Applying a shared understanding between Aboriginal and Western knowledge to challenge unsustainable neo-liberal planning policy and practices

ABSTRACT

This article discusses the use of scientific and Aboriginal knowledge in planning, exploring how their uses are limited within the neo-liberal ideology that underpins planning institutions globally. Western knowledge, based on a scientific, enlightenment philosophy, is often seen as the objective basis for planning and policy-making. However, a more social constructivist view reveals that the use of science in planning is complex; science can be used to justify a neo-liberal agenda, limiting efforts towards sustainability. Aboriginal knowledge, underpinned by an ancestral responsibility, holds an intrinsic obligation for Aboriginal Peoples to care for Country. This knowledge is commonly excluded from planning processes and continually fails to challenge unsustainable neo-liberal planning. We investigate how the neo-liberal ideology limits the uses of these knowledges, contributing to growth and development that risk breaching ecological limits. Drawing on insights from two different research projects, the article shows how politicisation of Western scientific knowledge and the colonisation of Aboriginal knowledge limit plurality and inclusion in planning. We argue that unsustainable planning practice should be challenged through co-learning in order to improve planning. We conclude with suggestions on how a shared understanding of knowledge might be theorised to provoke a sustainable agenda for planning policy and practice.

KEYWORDS:

• Use of knowledge
• planning
• Aboriginal connection to Country
• politicisation
• colonisation
• evidence-based planning

Acknowledgements

We thank all the participants in each PhD research project, particularly the Quandamooka and Jagera participants who each welcomed, instructed and educated RCH in the ways of Country. We would like to thank the three anonymous reviewers and the editors whose comments helped improve the paper.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. This article attempts not to promote Indigenous or non-indigenous knowledge as being better or more valid. As noted, the distinction may be less than clear. Rather this discussion aims to promote the merits of both knowledges and the benefits that come from co-sharing and integration.

2. Aboriginal is used here to mean Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander People. According to s51 (25) of the High Court of Australia (1983):

An Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander person, is a person of Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander descent who identifies as an Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander and is accepted as such by the community in which he or she lives.

The Queensland Health ‘Guidelines for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Terminology’ (2011) has expressed a preference that the word ‘Aboriginal’, within the context of Australia, is always capitalised. The word Indigenous refers to an Indigenous person from any part of the world and does not necessarily refer to an Aboriginal Australian.

3. Country means far more than just the physical landscape. Rather it:

 … incorporates people, animals, plants, water and land. But Country is more than just people and things; it is also what connects them to each other and the multiple spiritual and symbolic realms. It relates to laws, custom, movement, song, knowledges … histories, presents and futures … Country can be talked to, it can be known, it can itself communicate, feel and take action. (Wright et al. 2012, 54, emphasis added)

4. Traditional Owner is defined according to Queensland's Health Guidelines (2011) as

an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander person or group of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people directly descended from the original Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander inhabitants of a culturally defined area of land or Country, and has a cultural association with this Country that derives from the traditions, observances, customs, beliefs or history of the original Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander inhabitants of the area.