Geoforum 40 (2009) 442–453

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Geoforum

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A Guugu Yimmithir Bam Wii: Ngawiya and Girrbithi: Hunting, planningand management along the Great Barrier Reef, Australia q

Melissa Nursey-BrayNational Centre for Marine Conservation and Resource Sustainability, Australian Maritime College, A Specialist Institute of the University of Tasmania,36 Herbert Street, Invermay, Tasmania 7248, Australia1

a r t i c l e i n f o

Article history:Received 22 August 2007Received in revised form 4 February 2009

Keywords:DiscourseIndigenousResource managementHope ValeAustraliaHunting

0016-7185/$ - see front matter � 2009 Elsevier Ltd. Adoi:10.1016/j.geoforum.2009.02.002

q This is the title of the Hope Vale Hunting Plan alanguage. It loosely translates to mean the ‘Turtle anment Plan for the Guugu Yimmithirr people’ (pers com1999).

E-mail address: m.nursey-bray@amc.edu.au1 This research was the result of work undertake

University, Townsville, Australia.2 Throughout the paper, by community, we mean th

Hope Vale, which is physically located near Cooktownacknowledge the term is a value laden one, so in this cgeographical space.

a b s t r a c t

The integration of Indigenous cultural rights with biodiversity protection can be explored in multipledimensions and occupy contested grounds. This paper outlines the results of a research project thatapplied discourse analysis as both a theoretical and methodological tool to examine the power andknowledge relations within a case study of the development of a turtle and dugong hunting managementplan by the Hope Vale Aboriginal Community in northern Australia. This paper reports on the results ofthis analysis and shows how multiple binaries exist within and between the different actors in a resourcemanagement problem. Findings show that contested constructions of the environment are hugely influ-ential to the success or failure of natural resource management endeavours. The ontological frames thatare adopted in supporting Indigenous peoples to manage their land and seas must be understood, other-wise there is a risk of reinforcing the very binaries that need to be avoided.

� 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction

There is currently a global biodiversity crisis of unprecedentedproportions. At the same time, there are to-date 100,000 protectedareas formally recognised worldwide and the majority of these ‘areowned by or claimed by Indigenous peoples’ (Colchester, 2004, p.151). Theoretically, on this basis, Indigenous peoples should be amajor force in the realm of formal protected area and biodiversitymanagement. However, the conjuncture between cultural rightsand biodiversity is problematic. In this context, Head et al. (2005,p. 252) note ‘socio-cultural processes are central to environmentalattitudes and behaviours’. This paper explores such socio-culturalprocesses through an analysis of how power and knowledge im-pacted on a hunting management initiative between the GuuguYimmithirr people (of Hope Vale community, Cape York),2 Austra-

ll rights reserved.

nd is the Guugu Yimmithirrd Dugong Hunting Manage-m Robbie Deemal, Hope Vale

n while at the James Cook

e geographical community of, in Queensland (see Fig. 1). Iase, restrict its use to being a

lia and the statutory (State and Commonwealth) management agen-cies. The ontological landscape3 that drives each party to themanagement endeavour can obstruct its effectiveness. Inequalitiesbetween power and knowledge domains lead to complications eitherin planning or implementation.

2. The research setting: hunting and the Guugu Yimmithirr

Hope Vale community is located along the Great Barrier Reef(GBR) (See Fig. 1) an area that is also home to large populationsof dugongs (Dugong dugon) and green turtles (Chelonia midas). Bothspecies are listed as vulnerable and endangered in the Interna-tional Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red Data Listof Threatened Species. These listings have meant dugong and greenturtle have become iconic representations of the values of theWorld Heritage area (WHA). While there are many documentedimpacts affecting mortality of green turtle and dugong, includingboat strike, disease, residential developments and fishing (net

3 Throughout this paper I employ the terms ‘ontological’ and ‘ontological frame-works’ and in so doing refer to how societies, via knowledge and power relations,construct an understanding of the world around them. In this I have explicitly drawnon Howitt and Pearson’s (2006) work in this regard. Specifically, they employ theterm ‘ontological’ to inform discussion around Western and Indigenous ontologies, or‘world views’ in relation to the idea of ‘management’.

Fig. 1. Location of Hope Vale community and traditional hunting area.

4 On June 3rd 1992, the High Court of Australia recognised a form of Native Titlethat reflected ‘the entitlement of Indigenous inhabitants, in accordance with theirlaws and customs, to their traditional lands.’ (Mabo and Others v. Queensland (No. 2)1992175 CLR 1 F.C. 92/014). This High Court decision also recognised that the priorrights of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders were similar to those of otherIndigenous groups across the world.

M. Nursey-Bray / Geoforum 40 (2009) 442–453 443

entanglement), in this northern area of the GBR it is acknowledgedthat hunting has a major impact (Marsh et al., 2002). However, du-gong and turtles also have great symbolic and cultural value toIndigenous peoples. Of the 70 or so Indigenous groups that livealong the GBRWHA (comprising some 11,000 people), all have tra-ditionally hunted turtle and dugongs (Smith, 1987). As such Indig-enous peoples in the region view their right to hunt as an essentialassertion of contemporary cultural identity. This right has been up-held in the Mabo (Mabo and Others v. Queensland (No. 2) 1992175CLR 1 F.C. 92/014) and Yanner (Yanner v Eaton [1999] HCA 53, 7October 1999) High Court decisions, both of which set legislative

precedent to allow Indigenous peoples in Australia to hunt andtake any species so long as they can prove they are native title4

holders to that area. In a management context this means that

5 The Australian government took a very pro-active anti-whaling stance at thistime. Accordingly, the discourse around the notion of hunting, any hunting, wasnegative. This had repercussions at local and regional levels, and the effect oflessening overt and publically expressed support for Indigenous hunting of otherendangered species such as turtle and dugong within the GBR.

6 As of September 2008, interest in the Plan was resurfacing, the Plan is in theprocess of being reviewed, and new energy being put into the development of huntingplanning and management at Hope Vale.

7 This research was my doctoral research and supervised by Professor HeleneMarsh (James Cook University), Professor Helen Ross (University of Queensland) andProfessor Steve Turton (James Cook University).

444 M. Nursey-Bray / Geoforum 40 (2009) 442–453

Western managers are no longer able to uphold a binary betweenthe notion of biodiversity and culture, but implement manage-ment programs that acknowledge the inextricable link betweenthe two.

The Indigenous community of Hope Vale comprises some 35–37 clan groups, all of whom are part of the Guugu Yimmithirrpeople (NNTT, 1997). Hunting green turtles and dugongs has al-ways been an important cultural and subsistence activity for theGuugu Yimmithirr people (Roth, 1901; Tindale, 1929). In 1886the Lutheran Church established the Hope Valley mission atCape Bedford. Records from that time show that green turtlesand dugongs were not only hunted for their cultural value butformed part of the staple diet and income of the community(Haviland and Haviland, 1980). A dugong oil industry was estab-lished near Hope Vale just north of the Starcke River from 1928through to the start of the Second World War, with intermittentattempts to revive the industry subsequently. While hunting re-mained an important cultural activity, by the 1990s, Hope Valecommunity members also began to establish environmentalmanagement programs, with a natural resource management of-fice established in 1996. The office employed community rang-ers, who worked with management agencies and researchinstitutions to undertake a green turtle and dugong catch mon-itoring program. Hope Vale community also participated in oneof the first hunting permit programs with the Commonwealthmanagement agency, the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Author-ity (GBRMPA). While ongoing commitment to it had been inter-mittent, in 1997, it was re-instituted in response to an allegedhunting incident and prompted negotiations with managementagencies that resulted in funding being allocated by GBRMPAfor the development of a green turtle and dugong hunting man-agement program. Hope Vale subsequently launched the GuuguYimmithirr Bama Wii: Ngawiya and Girrbithi: Turtle and DugongHunting Management Plan (Hope Vale Aboriginal Council, 1999),the first in Australia. The overriding vision of the Hope Vale Planwas to address the twin objectives of maintaining the Aboriginalcultural right to hunt and the conservation of green turtles anddugongs. This vision was supported by five subsidiary aimsincluding: (i) to develop controlled Indigenous hunting regimesfor dugongs and green turtles; (ii) to protect dugong and greenturtle habitat by managing the activities carried out on the landand sea by both Traditional Owners and visitors according to thedesires of the Traditional Owners; (iii) to maintain the activity,knowledge and skill of traditional hunting for green turtles anddugongs, ensuring that this important cultural activity is contin-ued through future generations; (iv) to assist the community todevelop and reinstate customary laws to manage traditionalhunting in conjunction with State and Commonwealth legisla-tion; and (v) to revitalise respect for the law and the sea man-agement aspirations of individual clan groups. In 2000, thePlan won a Prime Ministers Award for Community Leadershipand Environmental Sustainability.

However, while many attempts were made to implement thePlan between 2000 and 2003, ultimately, parties within Hope Valeand the management agencies concluded that the Plan had failed(Marsh, 2006; Nursey-Bray, 2003). Staff within the GBRMPA werenot convinced and did not have any quantitative proof that indi-cated there had been a reduction in or stabilisation of hunting inthe region. Hope Vale members did not feel they had been giventhe economic and logistical support and training from State andCommonwealth management agencies to enable them to fully rea-lise the vision within the Plan.

This turn of events could be attributed to many factors. Theseinclude inadequate resourcing (i.e. vehicle and boat access), insuf-ficient compliance, community politics, the deaths of crucial peo-ple, and the influence of international events (such as the

meeting of the International Whaling Commission; IWC).5 Noneof them however, fully explain why the initiative was perceived tohave failed. A period of growing frustration and distrust ensued untilthree years after its inception implementation of the Plan was put onhold.6 In this context, the aim of this research project was to interro-gate why the Plan had failed – or was perceived to have failed. Theresearch project had three aims: (i) to document the values and per-spectives (including social, economic and cultural) of Indigenouscommunity members in relation to the issue of Indigenous hunting,planning and management; (ii) to document the values and perspec-tives (including social, economic and cultural) of managementagency members in relation to the issue of Indigenous hunting, plan-ning and management; and (iii) to document the differences andsimilarities between these values and perspectives (including social,economic and cultural) and their implications for management.7

3. Methodology

This article is based on a Foucauldian discourse approach, onethat allows for the illumination of power and knowledge in bothmaterial and non material practices (Foucault, 1972). As Feindtand Oels note (2005, p. 163):

taking a discursive perspective . . .allows one to ask if envi-ronmental policy is about nature and the environment atall, or rather about a redistribution and reconfiguration ofpower in the name of the environment.

The findings presented in this article also draw on work byHajer (1995) and Rydin (2005) who both utilize the ideas of dis-course storylines and discourse coalitions to provide a usefulexplanation of the processes of coalition formation, interactionand policy learning. A storyline is defined as a ‘generative sort ofnarrative that allows actors to draw upon various discursive cate-gories to give meaning to specific physical or social phenomena(Hajer, 1995, p. 56). Actors then form discourse coalitions aroundthese storylines. Discourse coalitions are groups that tend to coa-lesce around specific storylines or discourse, to find new ways ofapproaching a problem (although they may not actually know eachother per se) (Lindseth, 2006, p. 21). Discourse storylines can helpfacilitate understandings of the policy networks that result in man-agement outcomes and are an effective way of looking at a conten-tious problem such as hunting of endangered species, as theyenable a linking across scale and time of different interests and dis-courses about the issue (Bulkely, 2000). Rydin (2005) notes thatthe use of discourse helps understanding of different actors’ per-spectives, in turn stimulating a fuller understanding of how indi-viduals engage within policy processes, an ‘engagement that isfundamentally communicative and hence discursive’ (Rydin,2005, p. 77). Such analysis also links the use of discourse by variousactors to overarching societal discourses, thus demonstrating howactors, use language to pursue their self or the national interest.

Research trends indicate a conscious deliberation about the useof discourse within environmental management with severalresearchers applying discourse theory empirically in environmen-tal and Indigenous research (Augoustinos, 2001; le Couteur, 2001).

8 By ‘Day to Day Management’ or DDM, we mean those staff responsible forimplementing the legislative and enforcement requirements for management alongthe GBRWHA. In this instance, GBRMPA, QDEH and others worked together as acombined unit to manage the region, on a day to day basis.

9 By terms of significance I mean the repetitive use by both parties of the sameterm, and one which denoted power and/or was significant but which wasunderstood to mean different things by said parties.

M. Nursey-Bray / Geoforum 40 (2009) 442–453 445

The utility of discourse analysis (DA) as a methodological tool forexample, is highlighted in research where DA was used as a toolto achieve conflict resolution in environmental management(Myerson and Rydin, 1996). Understanding the different sourcesand discourses in this case enabled different parties, to negotiatepoints in common and facilitate conflict resolution on points ofdifference. Another case study of irrigation in the Australian stateof New South Wales (NSW), reviewed community reactions tomedia reports concerning irrigation issues in north-west NSW.Discourse techniques were then used to interrogate thosereactions, and results highlighted key differences in communityperception (Butteriss et al., 2001). Understanding that thesedifferences existed and what their nature was, allowed for betterunderstandings between the protagonists. As such DA can be usedto assist in the resolution of environmental conflict.

In Indigenous contexts, discourse can be used as a rhetoricalresource. For example, in a case study of Aboriginal responses tolarge-scale mining projects, Trigger (2000) applies discoursetheory to reveal ‘genuine substantial differences of opinion amongAboriginal people’ to conclude that understanding ‘the complexi-ties of internal dynamics within Aboriginal communities. . .

becomes essential to any analysis of Indigenous response. . .[tomining and] the recuperation of Indigenous culture as an alterna-tive to accommodating new resource developments’ (Trigger,2000, p. 204). Ipso facto, policy both within the mining industryand community response to it can be refined and shaped by theadditional understandings garnered from discourse analysis.

Within local management programs such as that of Hope Valethere exist a multiplicity of competing value systems, and manycontested domains. In turn these different values become discur-sively reflected within different configurations of knowledge andpower across the political landscape. Understanding the discursivelandscape within such contexts is important because, as resourcemanagement systems are also political systems that produceresource commodities and power (Howitt, 2001), they impactdirectly on decision making processes.

Moreover, in eliciting understandings about knowledge, the useof discourse analysis as a methodological tool for analyzing textsenabled the exploration of what constituted knowledge, howdiscourses were constructed within (and constructive of) socialinstitutions, how ideologies functioned in the social institutionsunder examination, and how people obtained and maintainedpower within the given community of interest.

Importantly, DA helps to identify how the social settings andtheir institutional discourses relate to the non-discursive aspectsof social settings, how the social settings and their institutionaldiscourses are organised and how silence is organised within socialsettings and their institutional discourses. This last aspect wasparticularly significant when seeking to critically identify, amplifyand legitimise discourses associated with marginalised groupssuch as those within the Guugu Yimmithirr community.

To collect the information a combination of qualitative methodswas employed including participant observation methodology dur-ing three sequential hunting seasons between mid-December andmid-February in 2000–2001, 2001–2002 and 2002–2003. Observa-tion took place throughout the community, in the environmentalmanagement office, and on shore as hunts departed and returned.As the researcher was female, participation in the hunt itself wasculturally inappropriate thus information collection includedobservation of relevant community council meetings, recordingof informal conversations and conducting planned interviews.Twenty-eight members of Hope Vale community, 10 of whomwere women, were interviewed using in-depth semi-structuredinterviews. The interviewees were selected to include representa-tives from all the key traditional owner groups within the commu-nity who had sea country in their hunting estates and men and

women involved in the institutional and administrative businessof the community (often the same men and women were involvedin both), providing a cross section of community views about hunt-ing, management and planning. Project design ensured that at leastone hunter from each major clan group was interviewed, and in-cluded two cross-generational interview sets with the grandfather,father and son from two competing hunting clans.

Similar interviews were undertaken with management agencystaff. The 15 individuals interviewed included staff from the GreatBarrier Reef Marine Authority (8 policy and program staff, 3 ‘Day toDay Management’ staff8), staff from the Queensland Department ofEnvironment and Heritage (2 people), and the Queensland Boatingand Fisheries Patrol (2). The professional responsibilities of these inter-viewees included surveillance and enforcement, day-to-day manage-ment, Indigenous policy, species conservation, law, and water quality.Together they were responsible for implementing the legislative man-agement responsibilities in relation to green turtle and dugong.

Summary results were checked with members of the project’sCultural Advisory Committee through ongoing iterative conversa-tions with hunters and other community members and numerouspresentations to the community. Community members endorsedthe results. The results were presented to management agencystaff in many forums, both formal and informal, during and afterthe research period.

In analyzing the information, I adapted the approach used byYanow (2000, p. 4) and applied a broad analytical focus to the iden-tification of the discourses, so that the relationship between dis-course and social reality was elucidated. This was done bythorough examination of how different texts draw on different dis-courses. This analysis also facilitated the identification of points ofconflict, and how they reflected different interpretations by differ-ent communities of interest. Analysis of specific texts initially usedthematic analysis, including the interrogation of ‘terms of signifi-cance’ (Jager, 20019).

Given the contentious and cross-cultural context of the researchtopic, as the lead researcher I experienced first hand many chal-lenges to development of the research project. I was not a strangerto the community as I had worked both for the community (as a con-sultant on hunting issues) and had trained a number of the Rangersthere. It was also widely known that I had close professional andpersonal relationships with other Indigenous peoples within theCape York, and I was a white female working in a male dominatedIndigenous domain. Moreover, I was also active in the environmen-tal sector as a Councillor for the Australian Conservation Founda-tion, a national environmental organisation, and served on twocommittees as a conservation representative regarding manage-ment of (i) the Cape York and (ii) the GBRWHA. One of the implica-tions of my position in the community was that communitymembers made presumptions about me they would not necessarilyhave made about a researcher new to Hope Vale. Further, it wouldbe naïve to pretend that these factors did not influence my entryto Hope Vale as a researcher, nor that it did not influence my ownperception of what was happening and interpretation of my results.This situation was overlain with the added complexities any re-searcher working in the cross-cultural domain faces; as the Maorischolar Smith (1999, p. 1) wryly notes of such research, it is;

inextricably linked to European imperialism and colonisa-tion. When mentioned in many Indigenous contexts, it stirs

Table 1A summary of the discourses about hunting, planning and management expressed byManagement Agencies and members of Hope Vale Aboriginal Community.

Management agencies Hope Vale Community

Hunting HuntingBiodiversity protection Cultural survivalAnimal rights Indigenous rightsSpecies sustainability Community wellbeing

Planning PlanningWhat WhoProduct ProcessImplementation of hunting management

planImplementation of hunting season

Management ManagementBiodiversity conservation Social justice– Species priority –Community priority– Co-management – Conflict

Knowledge KnowledgeScience rationale Cultural/Indigenous knowledge

rationaleNumbers Loss

446 M. Nursey-Bray / Geoforum 40 (2009) 442–453

up silence, it conjures up bad memories, it raises a smile thatis knowing and distrusting

Key to resolving this issue was a combined use of academic andcommunity mechanisms to balance my approach. My use of estab-lished qualitative methodologies and the use of discourse tech-niques in the analysis enabled me to understand the differentsubjectivities involved in the research and how they may have af-fected the outcomes. In the first instance I directly discussed thesequestions with Elders10 and key community members and ques-tioned whether I as a white female doing work on hunting whichis ‘men’s business’, should proceed with the project. The response Igot was cultural permission to proceed so long as my focus wasthe planning not the hunt per se. A series of Indigenous mentorsplayed a key role during the entire period.

To ensure that evaluative forums consistent with scientificmethodological paradigms were incorporated into the project,Lincoln and Gubas’ (1985) four criteria of credibility, transferabil-ity, dependability and confirmability for judging the soundness ofqualitative research were used.

Face validity11 and triangulation (Denzin and Lincoln, 2005,Chapter 1) ensured consistency and reliability of information, andinvolved ‘member checking’ with respondents that informationhad been understood and interpreted correctly (Denzin and Lincoln,1998; Guba and Lincoln, 1981). Drafts of the results were read byrelevant groups and individuals and corroborated.

4. Results

Results found that ultimately members from Hope Vale and themanagement agencies were discussing the green turtle and dugonghunting plan from completely different linguistic baselines. Whilethis is not necessarily problematic per se – many managementregimes operate successfully to broker agreement amongstdifference, however, in this case neither party had acknowledgedthese differences. Four discursive frames emerged from the texts(see Table 1): (i) hunting, (ii) planning, (iii) management and (iv)knowledge. Within each frame, the priorities and understandingof what each term meant significantly differed.

These groupings represent broad discursive storylines aroundwhich the parties took different views but this does not mean thatall those in Hope Vale subscribed to the view that hunting shouldcontinue as a cultural right, nor that all management agencies pri-oritized biodiversity above cultural practice. These themes didnonetheless emerge as framing how overall conversations betweenthe parties about hunting, planning and management were lo-cated; and to which each party as a cultural group, despite theirpersonal differences, generally adhered.

This delineation of discourse storylines however highlighted thelimitations of adherence to one storyline or another. For example,binaries about hunting, planning and management emerged withineach group. These differences show that the overall adherence tobroader discourses obsfucated the diversity and fluctuation ofviews within the community and management sector. It is thesedifferences, combined with the fact the overall discourse frame-

10 I use the term ‘‘Elder’ for those within the community who either self identified orwere described to me as being an ‘Elder’. An Elder in Hope Vale was usually someoneover 50 years old, who held a position of authority within their affiliated clan group.On occasion, an Elder was someone from an external tribal group, who had eitherintermarried within the community or had some other source of authority (i.e. he/shemight be an elected officer).

11 Face validity is the technique employed to confirm the accuracy of informationcollected. It is the process of re-meeting respondents, or sending them backtranscripts of interviews and checking that what they have told you, is an accuraterepresentation of what they meant and said. Texts can then be amended and used asthe formal record for analysis.

works of each party were different anyway, that ultimately meantimplementation of the plan itself was going to falter. To highlightsome of these contradictions, I now present some detailed exam-ples of how discourse and practice met in interesting ways by pro-viding detail of the results regarding the discourse about hunting.12

4.1. Discursive frames: Hunting and Hope Vale

Overall, within Hope Vale, hunting per se did emerge as a dis-cursive motif around which cultural values were described anddelineated. Consequently, a discourse of cultural survival domi-nated their discussions on the issue of hunting green turtles anddugongs and formed part of a much wider discourse about com-munity wellbeing, cultural survival and socio-economic viability.For example, planning for the specific needs of the target speciesand/or hunting practice was linked to an overall need for properand appropriate community governance structures. Custodianship,the importance of traditional law and the need to be proud of andto recognise Aboriginality were cultural concepts enshrined withinthe hunting debate:

Yes, that recognition has got to happen . . .that all of us . . .arecustodians, protectors, and we all should be proud of that,even the dugong and the fish still need some help, and wehuman beings think that we are the supreme beings in cre-ation, [but] we’re the most devastating at what we’re doing.It is important that we make our young people see that, soour future generations can have these great big cedar treesor dugong, turtle and this and that (Hope Vale Respondent,[Male] January 2001).

Cultural loss was referred to in the form of community observa-tions about changes in traditional hunting tradition. For example,Elders explained they would select young bulls or cows rather thanold dugongs, pregnant or nursing females. Elders often reflected onthe loss of hunting:

Well, when we used to hunt round here before. . .we used tobuild our own boat, we used to make our own paddle. . .weused to make our own spears. There was a feeling whenwe went hunting, of sharing with others. . .But today the

12 A discussion of the broader implications of all the discourses for marinemanagement is the subject of another article, co-authored with Helene March andHelen Ross.

M. Nursey-Bray / Geoforum 40 (2009) 442–453 447

hunting has just gone out of it. The traditional hunting hasjust gone (Hope Vale Respondent, [Male Elder] January2001).

Consistent with their pre-occupation with cultural survival,Hope Vale residents overwhelmingly linked the importance andvalue of hunting to social justice issues, including concerns aboutemployment, education, domestic violence, youth suicide, healthand general community welfare. Hunting was perceived as anantidote that could be used to address or at least ease many ofthese problems. In particular, many women in Hope Vale hadhigh hopes of hunting, describing it as a cultural exercise thathelped relieve some of the stress and boredom of community lifeand occupied their sons in productive and culturally appropriateways:

It is the happy time; we look forward to that hunting,whether it is turtle or walking the hills or going down theriverside and fishing and all that. Always look forward. . .. Ifwe don’t keep it going we’re going to have a lot of childrenwho’ll be sitting at home, and we’ll have high suicidesbecause they’ve nothing to do. (Hope Vale Respondent[Female], January 2001).

The importance of hunting to community lifestyle and stabilitywas continually reiterated, particularly by men who identified thethrill of the hunt and the sheer joy it provided.

Yeah, I think it is like a lot of people get into bungee jumping,you get an adrenaline rush. . .A lot of fun (Hope Vale Respon-dent [Male youth], January 2001).

Hunting then, for Hope Vale residents, still plays a core role inmaintaining culture, community cohesiveness and building com-munity well being. This was the dominant discourse espoused byall respondents.

Community delineations in perception however, such as overgender soon emerged. Generally, interviews reflected a commonbelief that hunting was a male activity. Strong gender differentia-tion based on different discursive constructions of the notions oftraditional and contemporary emerged when female respondentssaid that they now felt that their involvement in hunting wasgrowing. The basis for this view was that women were increasinglybecoming involved in the contemporary management of huntingactivity. By contemporary management, the Guugu Yimmithirrgenerally meant ensuring their involvement in ‘whitefella’ man-agement, that is enforcement, surveillance, and access to the train-ing offered to and used by Western resource managers under Stateor Commonwealth regulatory regimes. In this context, it was thewomen of Hope Vale who emerged as the initiators and mediatorsbetween the community and the outside world in regards to hunt-ing management. In this case it was a woman who set up the nat-ural resource management office, a woman who obtained fundingfor development of the plan, and all women who consulted on,wrote and then implemented the plan in all its iterations. It wasa woman that ran the Elders Justice group, the school and the Cul-tural Centre – all core institutions relating to hunting within thecommunity.

By contrast, all of the men interviewed considered that womenhad no role in hunting or its management:

Women? No more. . . this hunting is men’s business see,women do nothing.

Well traditionally hunting was for the men, the women, wellthey might help us cook sometime, or go out make damper,get fruit, what have you, but out there, it was us and the dug-ongs (Hope Vale Respondent [Male Hunter], January 2001).

This belief was based on an adherence to the idea of huntingbeing a traditional activity. In this case, analysis showed that tradi-tional management was understood to be the practice of huntingusing traditional ecological knowledge, built up over generations,and which was transmitted from one male leader to other youngermales in appropriate ways. It did not necessarily mean traditionalweapons were used but that knowledge about the right weather,butchering techniques and other such cultural practices weremaintained.

The way in which hunting was discussed within the communitythen, while denoting certain discourse trends also highlights a dy-namic interplay between men and women, and secondly, how thenotions of traditional and contemporary management are upheldand created. As we have seen, the view of women was that theyhad a role to play in the management of hunting activity, whereasthe men felt they had a priori rights over the hunting itself. None-theless, these two activities are intertwined, and hence outsideparties wishing to work with Hope Vale to implement manage-ment, would have had difficulty in understanding and delineatingthe different discursive emphases at any given time. Third, thesedifferences in opinion reflect the ways in which the legacy of colo-nization has created disjunctures within the community on such afundamental issue by reshaping gender roles and culturalexpectations.

4.2. Hunting and management agency staff

Alternatively, the institutional discourse that managementagency staff adhered to when discussing Indigenous hunting, wasone of sustainability and species management. Their key interestwas on working with Hope Vale residents to ascertain how manyanimals were being taken. Management agency staff reliant on sci-entific reports and convinced of the usefulness of science as an en-abling management tool were frustrated that to-date, they had torely on anecdotal knowledge about the levels of traditional harvest.This position was reliant on a discursive bias towards the prioriti-zation of Western science as a knowledge system. The need toquantify the levels of traditional harvest of green turtles and dug-ongs and the lack of baseline ‘data’ was perceived as completelyinadequate for the management needs of the species:

Look, we’ve got no idea of hunting levels. . . its all anecdotalstuff really. There’s been some interesting work being doneon genetic populations but the southern Barrier Reef stockis very low, and we know that in the northern Barrier Reefthere are some major breeding populations such as turtleat Raine. . .we have no idea about hunting. Definitely no hardinfo on hunting! (management agency respondent, [Biodi-versity] February 2001).

Consequently, management agency respondents emphasisedthe need to adopt scientific methods of estimating sustainabletake, advocating that this information would form the basis for amore productive engagement with Indigenous people:

You need to develop a management model that would be auseful tool also for estimating the sustainability of take inhunting. I think that’s a very useful way for resourcing thesustainability of take (management agency respondent,[Enforcement] February 2001).

As the GBRWHA is a World Heritage site, Commonwealth man-agers were also worried about how their management would beviewed by the public and thus employed the listing of the greenturtle and dugong on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species asa discursive refrain to justify organisational responses to Indige-nous hunting:

448 M. Nursey-Bray / Geoforum 40 (2009) 442–453

All sources of mortality of endangered species should bereduced. Including Indigenous hunting. Focus your effortson these threatened species.Don’t want to lose that animal. . .especially if the animal hasthreatened or vulnerable status (management agencyrespondent, [Planning] February 2001).

One management agency respondent was blunt in his dismissalof Indigenous rights to hunt, stating that Indigenous hunting cul-ture and species management were not, nor ever would be, com-patible activities:

There’s actually a big conflict between culture and endan-gered species and my gut reaction is to say goodbye to theculture (management agency respondent, [General] Febru-ary 2001).

This view, also expresses the extent to which personal atti-tudes were played out in the management arena; very few staffor Indigenous respondents were ambivalent in their views onhunting of green turtles or dugongs. This factor in turn meantthat ‘science’ was sometimes employed as a discursive crutch tojustify personal positions.13 Many staff believed that if existing sci-ence could be shown to establish endangerment, then, ipso facto,Indigenous people would be convinced to curb their huntingactivity:

Acceptance is maybe the word. Getting Indigenous usergroups to follow each other, talk to each other about thesethings, about their impact. If these people have informationthen they can come to their own conclusions (managementagency respondent, [Planning] February 2001).

When asked directly about traditional hunting, responses frommanagement agency staff were often heated, with cruelty andtechnology raised as core concerns. Almost all management agencystaff preferred to idealise pre-contact Indigenous culture as cultur-ally palatable rather than acknowledge the practice of Indigenoushunting culture as it exists today:

The biggest issue is that it’s [hunting] not traditional any-more, nor is it conducted [the hunt] in a traditional way. Itwas okay then, and they only got what they needed; nowit is much more of a competition than traditional use (man-agement agency respondent, [Enforcement] February 2001).

Most management agency staff also indicated that traditionalhunting, if carried out in a bark canoe, was acceptable, but goingout to hunt in a modern boat was unacceptable and not real orauthentic.

In the old days, green turtles and dugongs were shared verywidely, they used traditional methods. . . Now when they goout, its using modern tools, its all modern technology (man-agement agency respondent, [DDM] February 2001).

This provides an interesting corollary to the response by HopeVale members on the same issue. In this case, managementagency staff were concerned with the discursive motifs of ‘tradi-tional’ and contemporary’ to inform their conversation withHope Vale about hunting. However, what is meant by ‘tradi-tional’ in this case is the more culturally palatable dimensionsof Indigenous culture – hunting with low technology, the appli-cation of traditional stories about hunting, hunting according toseasons rather than institutional holiday times (as occurs now).Indeed, this adherence by management agencies to a construc-tion of the Guugu Yimmithirr as ‘traditional’ meant that they

13 Indeed, ‘culture’ could be and was mobilised in a similar way at different timesduring the research period by Hope Vale respondents to support their own positions.

could not discursively orient Hope Vale rangers or any othercommunity-based resource managers in the present. They there-fore did not perceive that there existed any other resource man-ager outside themselves; a direct contradiction to how Hope Valecommunity members saw their role within the managementendeavour.

Management agency respondents who did attempt to reconcilenotions of culture and sustainability believed that Indigenous peo-ple must accept that green turtles and dugongs are threatened asdemonstrated in the quote below:

I don’t know, it might have been alright back then, but I findit worrying – things are different now, and this is what we allneed to deal with, black or white. . .Its now a limitedresource (management agency respondent, [Biodiversity]February 2001).

4.3. ‘‘Cruelty”

Interrogation of the texts also highlights some examples offundamental cultural differences which impacted on manage-ment. This is starkly highlighted in the specific discussions aboutanimal rights and cruelty. For example, when developing theHope Vale Plan, Elders requested of the consultant that a sectionbe included that stated that green turtles must be butcheredwhile still alive on the beach. When the consultant tried to clar-ify how this was preventing cruelty (for it seemed to her to bethe opposite), she was told it was vital that the blood fromthe turtle ran back into the sea to ensure its spirit was returnedto its ancestors. To kill the turtle first and then butcher it was todeny it the right to a future life, which in traditional Aboriginalculture is considered cruel in the extreme. In fact the practice ofbutchering green turtles on the beach is illustrative of the needfor custodianship. The Elders were in fact opposed to the currentpractice of removing turtles from the beach once caught andstoring them on their backs in the community until ready forconsumption. This practice was not only perceived by Elders ascruel, but signalled an unwelcome loss of and changes toculture:

You know we lay down laws and rules to keep turtle, who’sentitled to keep turtle, kill the turtle down there, you don’tbring it home. The spirit, the nature of turtles, you’ve gotto kill him there. That’s how old people spear it, you know.You wash the meat; the blood and you let it go back in thesea. That’s how old people taught us. . .let it stay there, letit bury there, shell, arm and everything, leg, take it out,dump it in the sea. . .. That’s how it should be, not us bringit home. . . you know spirit should be in the sea (Hope ValeRespondent, [Male Elder], January 2001).

On the other hand, many management agency respondents hadgreat difficulty differentiating between a general acceptance ofIndigenous cultural rights to hunt and a personal dismay or antip-athy at the thought of hunting green turtles and dugongs, either oncruelty or sustainability grounds:

Aboriginal rights – the treatment – I don’t like the way thatthe animals are treated when they are killed. Even though Iknow it’s culturally appropriate and we as an agency can’tmake comment on that. . .I have to accept it but. . . I still findthat difficult. (management agency respondent, [DDM], Jan-uary 2001).

Again this quote highlights how personal attitudes play out inmanagement domains such as this. Most respondents indicatedtheir view that the Indigenous hunting techniques of drowningdugongs and butchering green turtles while alive was cruel. These

M. Nursey-Bray / Geoforum 40 (2009) 442–453 449

discussions highlighted the fact that an animal rights discoursewas implicit in management agency responses to the issue ofIndigenous hunting.14

Again, these examples show that when asked about the same is-sues, both parties constructed and articulated their understandingsand priorities in completely different ways.

5. Implications of discourse differences for the Hope Vale Planprocess

An immediate effect of these differences between Hope Valeand management agencies was that the process generated andwas characterised by a number of cultural confrontations, whatFoucault characterised as ‘critical discourse events’. In this case,a cultural confrontation is characterised when: (i) there is a lit-eral clash or crash between discourse and material practices;(ii) between discourse and discourse; and (iii) where multiplediscourses compete for ascendancy. Such cultural confrontationsoccurred daily during the research project and are understoodas the meeting of discursive and non-discursive (or material)practices; the crucible via which fields of knowledge and powerrelations between the two groups met. It is this intersection orabutting of discourse and practice in the hunting domain thathad major impacts on the success/failure of the Hope Vale Planoverall.

5.1. Discourse and practice

The discourse on the role of women in traditional huntingprovides a good example of a clash between discourse andpractice. The discourse on traditional hunting held that womenwere not perceived or supposed to have any active role. Menand some women in Hope Vale, and both men and womenwithin management agencies held this view. However, this dis-course was confronted by reality because the hunting manage-ment planning process had been, without exception, run by,coordinated and implemented by women. This disjuncture be-tween discourse and practice had significant implications forthe Hope Vale Plan and implementation process. For example,the women who were trying to work with the managementagencies to implement a hunting management plan felt contin-ually ignored and frustrated because the primary discourseabout hunting determined that Indigenous hunting issues weredealt with by men; on the other hand, many Hope Vale menundertaking hunting activities felt resentful and resisted being‘told what to do by a woman’.

The clash between different power and knowledge domainsin this instance is stark. For instance, women were the repos-itories of contemporary knowledge systems relating to manage-ment, whereas the men were the owners of traditionalknowledge about the hunt. This dichotomy had an immediateeffect on the way power relations were constituted and estab-lished forcing a struggle for ascendancy between the womenand men. The power this arrangement gave to the womenmediated the cultural discourse held by the men about wo-men’s role in hunting, making the job of management agenciesmuch harder as it was unclear to them with whom to discussand negotiate within the community. By contrast it was veryclear to Hope Vale individuals who were the nominated repre-sentatives with whom they had to liaise within government, asthese were designated liaison roles within the managinginstitutions.

14 As later discussed regarding Rangers, Indigenous peoples also found some of thisinternal conflict which I have framed here as ‘personal attitudes’.

5.2. Discourse versus discourse

Another example of how a discourse domain impacts on man-agement in practice is when one powerful discourse confronts an-other. During the Hope Vale planning process this happened manytimes, particularly in the clash between modern and traditionalmanifestations of culture. A typical discourse confrontation isfound in the following example relayed by a young Ranger. ThisCommunity Ranger, while patrolling the beach confronted an El-der, who under the terms of the Plan, was in breach of it by huntingwithout a permit. The Ranger attempted to talk to the Elder aboutthe transgression and enacted the process of questioning and mon-itoring as stipulated in the Plan. The Elder responded however byusing cultural mores of shame to reprimand the Ranger for failing,as a younger person, to observe the cultural custom of respect forand deferring to Elders. Elders in this cultural context are the onesthat disseminate knowledge and keep the law. This Elder also usedhis cultural mandate and traditional knowledge about hunting toaccuse the Ranger of being too Western, of showing no faith inthe old ways and showing disrespect and a lack of trust in the El-der. The Elder was relying on cultural discourse asserting rights tohunt within cultural law, notwithstanding any formal planningarrangements. The Ranger was now in an invidious position. Hehad to choose between a powerful discourse about the importanceof the community being involved in contemporary management (adiscourse to which both he and the Elder subscribed to when sup-porting the Plan), and the perceived primacy of the Indigenous dis-course of traditional culture and respect for Elders.

In most cases, such as this one, the discourse about cultural re-spect had ascendancy and the Elder’s assertion of power based ontraditional knowledge carried the day. Confrontations such as thiswere repeated over and again during the hunting seasons (2000,2001 and 2002) and acted as a significant inhibitor to the effectiveimplementation of the Plan.

5.3. Multiple discourses and practice

An alleged slaughter of dugongs that occurred in Hope Vale in2002 best exemplifies the difficulties faced when multiple dis-courses and practices confront each other. Upon this incident,and at the request of certain community members, staff from themanagement agencies visited Hope Vale to investigate the allegedoverkill. Due to insufficient hard evidence to support the claims,management agency staff returned to their bases in Townsvilleand Cairns, noting: (i) that there was insufficient material proofto consider prosecution and (ii) the incident would remain a com-munity matter, which was outside management agency purviewand in which it would be culturally incorrect to intervene.

This situation represents an example of a cultural confrontationwithin which multiple discourses and material practices haveintersected in powerful ways. The cultural discourse was chal-lenged by the reality that a case of over-harvesting had occurred.This incident was a sharp rebuff to Indigenous assertions aboutsustainable Indigenous stewardship and their general discourseabout caring for country. The import of this incident must alsobe understood as part of a continuum of black/white relations thatstill bear the scars of colonization. Historically, the Guugu Yimmi-thirr people of Hope Vale have sustained huge losses to their cul-ture and language, and the loss of territory and relocation of itspeople. Today, Indigenous peoples in Australia still suffer the lega-cies of colonization and remain the most socially-disadvantagedcultural group in Australia with a life expectancy 20 years belowother Australians, and proportionally much higher incidence of dis-ease, unemployment and social difficulties. The Guugu Yimmithirrare no exception to this situation. Hence in understanding the con-text within which this alleged incident occurred, shows that such

450 M. Nursey-Bray / Geoforum 40 (2009) 442–453

events are not isolated but rooted within a colonial historical tra-dition, that influences ongoing relations in various ways. In thiscase, this incident arose partly out of resentment that was derivedfrom a perception that management agencies had defaulted ontheir commitment to provide economic benefits in return for man-agement of (and sometimes viewed as pressure to discontinue)hunting.

Hope Vale Community, despite the shame attached to the dis-course crash that had occurred, acted quickly to demand outsidehelp from the management agencies for surveillance and enforce-ment support. Members of the community acted to empowerthemselves by asking for help in a situation which they did not feelthey could deal with internally. To do so would almost certainlymean ‘whistle blowing’ on a family member, this would be toodifficult to do. Nonetheless, for those in the community who feltstrongly that the alleged slaughter was inappropriate, the legisla-tive and institutional mandate that management agencies had,offered an external solution to a difficult internal dilemma.

This request put all groups in a difficult position. Managementagencies were unable or unwilling to provide the requestedsupport but continued to assert a discourse about supporting theprocess of community-based management. Being wary of follow-ing-up prosecutions and keen to avoid the bad publicity that pros-ecution would have attracted, the reliance on a community-baseddiscourse offered management agencies a politically-correct ratio-nale for inaction. Thus, the management agencies used Hope Vale’sown cultural survival discourse to their advantage by assertingthat hunting was an integral part of traditional culture and thatresponsibility for resolution and action relating to this shouldtherefore be transferred back to the community.

In using the discourse of supporting community-based manage-ment to their advantage, management agencies were able to dis-tance themselves from the problem. This arrangement allowedthe management agency to offer Hope Vale another ‘communitybased’ model in 2003, a model that is nonetheless managementagency driven and controlled15 (Havemann et al., 2005). Manage-ment agencies however could now, with justification say they hadgiven community-based management a chance but it had failed.

This example also highlights a common discursive misunder-standing by demonstrating how attachment to discourse framescan bias and impact on resolution of a conflict. In choosing to inter-pret Hope Vale’s requests for help as inconsistent with their owninterpretation of what community-based management was andthe ways in which it should embed traditional practices, manage-ment agencies missed the point.

Contemporary and culturally-appropriate models of co-man-agement of natural resources in Indigenous society have nowevolved to include and demand Indigenous participation withinWestern regimes (Christie et al., 1994; Smyth, 2001; Howitt,2001; Mitchell, 2002; Head, 2000). Indeed as Kendrick and Man-seau (2008) highlight in an article on co-management in Canada,the collective knowledge of Indigenous hunters have the poten-tial to make unique contributions, despite the fact that co-man-agement regimes in Canada per se rarely include Indigenousknowledge about the environment. The dismissal by manage-ment agencies of these requests reflects a blind spot in their dis-course frame that prevents the possibility of change, and hindersthe chances of negotiating mutually beneficial and understoodterms.

This point of cultural confrontation is a good example not onlyof how multiple discourses and practices together define the con-tours of management, but how discourse can be used strategically

15 This model is called TUMRA: Traditional Use Marine Resource Agreements, astatutory and regulated agreement between Management Agencies and Indigenouspeoples on issues such as hunting.

for individual or agency interests. It also illustrates the ways inwhich power and knowledge relations can transform over time.The importance of these cultural confrontations, whether ex-pressed as discourse meeting discourse, discourse meeting prac-tice or a mixture of the two, is that they reflect the ways inwhich the power and knowledge domains of each group are com-peting with each other for ascendancy. The ways in which theyconstitute and reconstitute determine the ebb and flow, or thesuccess and failure, of the management initiative at differenttimes in the process.

These examples also show that while there are dominant con-versations about hunting and management, there is not a singularworldview from which all completely operate. As other workshows (Agrawal, 1995; Briggs, 2005; Whatmore, 2002), there al-ways exists the possibility of creating hybrid systems of manage-ment, where a dynamic interplay between both Indigenous andnon-Indigenous systems can help support a common endeavour.In the case of the Guugu Yimmithirr this also needs to be accompa-nied by conflict resolution mechanisms so that a mediated hybridworld view can have the space to evolve.

5.4. Management transactions

The ultimate result of the discourse differences within themanagement of green turtles and dugongs at Hope Vale was thatinstead of implementing collaborative endeavours, both Hope Valecommunity and management agencies initiated a managementprocess based on a series of discursive trade-offs. As a result, themanagement of hunting, through the Hope Vale Plan, actually be-came a contest between cultures. The management agreementsthat eventuated can be conceptualised as the actualisation of theway in which cultural negotiations between the two had beenreconciled through various management transactions (see Table2). Of course to a degree these transactions reflect false dichoto-mies; from an Indigenous perspective the transaction has alreadybeen made in the relinquishment of rights to country upon whitesettlement. Nonetheless, the Guugu Yimmithirr negotiated thesetransactions based on the rights and power they still had.

It must be noted that these transactions embody both trade-offs and mutual learning between the two parties. For example,training in enforcement and contemporary management for HopeVale Rangers encouraged knowledge sharing, joint learning andbridging of knowledge. These transactions also reflected theascendancy of the power and knowledge domains within and be-tween Hope Vale and management agencies at any given time.The overarching debate about Indigenous hunting is one that isbased on two principles of rights and responsibility: (i) Indige-nous rights to hunt, and (ii) Western management responsibilityunder the terms of legislation prescribed by government. Applica-tion of these principles to management necessitates quite differ-ent operational frameworks; for each party to get somethingfrom the debate each party must give something; this is thetransaction.

The transactional nature of the way the Hope Vale Plan wasimplemented reveals the contractual and often conflictual con-tours that defined the process overall. Seen from this perspective,the Hope Vale Plan was ultimately more of an exercise in conflictand contested cultural ground rather than an exercise in collabora-tion or co-management. The abutting of different discoursesblocked sustainable management.

6. Reflection

Despite attempting to work together then both parties in facthad different and competing management priorities. For manage-

Table 2Examples of management transactions between Hope Vale community and management agencies in relation to implementation of the Hope Vale Turtle and Dugong Hunting andManagement Plan and hunting generally.

Management transactions: Hope Vale and management agencies

(i) Maintenance of cultural practice by Hope Vale in return for species sustainability for management agencies(ii) Resourcing of community initiatives by management agencies in return for retention of control over enforcement

(iii) Training in enforcement and contemporary management for Hope Vale Rangers in return for access to traditional knowledge about hunting for management agencies(iv) Women at Hope Vale being permitted to manage the hunting domain in return for Hope Vale men to be the key liaison and negotiators with management agencies

and other outsiders at crucial points

M. Nursey-Bray / Geoforum 40 (2009) 442–453 451

ment, the maintenance of species integrity and biodiversity wascrucial, and for the community, cultural survival and social justicewas the key driver for participation in the management regime.To an outside observer this might seem obvious, and not a star-tling finding. However, what is important is that to the GuuguYimmithirr and the management agencies this finding was star-tling. Previous to this research being undertaken they genuinelybelieved they were all ‘on the same page’. Secondly, while it isnot necessarily problematic that these differences exist, if theyare not made explicit, then the appropriate conflict resolutionand other mediation mechanisms will not be put in place to fore-stall the teething problems attendant upon implementation of the(indeed any) plan. These factors together meant that the Plan it-self, was reified to the extent that unless it worked perfectly,(which it obviously didn’t), it would inevitably be framed as a‘failure’, when in fact the construction of its failure was a discur-sive reconstitution and assertion of the primacy of Western overIndigenous knowledge systems.

Further critical reflection on these events highlights thatdespite the trends in perception about hunting, planning andmanagement, we must still be wary about making general con-clusions. What this research shows is the sophisticated natureof cross-cultural management, and how binaries compete not justbetween groups but actors within those groups. Not all managersfor example, subscribed to the discourse about biodiversity, andnot all Hope Vale members asserted their cultural rights to hunt.It is also important to avoid the reification of either Indigenouspeople’s rights or the idea of World Heritage in such managementcontexts. This case study shows that the deconstruction of ontol-ogies did not stop the primacy of Western cultural traditionsbeing enforced in practice. Hence in this context, the imbalanceof power that remained throughout the planning and implemen-tation period meant that ultimately the Plan was considered tohave ‘failed’ (by Western managers), as an Indigenous exercisein community-based management. It had not failed however, asan exercise in asserting the dominance of Western speciesmanagement.

This case study also brings to light broader ramifications fornatural resource management programs as its evolution goes tothe heart of how inequities and unequal power relations areembedded within decision making. McGregor (2005) in a casestudy of crocodile conservation in Zimbabwe argues that one mustconsider the hegemonic and marginalised ideas about animals asthey are shaped by relations of power and historical context. Chris-tie et al. (2003, p. 246) contest that where such programs are basedon ‘the interaction of groups of individuals with grossly unbal-anced levels of influence and power (it) is likely to result in ineq-uitable social arrangements’. Such dynamics can solidifyinequitable relationships and make it harder for all parties to beappropriately represented and involved in a conservationinitiative.

These inequalities must also be understood within widerhistorical and political frameworks. Key tensions exist betweencultural understandings of basic terms such as ‘resource manage-ment’, a non-Aboriginal concept (Kishigami, 2005), and reflect

paradigmatic differences that are fundamental to how Indigenousand non-Indigenous world views are constructed (Liddle, 2001;Croal and Darou, 2002; Kendrick and Manseau, 2008). Environ-mental management moreover, is inextricably entwined withthe impact of colonization, both past and present (Battiste,2000; Suchet, 2001), exemplifying a clash between discoursesand world views that minimizes legitimate cultural and socialcontrol (Little Bear, 2000). For example, Suchet (2001) argues thatamongst others, the terms ‘management’ and ‘wildlife’ are Euro-centric, and thus continue to ‘plague’ attempts at collaborativeenvironmental and wildlife management in Australia, whileHowitt and Pearson (2006, p. 323) highlight ‘the persistence ofIndigenous ontologies. . .unsettle the dominant idea that ‘manage-ment’ is an unproblematic and universally endorsed goal forcommunities. . .in their environmental and development dis-courses’. In this case, the persistence of Indigenous ontologiesabout hunting within the management arena created tensionsthat ultimately fragmented the ability of both parties to imple-ment the planning arrangements.

These case study results are consistent then with global experi-ence, and show that the development of policies and programs,such as the Hope Vale hunting initiative, must entail a process ofcontinual assessment, and deconstruction of the terms used toensure that the ontological landscape is not still privileging oneparty over another. Ideally, management processes would embedsystems that encourage institutional adaptation, facilitateflexibility and give voice to Indigenous peoples in equitable ways(Liddle, 2001).

7. Conclusion

Overall, this research provides an understanding of the strugglefor the control of power and knowledge in Indigenous hunting is-sues in Australia. Findings highlighted that discourses about hunt-ing were both an instrument and effect of power, and theirdeployment is all about the practical struggle for the control of dis-courses and the effects of discursive practice. While the differencesthemselves were not surprising, the effect of the different under-standings on the management program should not be under-estimated.

Within the historical context of dislocation and dispossessionsuffered by Indigenous peoples, contemporary management re-gimes must acknowledge Indigenous cultural knowledge andpower structures. They must also acknowledge that these dynam-ics do not ‘fit’ within Western cultural constructions of Indigenouspeoples, but like all societies exist within a performative interplayof binaries, opposites and change. As this research has found, dif-ferent discourse domains, unless made visible, recognized anddealt with, will have a significant impact on and permanently af-fect the management process. In this case, despite mutual agree-ments, and attempted collaboration, the interplay of power andknowledge in the implementation of the Hope Vale Plan servedto reinforce a Western epistemology, which ultimately privilegedWestern management ontologies over Indigenous ones. This at-tempt at co-operation was in fact an exercise in conflict as each

452 M. Nursey-Bray / Geoforum 40 (2009) 442–453

party struggled to assert the primacy of their own discourses abouthunting while trying to reconcile the binaries and contradictionswithin them.

For the future, the implications of these findings are that thereis a requirement to implement methodologies within Indigenousresource management programs that prioritise working towardscommon understandings about the objectives of management be-tween all parties, as the first step. As Howitt (2001, p. 6) notes, ‘Oneway to equip resource managers with tools to enable them to en-gage with the political, moral and ethical dimensions of manage-ment is the development of a ‘common’ language withinenvironmental management domains’. Doing so will ensure thatall parties, despite differences, could work together to achieve col-laborative, mutually understood and achievable outcomes thatprotect both the environment and culture.

Acknowledgements

I would specifically like to thank Hope Vale community and allindividuals that took part in the research project, for allowing meaccess to the community and for sharing their information. I wouldalso like to thank staff at the management agencies, particularlyJames Innes from the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authorityfor ongoing feedback and access to internal papers. I would alsolike to thank Professor Helene Marsh, and Professor Steve Turtonof James Cook University and Professor Helen Ross of the Univer-sity of Queensland for outstanding and unfailing supervisory sup-port during and beyond the research period, and for invaluableediting and other advice. I would also like to thank Robert Palmerfor advice and review of this article. I would like to thank AMC andstaff for giving me a grace period when I started work to completemy doctoral research, which is the basis of the research for thisarticle. Finally, this research project was funded by and wouldnot have been possible without the support of the CRC Reef Re-search, James Cook University, Townsville, and Hope Vale ShireCouncil, Queensland, Australia.

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