The evolution of joint management in Western Australia parks and the indigenous tourism nexus

Since the early 2000s, park management approaches to protected area governance have undergone a significant transformation, driven by the realisation that long-term conservation outcomes depend on participation in decision-making by stakeholders. To meet these challenges one of the measures being adopted by park managers is to engage in joint management arrangements. Recent changes to the conservation legislation in Western Australia provides the capacity for the Department of Parks and Wildlife (Parks and Wildlife) to enter into joint management arrangements with Aboriginal traditional owners and others for the management of protected areas, regardless of the land vesting or tenure. Joint management activities provide both formal and informal opportunities for mentoring, skills building, resource sharing, and knowledge mobilisation. Aboriginal traditional owners, through native title settlements, are regaining rights and control over land and resources. Successful native title claims have the potential to contribute to the advancement of social and economic wellbeing of Aboriginal communities. One compatible type of economic development occurring in parks is sustainable tourism - specifically ecotourism and cultural tourism. It is argued that tourism can assist in achieving conservation goals, as the need for ecological sustainability and biological conservation becomes greater due to habitat loss, population increases, hunting wildlife and poverty. Some specialists advocate for the resource management process to fully integrate tourism, since the base of the parks-tourism partnership is resource sustainability. This qualitative study used multi-method triangulation (participant observation, interviews, document analysis, case study) with the intent of identifying the place of Aboriginal tourism development within the shared governance structure of joint management. The research highlighted successful Aboriginal tourism development outcomes brought about through the capacity building that occurs within strong working relationships, forged over many years between Parks and Wildlife staff and local Aboriginal communities. One important research finding is the emergence of a parks - tourism – Aboriginal people – joint management nexus, as revealed by those directly involved in joint management strongly viewing Aboriginal tourism development as an important outcome. However, the research found that government, tourism professionals and the public had difficulty in understanding the concept of joint management and its value in facilitating Aboriginal tourism. Evidence of the disconnect is seen in the government’s failure to provide adequate funding for these activities and highlights an opportunity for educating the tourism industry and government about joint management’s potential to assist with Aboriginal tourism development. The State Government could do more to support the important component of capacity building facilitated through joint management, which fosters cross-cultural awareness, skill enhancement, and economic and social development amongst the stakeholders. An equally important finding is the ability of the Conservation and Land Management Regulations 2002 to provide a mechanism for Aboriginal joint management partners to adequately manage visitors and tour operators on their lands, as Aboriginal communities currently have very limited powers to regulate access. Joint management provides a vehicle to achieve sustainable benefits for conservation, communities and country including supporting Aboriginal tourism development. Therefore it is paramount that joint management partners are cognitive of the important role of tourism when they undertake the task of preparing management plans for protected areas, and Governments provide adequate funding to sustain joint management activities

Understanding modes of dwelling: A transdisciplinary approach to phenomenology of landscape

This transdisciplinary PhD addresses the research question: Can some form of phenomenology provide an effective over-arching paradigm for transdisciplinary research in ethnophysiography? Ethnophysiography studies the way people within a language community conceptualise natural landscape, including terms for landscape features and toponyms (placenames). Dwelling involves conceptualisations and affects regarding physical, utilitarian, cultural, spiritual and ethical relationships with landscape. A key achievement is development of an enhanced ethnophysiography case study methodology, supporting the Ethnophysiography Descriptive Model (EDM). Summary phenomenographic tables were prepared from literature reviews of ethnophysiography, transdisciplinarity, phenomenology, concepts of place and relationships with place. The use of tables, summarising key results of literature reviews (via a phenomenographic approach), is integral to the methodology, to operationalize transdisciplinarity. Some tables are utilised in the PTM-ECS, facilitating identification of relevant issues, collection of appropriate data, and hermeneutic analysis processes. To facilitate comparison of landscape terms and toponyms between languages, the EDM was developed and tested. A key contribution is interpretation of the phenomenological concepts of ‘lifeworld’, ‘topology’ and ‘habitus’. Creation of landscape, as place, involves synergistic integration, in a non-deterministic and emergent manner, of the physical attributes of an area of topographic environment (terrain and ecosystem) with the socio-cultural characteristics of a group of people (including linguistic and spiritual aspects). This produces a particular topo-socio-cultural-spiritual mode-of-dwelling (topology). A partial trial of the new methodology is provided, via an ethnophysiography case study with Manyjilyjarra Aboriginal people in Australia’s Western Desert (undertaken by this author with linguist Clair Hill). It demonstrates how the adopted approach facilitates understanding of traditional forms of dwelling and how this relates to Jukurrpa (The Dreaming), the law, lore and social structure of their society. Review of research processes indicates they effectively utilised key features of transdisciplinarity. A summary of the findings, their potential application, a statement of research limitations, and proposals for further research, are provided

Art in the Global Present

Art in the Global Present presents a fascinating collection of essays that together reveal how art is currently navigating a globalised world. It addresses social issues such as the impact of migration, the ‘war on terror’ and the global financial crisis, and questions the transformations produced by new forms of flexible labour and the digital revolution. Through examining the resistance to the politics of globalisation in contemporary art, presenting the construction of an alternative geography of the imagination and reflecting on art’s capacity to express the widest possible sense of being, this book explores the worlds that artists make when they make art. A multifaceted perspective on the complexity of these issues is reached through the words of a diverse range of art practitioners and commentators, including acclaimed artists Lucy Orta, Callum Morton, Danae Stratou and the collective Postcommodity, international curators Hou Hanru, Cuauhtémoc Medina, Ranjit Hoskote and Linda Marie Walker and art critics, academics, writers and theorists Jean Burgess, Paul Carter, Barbara Creed, Geert Lovink, Scott McQuire, Nikos Papastergiadis, Gerald Raunig and Jan Verwoert

Construction morphology:issues in Akan complex nominal morphology

Akan, like any other language, has both regular and irregular complex nominals (CNs). However, previous studies of Akan nominals have been constructive in approach, mostly adhering to a strict form of the principle of compositionality and assuming that the morphological, phonological and semantic properties of CNs can be accounted for fully by tweaking those of their constituents. Consequently, CNs whose properties cannot be so accounted for are either ignored or forced into the mould of regular ones. In this study, I do three things. First, I present a detailed empirically-based assessment of attested CNs in Akan based on a dataset of 1000 CNs drawn from a variety of written sources. This shows that Akan CNs may be grouped into four; compounds, affix-derived CNs, those formed by tonal changes and “lexicalized” forms, which have the form of phrases but occur as CNs and are mostly only partially compositional. Secondly, I present a detailed discussion of the formal and semantic properties of all the attested compounds and a subset of the lexicalized nominals. Thirdly, on the basis of the latter discussion, I examine what the formation and structure of CNs reveal about the interaction between morphology and syntax and about the architecture of the grammar. The analyses show that the formation of CNs in Akan may at once involve morphological and syntactic structure in a way that renders untenable the view that morphology and syntax constitute two completely different modules of the grammar which may be assumed to interact only because the output of the former is the input to the latter. The present study provides support for the constructional view of the grammar