Question 4: What happens when different knowledges speak to each
other?
How do differing concepts of wilderness affect the management
of resources?
When these different concepts of knowledge come together, it has
some interesting consequences.
The whole concept of land and its ownership and use surfaces. If
the landscape is a social and cultural construction, then there
is clear evidence for human occupation and concepts of terra
nullius (in Australia at least) are thrown into question. Acknowledging
human action within the landscape, requires the acknowledgement
of prior ownership and occupation.
Chapter Four of the Key Questions text raises heaps of questions
about how and how effective the coming together of different knowledge
systems can be. Are the different knowledges commensurable? What
sorts of things do we put into place to ensure that working together
doesn't just become an exercise in appropriation. How does this
come together into effective management of land?
Read Chapter Four in the Key Questions text to get an idea
of these issues.
Does locking away land in parks and reserves solve conservation
dilemmas?
A differing concept of wilderness also means that contemporary
scientists need to re-think their concepts of land management and
use. Using your understanding of other knowledge systems from Chapter
Three of Key Questions, what is the answer to this question?
If that landscape requires active use and management, do we need
to re-think our concepts of the use of fire, maybe we need to re-think
our concepts of the sustainable use of wildlife? At the very outset,
it makes scientists and managers think that active agency, active
involvement in management, is the only option and that locking away
land in parks and reserves doesn't necessarily solve conservation
dilemmas. Is this other extreme the right way to go? Each of these
questions requires some thought. Respond to these questions in the
Tutorial
Discussion after you've had time to think them through.
According to Langton, national parks and reserves are another form
of colonialism and a socially acceptable way for people to dispossess
land from Indigenous people.
How do you deal with the 'new' wildernesses that have developed
over recent decades where original landowners have been dispossessed
of their land, drawn to permanent settlements or killed in battles?
In places where no-one now has the access to land, or there are
no people to manage it in traditional ways, how do you deal with
the important issues of active involvement? How do you get people
living and working on their land again? How do you finance this?
How do you create economic bases from which people are able to operate
effectively in remote areas and still participate in contemporary
economies, if they want to?
What does Langton have to say about this? How do we get different
systems of knowledge working together? Contribute your ideas on
this one to the
Tutorial
Discussion. Her ideas are based upon the equality and assumption
of an equality of voice for each of the different groups involved.
When the different systems speak to each other, there is the potential
for new and novel management options. This happens particularly
when different groups are open to being informed by the knowledge
and traditions of each other and are keen to develop solutions to
the problems of management that face contemporary land use in Australia.
Chapter Four (on p 68) talks about the contestation between local
and universal knowledge. Do you think the local and specific knowledge
held by landowners and small clan groups is the answer to land and
resource management?
I like the optimism suggested by the Yolngu metaphor of Ganma on
page 70, but I wonder just how realistic such a concept is in the
real world. What do you think? Does this mixing of knowledge systems
and the creation of new ideas really likely to happen? What sorts
of conditions need to be in place if it does?
There are heaps of questions here because in many ways, this section
really generates more of them than it answers. That's positive,
because it means we are questioning our right to be involved, our
right to manage land and our right to claim territory. Between us
in the discussions, we are likely to come up with a few answers
that will help us to move forward.
|
