Abstract
Sustainability science research conducted with Indigenous collaborators must be Indigenous-led and achieve impacts that are grounded in local values and priorities, both for ethical reasons and to achieve more robust outcomes. However, there has been limited focus on determining how best to evaluate the way research is used, shared and created to adaptively solve complex sustainable issues facing Indigenous lands. In this paper, we outline a collaborative and adaptive approach for conducting Indigenous-led evaluations of sustainability research and show how this approach was applied to evaluate cross-cultural knowledge co-production practice and impact in Australia’s jointly managed and World Heritage-listed Kakadu National Park. As part of an Indigenous-led research project, indicators were co-developed by Indigenous and non-Indigenous research team members to monitor the health of the knowledge-sharing and co-production practices that underpinned the design, management and success of the project’s research activities. The evaluations focused on determining whether research activities were providing negotiated benefits for local Indigenous people; helping to restore and protect agreed values in priority areas; and supporting Indigenous-led collaborative knowledge sharing and research practices. In Kakadu, we show how the Indigenous-led design of the research evaluation empowered the usability and benefits of knowledge which was negotiated, shared and co-created. The approach shows how sustainability science can be evaluated by Indigenous leaders to test if and how research practice and impact is responding to their priorities for their traditional estates.
Original language | English |
---|---|
Pages (from-to) | 377-390 |
Number of pages | 14 |
Journal | Sustainability Science |
Volume | 17 |
Issue number | 2 |
Early online date | 29 Jul 2021 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - Mar 2022 |
Bibliographical note
Funding Information:The project received funding from the Australian Government’s National Environmental Science Program (NESP) Northern Australia Environmental Resources Hub and support from CSIRO’s Responsible Innovation Future Science Program (RI FSP). This research received human ethics clearance from CSIRO (050/18) and Charles Darwin University (H18055).
Publisher Copyright:
© 2021, The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Japan KK, part of Springer Nature.
Copyright:
Copyright 2021 Elsevier B.V., All rights reserved.