I’m working on an ARC Linkage Project entitled Integrating Measures of Indigenous Land and Sea Management Effectiveness based at RIEL, CDU. The project is a fairly large collaboration between: 4(5?) groups of Indigenous Australians engaged in land and sea management that is funded by ‘outsiders’; environmental NGOs; government; and research institutions. Our broad aim is to come up with better tools for measuring how well land and sea management in Australia is working, that is representative of the aspirations of all stakeholders. We are particularly interested in developing measures of how land and sea management activities are affecting Indigenous culture, society and livelihoods, as well as the environment.

There has been a general narrative over the last couple of decades that land and sea management programmes (typified by the rise of ‘Rangers’) have been successful because it is place where Indigenous and non-Indigenous interests meet. Our project seeks to test this assumption by identifying areas of mutual interest, and developing a process?/framework?/process-framework?/etc. to measure whether land and sea managers and their partners are achieving shared aspirations or not. Management effectiveness frameworks (or whatever the tools produced from our research turn out to be) directly influence decision making, resource allocation, monitoring and evaluation, policy development, and, importantly, land and sea management practice itself.

For me (though not necessarily the rest of our diverse group), the project has a responsibility to communicate that Indigenous land and sea management is not necessarily about achieving biodiversity conservation, carbon sequestration, emissions reduction, or protecting endangered species, as much as it is about fulfilling obligations to kin, ancestors and country. The aforementioned western benefits of land and sea management are in fact potential co-benefits of such activity. Getting this story right, and subsequently ensuring the governance of partnerships between land and sea managers and investors works to serve shared aspirations, is the priority.

Management effectiveness frameworks (and their ilk) are governance tools – so I have started to think about governance a lot. It is a field of knowledge and practice that I really have only dipped my toe in, though hope to make the focus of my postdoctoral fellowship. Some of the questions that are rising for me are:

• What does ‘good governance’ mean? Good for who?
• How do we govern across cultures?
• How can we govern for diverse needs and aspirations?
• How to deal with the issue of scale (I have a focus on the local, but others in the group are interested in regional/global measures of effectiveness)?
• Intercultural governance requires specific linguistic technology – do we have it? Is our project folly if we don’t develop some?
• How does the act of measuring effectiveness in the intercultural space change the act of looking after country?
• Is our project a product of/instrument for governmentality?

As mentioned, I am hoping to create an opportunity to make governance of Indigenous land and sea management and institutions in the intercultural space the focus of my postdoc research (if project management and supervision don’t get in the way!). At present the grand narrative that ties my proposed research together is the analysis of power. In a cautionary and analytical sense, Foucauldian conceptions of power (specifically governmentality) provide both a guiding hand and fruitful insight into how appropriate and enabling frameworks for measuring the effectiveness of land and sea managers by Indigenous Australians can be developed. Alternative theories and concepts may also emerge as useful and enlightening, especially from the theory and practice of public policy program evaluation. A key task of my research is introducing theories of power to our research partners and communicating their opinions, insights and strategies for ensuring that land and sea management effectiveness is culturally appropriate and remains enabling, rather than disabling, in nature.