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Old ways for new days: Australian Indigenous peoples and climate change
Journal article   Peer reviewed

Old ways for new days: Australian Indigenous peoples and climate change

Melissa Nursey-Bray, R Palmer, Timothy F Smith and P Rist
Local Environment, Vol.24(5), pp.473-486
2019
url
https://doi.org/10.1080/13549839.2019.1590325View
Published Version

Abstract

This paper explores how Australia's Indigenous peoples understand and respond to climate change impacts on their traditional land and seas. Our results show that: (i) Indigenous peoples are observing modifications to their country due to climate change, and are doing so in both ancient and colonial time scales; (ii) the ways that climate change terminology is discursively understood and used is fundamental to achieving deep engagement and effective adaptive governance; (iii) Indigenous peoples in Australia exhibit a high level of agency via diverse approaches to climate adaptation; and (iv) humour is perceived as an important cultural component of engagement about climate change and adaptation. However, wider governance regimes consistently attempt to "upscale" Indigenous initiatives into their own culturally governed frameworks - or ignore them totally as they "don't fit" within neoliberal policy regimes. We argue that an opportunity exists to acknowledge the ways in which Indigenous peoples are agents of their own change, and to support the strategic localism of Indigenous adaptation approaches through tailored and place-based adaptation for traditional country.

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InCites Highlights

These are selected metrics from InCites Benchmarking & Analytics tool, related to this output

Collaboration types
Domestic collaboration
International collaboration
Web Of Science research areas
Environmental Studies
Geography
Green & Sustainable Science & Technology
Regional & Urban Planning
Urban Studies

UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

This output has contributed to the advancement of the following goals:

#2 Zero Hunger
#11 Sustainable Cities and Communities
#13 Climate Action
#14 Life Below Water
#15 Life on Land

Source: InCites

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