Planning with Indigenous customary land rights: An investigation of shifts in planning law and governance in Canada and Australia.

Lead Research Organisation: University of Glasgow
Department Name: School of Social & Political Sciences

Abstract

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Description Indigenous recognition in planning is extremely varied, and in some cases deeply limited. The study identifies two fundamental dimensions for understanding this: the specific features of recognition, and the nature of the planning system. Features of recognition are:

1. the type of recognition taking place (territorial or political);

2. the nature of what is being recognised (interests, or rights and title); and

3. the mode in which recognition is constituted (monological or relational).



Factors in relation to the nature of planning systems are:

1. the level of prescription;

2. the extent to which procedures exist to enact recognition; and

3. how planning systems are differentiated between urban and non-urban spatial areas.

How these two dimensions and their features intersect, creates and mediates the contact zone.



It is critical to distinguish between territorial and political recognition. The recognition of territorial rights without recognition of associated political rights significantly undermines the transformative possibilities of planning in the contact zone, because the substance of territorial rights cannot be self-determined without the recognition of political rights. The outcome of such de-coupling is a taming of Indigenous rights back to a set of 'interests' more easily incorporated into standard planning discourse, and then to fix those interests in time and place. While such processes were continually being unsettled and highly contested on the ground the potential for a 'crude insertion' of Indigenous interests into standard planning approaches is very real.



Our theoretical and methodological framing (see Barry and Porter 2011) highlighted how structures and norms embedded within planning systems are enormously influential. High levels of policy prescription, or entrenched planning norms about process and knowledge, or assumptions about the legitimacy of Indigenous property rights in certain spaces, all present significant discursive and material structures working against recognition practices. The study found these processes of taming, containing and silencing Indigenous rights to be particularly powerful in urban planning contexts. Recognition of Indigenous peoples in urban planning is at best extremely limited and at worst non-existent. The significant differential between recognition in urban and environmental planning contexts demands further study (see Porter forthcoming 2012).



Yet in the face of these significant structural and discursive limits, Indigenous recognition is beginning to re-shape planning in BC and Victoria. When they are coupled with Indigenous leadership, even very limited or partial modes of recognition can create opportunity for a more forceful assertion of rights and title. Whether that constitutes a shift in underlying power relations is only possible when at least two conditions are present: territorial recognition is inextricably linked with political recognition; AND where the modes of recognition are relational, not fixed.



This field of inquiry requires theoretical and methodological frames that critically expose specific historical relations of power, as well as the particular constellations of property rights, planning system, and Indigenous politics. Contact zones, as social fields, are inherently political, unstable, dynamic and produced. A key outcome of the project is to develop better theoretical and methodological tools to properly account for planning in the contact zone.
Exploitation Route The research can be further used to assist in claims for recognition in contexts where marginalised property rights exist and may have connections with other kinds of marginality.
Sectors Other
 
Description The findings have contributed new understandings about the recognition of Indigenous rights and title in planning. A key contribution has been the comparative focus between nations, as well as between urban and environmental planning contexts. The research has contributed new evidence that shows planning practice and theory is significantly lagging behind regards an understanding and proper accommodation of Indigenous rights within urban settings. The project also contributes to theoretical and methodological developments in the field. It brings a much more critical theoretical approach to understanding the relationship between planners and Indigenous peoples offering other scholars the theoretical tools to interrogate asymmetrical relations of power much more closely. It also offers scholars in the field methodological tools including critical discourse analysis and interpretive policy analysis as ways of navigating the difficult problem of interpreting complex policy fields. The study also contributes knowledge and practice of undertaking research in this field by showing the importance of using negotiated research agreements with Indigenous participants, and navigating the sometimes contested and difficult relationships between Indigenous and government-based participants.
First Year Of Impact 2011
Sector Other
Impact Types Societal,Policy & public services
 
Description Australia Research Council Discovery Award
Amount $353,000 (AUD)
Funding ID DP140102851 
Organisation Australian Research Council 
Sector Public
Country Australia
Start 07/2014 
End 06/2017
 
Title Textual mediation approach 
Description Development of enhanced data analysis approach, utilising two existing approaches - Critical Discourse Analysis, and Institutional Ethnography. These have not been combined before, and in doing so, this research produced new developments in analytical approaches for studying environmental and resource conflicts particularly where relations of power are marked by colonial histories of violence and dispossession. 
Type Of Material Data analysis technique 
Provided To Others? No  
Impact Considerable interest in papers that provide information about this model, as evidenced by numbers of downloads on networking sites such as Academia. 
 
Description Workshops in BC and Victoria 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Professional Practitioners
Results and Impact The research team ran a workshop to disseminate results of research, provide options and implications for policy and practice. The presentation was well received, and was followed by questions and discussion. Further correspondence with interested attendees also resulted through email. The final report of findings was widely distributed using this network also.

Sparked significant interest in our work and in particular there was a spike in downloads of the final report of the project, freely available via a website. Since had ongoing correspondence with some people who attended to further disseminate the results, or to share information about other initiatives.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2011