Closing the Gap: Decolonisation, ANT and Bridging the Divide Between Urban Planning Practitioners and Academics

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Acknowledgements

The authors would like to acknowledge the valuable suggestions and encouragement provided by the journal’s reviewers.

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 In Victoria the First People’s Assembly was established to advance the treaty process. For more details: https://www.firstpeoplesrelations.vic.gov.au/treaty-process

2 In February 2021 the Queensland government established a Treaty Advancement Committee. https://statements.qld.gov.au/statements/91470

3 See “Who has a RAP?”, https://www.reconciliation.org.au/reconciliation-action-plans/who-has-a-rap/

4 Lukacz defined reification as to take a relationship between people and give it “the character of a thing and thus acquires a “phantom objectivity”, an autonomy that seems so strictly rational and all-embracing as to conceal every trace of its fundamental nature: the relation between people.” https://www.marxists.org/archive/lukacs/works/history/hcc05.htm.

5 More information about Reconciliation Australia can be found here: https://www.reconciliation.org.au/about-us/. We acknowledge that the not everyone agrees with the reconciliation project – Maddison (2009) summarises several Indigenous dissenting views.

6 https://www.reconciliation.org.au/reconciliation/what-is-reconciliation/

7 https://cssp.org/2019/11/honoring-the-global-indigenous-roots-of-restorative-justice/; https://cij.org.au/opencircle/what-is-restorative-justice/

8 More than a word. Reconciliation takes action. https://www.planning.org.au/aboutpia/national-reconciliation-week-2021

9 State of Australian Cities Conference paper collection can be found here: https://apo.org.au/search-collection?field_collection=300036

10 The gap between planning theory and practice has been discussed since at least 1983. For an early example see de Neufville (1983) and for an Australian perspective see Taylor and Hurley (2016).

11 The Western Highway refers to a dispute between the Victorian Government and Djab Wurrung people of Western Victoria over the destruction of scared trees for a highway upgrade.

12 On the 10th September 2019 an open letter to Victorian Premier was signed by over 100 academics “to express our grave concern and disappointment about the Victorian Government’s plans to bulldoze the sacred trees of the Djab Wurrung people”.

13 The Department of Transport doesn’t have a current RAP but has at least two other relevant plans that include cultural awareness training - see Action 1.1 in State of Victoria, Transport Portfolio Aboriginal Self-Determination Plan 2020–2023, and Action 1.4 in State of Victoria, (2019) Bullarto-Buluk DoT’s Aboriginal Inclusion Action Plan 2018–20.