Kinship with country : acts of translation in the cross-cultural performance space : a case study on the Aṉangu Pitjantjatjara Lands of Central Australia

Two maps of country represent the one continent: Australia, its lands and its peoples. One is an Indigenous map of a continent linked by the Songlines of the Western Desert Peoples' Creation Ancestors under Anangu Law. The other is a Western map of a continent divided by the state borders of colonial ancestors under British Law. This research project was generated from the philosophical statement of Nganyinytja, a senior Pitjantjatjara elder of Anangu Law, who said: Reconciliation means bringing two cultures together, mar.u munu pir.anpa tjunguringanyi, black and white coming together. The two laws need to become one to care for the land. (Nganyinytja 1993:23) This thesis explores the difficulties and possibilities inherent in attempts to reconcile these two cultures of knowledge and their relationship to land in Australia today. The study examines in some detail the potential for the convergence of Western and Indigenous perceptions and values of cultural and natural resource management (CNRM) in the practice of tourism on Anangu Pitjantjatjara (AP) Lands of Central Australia. The central question for the thesis is whether Indigenous knowledge of the complex interrelationships of kinship between nature and culture can be translated across the borders of languages, cultures and disciplines so as to be understood in the Western knowledge culture. The methodology is derived from a bi-cultural research model, developed by the Ngaanyatjarra, Yankunytjatjara and Pitjantjatjara Women's Council, that integrates Anangu method into the framework of Western action research. The field research conforms to the protocols and accountability requirements set for Western researchers by Indigenous academics and traditional elders. In the results section the evidence analysed is my own and others' records of the Indigenous and Western cross-cultural exchange in the context of Desert Tracks tours on the AP Lands from 1988 to 2005. These records include diaries, visitor book entries, letters and email correspondence, tour brochures, research field notes and interviews with Anangu and visitors recorded in print, on audiocassette and film over these years. The research has also been guided by the formal ethics requirements of the Australian National University. The findings are that, while recognition of Indigenous cultural landscapes in Australian land management is not new, the integration of this holistic conceptual approach into Western knowledge is proving problematic in both theoretical and practical arenas. This can be partly attributed to the ontological divide of culture and nature, spirit and matter in the Western intellectual tradition and partly to the problems of conceptual translation of knowledge across the gaps of language and cultural difference. Within the performance space of Desert Tracks on the Piljanljatjara Lands this gap of understanding had to be bridged to develop a successful Indigenous and Western co-management of an ecologically and culturally appropriate tourism business. Building on these findings, a schema is proposed whereby mainstream natural resource management (NRM) is able to expand into a holistic conception and practice of cultural natural resource management (CNRM), thereby joining together Indigenous and Western knowledge. The schema provides translation between the two conceptualisations of ontology, ecology, culture and economics, and the spirituality of shared tangible and intangible landscapes, providing a performance space in which knowledge translation between peoples of different cultures can occur