian watermanagement systems.

Even co-management systems that respondand adapt to Indigenous cultural dynamics andpriorities face the challenge of historical powerstructures, cultural domination and exclusion.In most settings in Australasia, and southeastAsia, Indigenous societies have been requiredto adapt to the changing demands of both his-toric colonial and contemporary deep colonis-ing systems that prioritise commerce andscience over culture and political recognition.

These systems disempower or marginaliseIndigenous discourses that are not couched incommercial or scientific terms, or simplycannot come to terms with the apparent ‘lack oflogic’ within those discourses. Berkes (2009:1698) optimistically sees social learning ‘at theheart of iterated rounds of problem solving . . .which characterizes many longstanding co-management cases’. Similarly, Leys and Vanclay(2011: 574) posit a ‘social learning model . . .for more broad-scale use in providing multi-level governance linkages and as a basis fortargeting interventions to address policy gaps orfailure’. In intercultural NRM systems, however,effective social learning must confront the lega-cies and contemporary manifestations ofracialised, colonial discourses in many forms.Willingness and capacity to do so is uneven andoften poorly developed in key areas.

While acknowledging the value of muchwork that is done in the in-between spaces ofintercultural NRM, in the rest of this paper weexplore the intercultural capacity deficits ofdominant institutions, processes and knowledgesystems, and point to the need for interculturalcompetence and the development of newcapacities and competencies in those institu-tions. Clearly, just calling something ‘intercul-tural’ does not make it so. These interculturalcapacity deficits in major NRM institutions andsystems risk reinforcing collaborative manage-ment structures and processes that are, in fact,deeply colonising. Here, the Indigenous otheris invited to participate in and contribute tothe improved efficacy of systems whose basicpurpose, structure and operations are consistentwith dominant mainstream understandings ofhuman–nature relationships (Suchet-Pearsonand Howitt, 2006) and not necessarily those ofthe Indigenous, minority or marginalised localparticipants.

There has been significant progress in achiev-ing political settlement of long-standing Indig-enous claims and securing some form ofcollaborative outcomes through formal ‘coman-agement’ agreements. However, it would benaïve to assume that such settlements andagreements can guarantee just and sustainableoutcomes or viable self-determination for Indig-enous participants, as other papers in this issuedemonstrate. While there is much of value insuch settlements and the institutions they

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produce (see e.g. Ecological Management andRestoration 13(1) 2012, particularly Ens andMcDonald, 2012, Ens et al., 2012a, Barbourand Schlesinger, 2012), the risk is that theyreconfigure rather than overcome Indigenousdisadvantage. Indigenous participation in suchprocesses is often conditional on accepting statedefinitions of national interest, and state priori-ties for resource allocation and use (Marikaet al., 2009). This effectively predetermines thediscursive possibilities and excludes groupswho question or challenge the state’s version ofpreferred outcomes. For example, Peluso (1993)highlighted how state use of conservation toextend control over national resources had mili-tarised resource management systems andmarginalised Indigenous groups with resourceclaims in Indonesia. Palmer (2004) exploredstate reinforcement of recreational fishing rightsin formal resource management programmes inthe Northern Territory and the limits this hasplaced on Aboriginal Traditional Owners.

Even optimistic accounts of state support forcollaborative programmes recognise the fragileand problematic relationships involved (e.g.May, 2010: 398–399). A key challenge, then, isto frame the terms of state–local–Indigenousengagement in ways that recognise contempo-rary political discourses as contextualised inhistorical circumstances and long-standingdeep colonising relationships. Marginalisationof culturally diverse local and Indigenousworldviews by state-dominated frameworks offunding, policy and evaluation risks entrenchingconflict, disadvantage and continuing exclusionand marginalisation of difference in intercul-tural NRM systems. It also undermines well-intentioned efforts of state and commercialparties to secure equitable and sustainablecoexistence, recognition and security for Indig-enous groups.

Part of the underlying challenge facing stateagencies and Indigenous advocates is the wide-spread assumption that science, democracy andeconomy are self-evidently superior founda-tions for good environmental and social deci-sions compared with Indigenous governanceand knowledge (see e.g. Wohling, 2009;Turnhout, 2010). Such assumptions caricaturethe ontological pluralism of intercultural NRMsystems as illusory. They risk authorising naïveconclusions that such difference is able to be

accommodated in rather simplistic models ofcollaborative management, often expressed as‘being on the board’. In this dominant imagi-nary, the actual complexity encountered inculturally diverse and resource-rich or environ-mentally valuable Indigenous domains is bestmanaged (and perhaps only manageable) bytechnical expertise accredited by the dominantculture.

This approach discredits locally authorisedexpertise in local knowledge systems. Itmarginalises or dismisses local understanding,authority and self-determination, and reducesthe complex, value-laden task of governance tothe ostensibly technical task of management. Itrarely accepts that ‘no means no’ when it isspoken by Indigenous authorities. This is notco-management adapting to coexistence andintercultural context, but rather the reassertionby state agencies of science as a colonising tool.For many of the scientists involved, the need toengage with Indigenous knowledge is self-evident (Woinarski and McDonald, 2011; Enset al., 2012a,b), but in practice, even when suchengagement is attempted, poor interculturalunderstanding presents a profound challengeto the scientists and community participantsinvolved. Muller (2012) explores the tensionsbetween science and Yolngu knowledge in theYellow Crazy Ant Eradication Program in north-east Arnhem Land, as a ‘two-way management’activity. She concludes that the ‘scientific per-spective . . . decontextualised this project to beall about the ant . . . [while the Yolngu] analysiscontextualises and situates the project, . . . rec-ognising that the ant exists on Yolngu land andwithin a Yolngu context’ (Muller, 2012: 69).

Dominant NRM discourses also push non-science local and Indigenous contributions outof the valued domain of technical managementand into the messy and problematic realmsof community relations and consultation. Thistransforms intercultural ignorance, incompe-tence and incapacity of science, the state, state-accredited technical experts and resourcecorporations not only into technical expertise,but also the unquestionably legitimate, authori-tative and self-accrediting representation of theinterests of the general public. This is particu-larly common in areas of intense settler occu-pation of Indigenous domains, where thedominant discourse insists so-called loss of



culture represents Indigenous knowledge asdiminished and unhelpful to the tasks of caringfor country, culture and society (Gibbs, 2009;Howitt and Lunkapis, 2010; Weir, 2011).

Challenging intercultural capacity deficits

Developing a critical understanding of contextis foundational to building success in intercul-tural NRM in the sense of supporting systemsthat are just and sustainable. In this section, weexplore specific elements of the sorts of capac-ity deficits we seek to highlight, using examplesfrom a range of NRM settings. Recognisingdifferent perspectives on the history andthe diverse and particular circumstances ofco-management, conflict and development indifferent settings can draw effectively on well-designed and executed research. However, italso requires political and community engage-ment. Contributors elsewhere in this collectiondemonstrate that such research is difficult, bothmethodologically and ethically.

The interface between biophysical sciences,social sciences, sustainability science andIndigenous rights is affected by competing dis-ciplinary cultures, uneven funding regimes andcomplex politics (Allenby, 2006; Komiyamaand Takeuchi, 2006; Wu, 2006; Sobeck andAgius, 2007; Kates, 2011; Leeuw et al., 2012).For critical scholars, the challenge is to performscholarship in ways that make knowledge,ideas and understanding accessible to groupsinvolved in intercultural NRM systems, and toactively engage with people, institutions andissues being studied in ways that contributeto processes of decolonisation. The ethicalimperative is to undertake research, publica-tion and engagement in ways that are simulta-neously local and accountable withincustomary governances, and rigorous andcredible in robust and disciplined academicdebates. Such research must also be coherentand responsive within wider scales of nationalgovernance and global economic, politicaland environmental processes. This marriage ofaccountabilities across multiple systems andmultiple scales is particularly challengingwhen dominant notions of academic objectiv-ity devalue scholarly work that takes relation-ships with Indigenous communities seriously interms of intellectual collegiality and ethical

equality. Suchet-Pearson and her colleagues(Suchet, 1999; Wright et al., 2012; also Suchet-Pearson et al. in this issue) point to the seriousintercultural, interpersonal and cross-scaledimensions of this challenge, highlighting theembodied and emplaced ways that peopleengage with each other in intercultural NRMsettings to challenge and transform each other’sunderstandings and knowledges. They note thatbuilding their understanding of the collabora-tive spaces for their work took time, effort andtrust. Where competing claims on resourcesand places are at stake, however, time andtrust are often in short supply, and effort isexpended not in developing building blocks forrelationships of trust, but in pursuing predeter-mined outcomes such as project approval,grant acquittal, and specific conservation orproduction goals.

Ethical competencies

The discursive spaces operating in interculturalNRM systems require a shift towards newethical competencies that acknowledge the dif-ferent values, understanding and priorities thatexist within those systems. It is not always pos-sible to link things in ways that seem logical toall participants, and the ability to respect andwork with people whose worldviews are ‘notjust different, but contrary, to one’s own’(Allenby, 2006: 8), is an ethical imperative indeveloping just and sustainable ‘two-way’ orintercultural NRM systems. Such understandingis necessary both for individual participants andthe key institutions involved. This extends toinstitutional ethics committees, research grant-ing bodies and tenure committees in universi-ties whose researchers are involved in thesesystems as well as in the NRM institutions andgovernment agencies for community develop-ment, environmental protection and economicadvancement. In particular, academic institu-tions under increased performance pressure risksimply forgetting the key lesson, for example,that no research with Indigenous communitiesis neutral or impartial. Recognising that contextis foundational to NRM research in Indigenousdomains (e.g. Howitt, 2011) compels research-ers and their institutions to recognise andexplicitly engage with the ethical foundationsand social impacts of their research and to make

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considered and accountable choices about con-ceptual frameworks and research methods.

A range of cross-scale issues also need to beconsidered (Cash and Moser, 2000; Berkes,2002, 2006, 2008; Cash et al., 2004; Adgeret al., 2005). The preeminence given to theinternational, national and provincial (sub-national) scales as in resource governance, hasensured that Indigenous authorities struggle toachieve autonomy and recognition at smallerscales in NRM systems, let alone at the cosmo-logical scale to which they are answerable.Using the idea of ‘contemporary Indigenousgovernances’, Cross (2008) investigated persis-tent and emergent institutions, relationships andvalues that underpin Indigenous claims.

The institutions of Indigenous governanceand local authority have often been specificallyopposed by state-authorised agencies. In theprocess, the colonial process erases the scales atwhich Indigenous and community governanceis authorised, contested and held accountable.This scaled politics of erasure creates a legacy ofmistrust and misunderstanding. Seeking recog-nition of local and Indigenous authority is not aquestion of nostalgia for ‘tradition’, but recog-nition that they do exist and influence real-world outcomes. Cross’ critique of Australia’sformal Indigenous reconciliation processillustrates this in action. It described institution-alised structures and discourses of exclusion,management and marginalisation in whichprivileging the national scale as the scale ofmeaning and power demeans the values andresponsibilities of more local governances,imposing co-management solutions as largelyexternally driven rather than as more localisedpartnerships between equals.

Agius et al. provide accounts of the construc-tion of new scales of Indigenous governance inthe Native Title processes under way in SouthAustralia (e.g. Agius et al., 2002, 2007) in whichthat state’s Indigenous representative bodysimply vetoed state imposed practices andstructures that privileged state agendas. In thatcase, South Australia’s Aboriginal Legal RightsMovement promoted an iterative, non-linearscale politics that drew state agencies into rela-tionships with dispersed contemporary Indig-enous governances across the State. Thatparticular process addressed systemic capacitydeficits not only in Indigenous communities,

but also within government agencies, resourceindustries and academic partners.

Mobilities and spatialities

Policing the movement and behaviours of Indig-enous peoples and minority cultural groups hasbeen an important technology in extending statecontrol over natural resources and territory. Bothcolonial and modern states have defined Indig-enous peoples as ‘out of place’ by granting spe-cific resource and property rights to non-Indigenous people while ensuring those rightswere unavailable to the traditional Indigenousowners of the territories in which the resourcesoccurred. This has erased traditional systems ofgovernance and traditional patterns of trade andmovement. Australia’s dominant discourses ofemptiness, occupation and possession (Howitt,2012) create images of wilderness, insecurityand uncertainty that reinforce the idea that settler(and now national) security and certainty mustbe built on exercise of power, exclusion andcontrol. In other jurisdictions, similar discourseswork in powerful ways when they intersect withdominant NRM practices that privilege econom-ics and (Western) science in NRM decision-making. For example, land use planning,mapping and zoning have emerged as powerfulnew technologies that state agencies and privatecorporations use to reinforce their powerful rolesin NRM. State mapping and activist counter-mapping have informed key disputes over forestresources in Indonesia and Malaysia (e.g. Peluso,1995; Cooke, 2003; Doolittle, 2008) and tradi-tional territories and identities inTaiwan (e.g. Chiand Chin, 2012).

Indigenous Australians face a number of dis-ciplining public discourses, whatever their loca-tion or practice in space (Prout and Howitt,2009). If they live in the ‘wilderness’ of remoteAustralia they may be judged authenticallyIndigenous, but criticised by mainstream com-mentators as being unwilling to participate inthe modern, productive and ‘settled’ economy.Deep colonising in this mode often constructsIndigenous training and employment pro-grammes that are little more than attempts tocoerce compliance with the project of modern-ising colonialism by teaching them the virtuesof a western work ethic (Lawrence, 2005), orare desgined to position state and industry



parties as good corporate citizens. For Indig-enous people in settled rural or urban places,popular discourse challenges their Indigeneity,suggesting that even modest compliance withthe state’s assimilationist policies renders theminauthentic as Indigenous people, underminingtheir claims to have a legitimate voice in own-ership of country, land use or heritage negotia-tions (Porter, 2006).

Everyday Indigenous spatialities, however,subvert the hegemonic ‘cadastral grid’ (Byrne,2003). To nurture their socio-cultural and spir-itual identities, and economic livelihoods, anddemonstrate their relationship to country, Indig-enous Australian mobilities create connectionsthat respond to contemporary Indigenous gov-ernances in many ways. Counter-colonialresearchers have increasingly explored howthese connections disrupt dominant discoursesabout Indigenous relationships to kin andcountry. In a compelling account of Indigenousrelationships to country in rural NSW, Byrne(2003) drew upon ‘geobiographies’ as a meth-odological tool which provided local Indig-enous peoples with a framework for telling theirstories of relationship to country from whichconventional scholarship had rendered themlong since absent. The result was a rich narrativetapestry of how Indigenous relationships toplace are renegotiated and their sense ofbelonging re-made in the midst of change.

The spatial act of traversing the cadastral grid– the act of being mobile – is one way that manyIndigenous Australians continue to negotiatetheir sense of socio-cultural security andbelonging. Such mobilities strategically connectthem to kin and country (Prout, 2008a,b; Biddleand Prout, 2009) and create spatial and socialnetworks that are foundational for Indigenouspeoples’ capacity to understand and respond tothe challenges of social, economic and environ-mental change.

Risk landscapes

In Australia, developing official approaches torisk and risk reduction have dominated Euro-pean understandings of what ‘normalcy’ or‘safety’ means to people. In setting out to limitrisks to Indigenous lives, current discourses ofrisk, exposure, vulnerability and resilience, likelonger-standing discourses of service provision

and access, privilege non-Indigenous notions ofstability in relationships to place and belonging.Risk assessment conventionally focuses onmaterial property or human health and easilymarginalises cultural dimensions of risk(although see Göbel, 2001), erasing existentialand cosmological risks that have origin in howwell people maintain kinship with sentient andresponsive phenomena in landscapes andweather (Stoffle and Arnold, 2008; Velandet al., 2013). Exposure and risks are key con-cepts in hazards research and policy, and whilethey conventionally relate to physical hazards,emergency services themselves can exposeIndigenous groups to practices that violateIndigenous protocols, thereby putting them inharm’s way and increasing socio-cultural vul-nerability (Veland et al., 2010). Likewise, vul-nerability as measured through economic andeducational indicators can devalue or trivialisehazard reduction outside the dominant dis-course, while taking attention away from theimportance colonisation continues to have inrestricting Indigenous rights (Veland et al.,2013). In managing risk through technocraticapproaches, Indigenous conceptions of risksoriginating in the world-as-sentient are easilydismissed as superstitious belief rather thanwell-founded understanding, while hegemonicclaims to understanding what constituteshazard are institutionalised, and resultant regu-latory arrangements bypass and sideline con-temporary Indigenous governance institutions,values and understandings. Prioritising scien-tific and government discourses of risk, purposeand value, inescapably reduces Indigenous par-ticipation to compliance with the demands andregulated requirements of dominant discoursesof order, purpose and success. Engaging withcoexistence in risk management demands abold approach that recognises and engages withsafety and normalcy as they are understoodwithin Indigenous ontologies.

In the context of intercultural NRM systems,questions of security, belonging and risk arecentral to procedures of NRM governance.Dominant policy models assume that security isbest constructed on the basis of certainties con-structed within dominant culture discourses andpathologise non-conformist Indigenous valuesand behaviours, easily constructing Indigenouspeoples’ ways of being-in-place as a threat to

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orderly development and a source of risk attimes of stress – particularly during electionswhen minority interests are easily vilified forpolitical advantage (Comaroff and Comaroff,2001; Sanders, 2010). Indeed, in the currentcontext of environmental risks arising fromclimate change, and social risk arising from thesocial catastrophes experienced in many Indig-enous communities in remote Australia,imposed spatial discipline through forced relo-cations, denial of infrastructure and resources toremote settlements, and constructing certaincategories of places and citizens as ‘at risk’ havere-emerged as acceptable policy parameters ingovernment circles (Howitt et al., 2012).

Entrenched approaches and emerging hybrids

Government policies and programmes thatfurther entrench mainstream NRM systems con-tinue to pre-empt the sorts of nation-buildingidentified as foundational to Indigenousautonomy, security and sustainability (e.g.Cornell, 2006). The risk is that pro-Indigenoussocial, cultural, political and environmentalprogrammes continue being disciplined bystates to conform to economic developmentgoals defined by the state and dominant, deep-colonising social institutions (e.g. Muller,2008b). Against this dominant trend, somemanagement plans seek to reduce negative con-sequences of resource projects for affectedIndigenous communities. For example, devel-opment of cross-cultural training programmesand more sophisticated community engage-ment programmes is becoming commonplacein some sectors (Harvey and Brereton, 2005;Doohan, 2008; Solomon et al., 2008). A rangeof hybrid Indigenous models for land, sea andresource management is emerging in discussionand practice (Langton et al., 2005; Altman,2007, 2010; Stevens, 2010; Cooke and Vaz,2011; Hoffmann et al., 2012; Preuss andDixon, 2012; Weston et al., 2012; Ens et al.,2012b). It remains common, however, for theonus to be placed on Indigenous communitiesto develop their capacities, to benefit fromresource extraction. Indigenous training andemployment programmes in the mining indus-try are just some examples of the many corpo-rate attempts to coerce Indigenous people by‘teaching’ them the virtues of a Western work

ethic (Lawrence, 2005). Fragile discourses ofcorporate social responsibility have createdsome opportunities to challenge these assump-tions, but these remain tightly bound byregulatory environments that often fail toacknowledge the structural inequalities govern-ing Indigenous peoples’ relationships with thestate and private sector (Howitt and Lawrence,2008; Lawrence, 2009).

One of the more iconic examples of troubledand inappropriate engagement between Indig-enous people and corporate interests in Aus-tralia was that of the Argyle Diamond Minelocated in the remote Northeast Kimberleyregion of Western Australia. In the late 1980s,the mining company at Argyle signed an agree-ment with some Aboriginal Traditional Ownerswhich provided specified benefits to localpeople and withdrew legal challenges to themine (Dixon and Dillon, 1990). Few com-mentators would identify Argyle as a site ofsuccessful intercultural engagement. However,Doohan’s (2006, 2008, 2013) reframing of theArgyle case considers the role of Indigenouscultural performance and transformative prac-tice. She shows that in the face of conflict anddisruption to their world, local Indigenouspeople enlisted their symbolic representationsof power and meaning to initiate processes ofculturally appropriate resolution of unfinishedbusiness between themselves, their country andminers at Argyle. The mining company, in aneffort to ensure the uninterrupted continuationof the mine and an enhancement of their brand,called upon their own performances and cul-tural practices such as signing Memorandaof Understanding with Aboriginal TraditionalOwners and other forms of agreements, incor-porating Indigenous practice into their occupa-tional health and safety procedures and holdingceremonies of acknowledgement and comple-tion. In this reading, we see the deployment ofmultiple strategies of engagement to construct adynamic hybrid space of industrial mining anda site for the contemporary expression of a con-tinuing Aboriginal tradition at Argyle. In theprocess, Aboriginal traditional owners at Argylehave refined their own intercultural skills, andcreated a space in which corporate players havebeen able to develop a different relationshipwith and understanding of Indigenous culture,its values and its institutions.



Doohan’s multi-layered and inter-contextualapproach to the theatre of Argyle identifies theenlivened space of ‘Argyle’ as both geographi-cally grounded and intercultural. This enlivenedspace is certainly not one in which governmentand corporate NRM staff could continue toassume their capacities were sufficient forsuccess. New skills, understandings and valueswere required to begin changing these cultur-ally challenging opportunities to become suc-cessful and sustainable realities. The hybridperformances in health and safety training andagreement-making alongside the use of art,dance and ceremony in a variety of publicsettings have all facilitated new skill sets atArgyle.

Land use planning

A similar case can be made in state planningagencies, where existing capacity in the form ofproject assessment and approval, land usezoning and resource allocation practices oftenerase, restrict and transform Indigenousdomains and intercultural spaces of coexistenceinto domains of state regulation and domi-nance. Land use planning and project approvalprocesses constitute Indigenous territories asmanaged land and seascapes subject to legis-lated planning and development controls. Inthis way, sophisticated evaluation technologiessuch as impact assessment prioritise develop-ment approval (rather than evaluation) andintercultural capacity deficits of state agents andcorporate interests (perhaps in combinationwith self-interest) have imposed loss of Indig-enous peoples’ rights, property and prospects.In many jurisdictions, state and corporate plan-ners advocate participatory planning whilesimultaneously denying histories of exclusion,marginalisation and racism in their areas ofresponsibility. As an example of such capacitydeficits, one need only consider the ways NRM,land use and development planning systemsconstruct consensus as a top-down insistenceon conformity to a formulation of the publicinterest that is hostile to local Indigenousvalues. In such culturally incompetent systems,compliance is secured at the cost of culturaldiversity, traditional and customary rights, andequitable participation in and access to benefitsand opportunities of development processes.

Culturally competent social impact assess-ment can offer a range of tools to facilitateanalysis, monitoring and management of thesocial consequences of development and con-servation (Cosslett et al., 2004). One of its tools,community mapping, offers a means of harness-ing new technology to translate Indigenous landuse and knowledge systems into language thatis understood by a state government (Peluso,1995; Chapin et al., 2005). Lunkapis (2010, seealso Howitt and Lunkapis, 2010) suggests com-bining these tools to challenge the dominantland use and natural resource governancesystems in a powerful critique based on his ownexperiences as an Indigenous citizen and statetown planner. He uses Sabahan town planningsystems as a point of departure to criticallyanalyse how community mapping and socialimpact assessment can enhance Indigenousself-determination, self-governance and publicparticipation (Loomis, 2000; Ridder andPahl-Wostl, 2005; Xanthaki, 2007) in the plan-ning process. Generating community mappingand social impact assessment frameworks thatadequately represent Indigenous values, expe-riences and rights in NRM decisions remainsdifficult and uneven. However, open communi-cation between critical social researchers, stateregulators, resource developers and Indigenousgroups to support equitable and collaborativelearning processes, and secure rather than eraseIndigenous institutions and authority on theground, is a necessary challenge not only tothose conducting the programmes but alsoscholarly practice.

Co-motion? Embracing commotion inintercultural NRM systems

In this final section, we seek to draw on ourearlier discussion to offer a way through some ofthe chaos and commotion experienced in inter-cultural NRM systems using the notion ofco-motion as a framing tool. In Australia, NRMmanagement settings with Indigenous peopleworking in locally governed institutions areincreasingly common. Securing outcomes inwhich local Indigenous institutions hold sway,however, requires substantial local administra-tion and documentation and is dominated bymainstream NRM frameworks that marginaliseintangible elements of caring for country as

R. Howitt et al.


‘cultural’ while denying the cultural construc-tion of dominant understandings of NRM (Weir,2009; Muller, 2012, see also Wohling, 2009).State powers are reinforced by scientific dis-courses that assert the primacy of scientificobjectivity and undermine Indigenous authorityin the NRM domain (Palmer, 2004). Conse-quently, those Indigenous activities that do notchallenge dominant cultural views are morereadily granted approval and even support(Gibbs, 2003), with governments assigning sig-nificance to familiar rather than alien priorities.The ‘incomprehensible’ (O’Malley, 1998),‘illegible’ (Christie, 2007) or ‘invisible’ (Howitt,2001) components of contemporary Indigenousgovernances are thus ignored through a tech-nology of erasure within formal administrativestructures and processes. While IndigenousNRM groups are able to act, their own ontologi-cal frameworks are erased from the administra-tive structures (Muller, 2008a). Recognition andsuccess are only based on how Indigenouspractices of caring for country can contribute toauthorised and approved NRM outcomes (May,2010). Moorcroft et al. (2012) discuss the emer-gence of an innovative collaborative modelfor resource and environmental managementbetween western conservation scientists andWunambal Gaambera people on the remotenorth Kimberley coast. They identify working onthe ground with local people (planning oncountry), utilising Indigenous governance struc-tures, using flexible time frames, includingregular feedback, and using appropriate lan-guage as central to the effectiveness of therecently completed Uunguu Healthy CountryPlan (Moorcroft et al., 2012). Their work exem-plifies the sorts of intercultural competenciesrequired to shift away from deep colonisingplanning and management frameworks. Ameasure of success will be if the TraditionalOwners of this country can sustain their onto-logical and epistemological frames through themeasurement tools and indicators of healthand/or the hybrid relations that might evolvebetween the demands of western scientificmodels and the Wunambal Gaambera people.

Both scientific and sustainability discoursesoften position Indigenous knowledges as‘lacking’ answers or being outside meaningfulor measurable terms. They assume the need forexternally authorised and universally relevant

knowledge. Indigenous knowledge is thusassessed for the ‘facts’ it can contribute to themanagement process, for its objective compo-nents rather than its performance (Muller,2012). Through such a lens, Indigenous knowl-edge cannot be acknowledged as a completeepistemology. Privileging state administrativeand legislative systems have led to a co-optationof the caring for country agenda to be aboutNRM. In Yolngu domains in northeast ArnhemLand, for example, legislative and administra-tive procedures have erased Yolngu processes ofgovernance and accountability (Muller, 2012).

The unruly, intangible, illegible and ofteninvisible elements of Indigenous connectionsbetween people and country are not easy tointegrate into universal scientific or administra-tive processes, although they sometimes aremeasured as ‘art’. Indeed, their very presence isoften assumed to be an inappropriate and messyindication of chaos and commotion. Yet thisperceived commotion is actually part of a pre-scribed system of law and regulation that hasbeen the foundation of Indigenous worldviewsand is essential for self-determination. It istherefore foundational to intercultural NRMsystems. Esteva (1987) uses the idea ofco-motion to characterise the hard work ofbringing such incommensurate systemstogether, to work through what it means tomove together towards more just and sustain-able outcomes. Muller (2008c) (re)frames Indig-enous land and sea management to prioritisethe idea of co-motion as a goal forco-management processes involving Indig-enous and dominant society institutions. Whileit might be inevitable that ‘co-moting’ willproduce commotion as different worldviewsstruggle to understand and live with each other,this co-motion will both facilitate and demandincreased intercultural competence from allinvolved – not just from Indigenous parties.

Towards intercultural competence in NRM

Where state and private agencies are neitherrequired nor able to demonstrate capacity tounderstand and respond respectfully and hon-estly to the worldviews and priorities of localminority and Indigenous populations impli-cated in intercultural NRM systems, their inter-cultural capacity deficits will further reinforce



the erasure of otherwise robust and persistentfoundations for sustainability and self-determination represented by diverse localsystems of knowledge and care. Training, rec-ognition and resources need to be providedwithin the dominant institutions to foster inter-cultural understanding and competence as wellas ensuring that adaptive systems recognise theneed to adapt to socio-cultural as well as bio-physical circumstances. This is not to dismissexisting systems of ‘two-way’ NRM (Yunupinguand Muller, 2009), or to advocate disinvestmentin emerging hybrid and intercultural systems.Without both explicit spaces for self-determinedand self-managed accountability systems andprocesses, and increased commitment to newskills, knowledge, values and understanding,intercultural NRM systems will be unable topursue transformation of unsustainable andunjust practices and processes. The challenge ofEsteva’s call for co-motion is to reimagine insti-tutions in which state parties can provideresources and power to Indigenous groups evenin situations where governments and their advi-sors do not understand the ontological under-pinnings of Indigenous action; and in whichintercultural capacity building is seen as anongoing requirement for all parties, rather thanjust local Indigenous partners as a condition forthem being accepted as partners.

Persistently weak intercultural capacity andsignificant capacity deficits within NRM insti-tutions, and the consequences of interculturalincompetence in those systems, are signifi-cant challenges even in relatively successfulco-management systems. This paper hasreviewed a range of Indigenous experience inNRM in Australia and Malaysia in particular, toinsist that such capacity deficits must be rec-ognised and addressed in both policy andpractice. We invite debate, disagreement and,most importantly, improvement in the ideasand methods discussed here as a step forwardin strengthening critical scholarly engagementand praxis with these issues and fields ofengagement.

In areas of Indigenous policy and multicul-tural settings, the political agenda for socialinclusion has very often emphasised questionsof knowledge, skills and understanding throughcapacity building that has been directed at localcommunities rather than developer or regula-

tory institutions. In light of our aforementioneddiscussion, we not only endorse continuedexpansion of Indigenous capacity to understandand deal with the dominant society’s culturalrequirements through education and otheropportunities, but also insist on the urgent needto address the capacity deficits of universities,government agencies, resource corporations,NRM institutions (including Indigenous organi-sations themselves) and our own scholarly dis-ciplines. It must become a priority of scholars,discipline bodies, universities and others toovercome capacity deficits and increase inter-cultural competence along with ethical, scien-tific, social and economic knowledge, skills andunderstanding to ensure that responses to emer-gent risks and opportunities do not simplyre-inscribe injustice, inhumanity and deepecological and cultural wounds on already trau-matised peoples and scarred landscapes ofcoexistence. The realities of messy, conflictual,awkward and fragile geographies of coexistencecreate a unique challenge – and opportunity –for engaged social and environmental scholar-ship. It is to produce critical ideas that equipintercultural NRM institutions and their staffto see, think and act more coherently, moreresponsibly, more generously and more equita-bly towards just, sustainable and inclusivefutures.

Acknowledgements

Earlier versions of this paper were delivered atmeetings in Saskatoon, Canada (June 2009),Christchurch, New Zealand (July 2009) andKota Kinabalu, Malaysia (June 2011). We aregrateful to colleagues, commentators and ourreferees for their criticism of earlier versions.We are particularly grateful to Fiona Miller forher patient insistence on a tighter focus to bringthis paper to its current form.

Notes

1 Responding to these challenges has been an importantelement of recent efforts towards ‘reconciliation’ inmany jurisdictions. It is beyond the scope of this paperto review that literature in detail, but the work ofBhandar (2004), Short (2003a,b), 2005), Gibson (2004,2005, 2006; Gibson and Claassen, 2010), andCorntassel (2012) offers important windows on thedebates.

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2 The term ‘deep colonising’ is drawn from Rose (1999)and refers to those unintended consequences of well-intentioned activities such as policy reform or researchwhich reinforce rather than challenge colonial relation-ships and power structures.

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Intercultural capacity deficits: Contested geographies of coexistence in natural resource management