Paper short abstract:

This paper presents an anthropological framework for assessing local and regional development initiatives with examples from Australian regional development. It analyses how actions for change by different actors reveal or suppress local knowledges to create different on-the-ground impacts.

Paper long abstract:

Local and regional development aims to improve socioeconomic conditions in particular places. Around the world, these actions for change may come from any of a number of actors: multilateral organisations, governments, NGOs, local community organisations, and others - at different scales from the international to local. The actual impacts range from positive to negative, but a defining factor in the success or failure of initiatives has been shown to be the involvement of people with in-depth knowledge of on-the-ground conditions. This paper presents an anthropological framework for assessing actions for change with reference to the positionality and relationships of key actors in change initiatives. Beyond dichotomies of 'bottom up' and 'top down' development action, this framework offers a nuanced understanding of how different configurations of development actors can drive very different impacts. Four common configurations - imposed development, incentivised development, enabled development and linked-up development - and their variations can all be observed in the Australian context, as actors with differing local knowledges seek to improve the socioeconomic conditions in diverse Australian regions.

Paper short abstract:

This paper is the result of a year long ethnography conducted in a village that is changing as a result of its interaction with the state. In its turn, the community has a profound role in shaping the state's own policy because the interaction created capacities that the community could leverage.

Paper long abstract:

Gross National Happiness (GNH) is a development approach that recognises the diversity of ends in human life, or what can be called value systems. A desirable outcome within the GNH paradigm is conceived as a way of life, which enjoys material sufficiency that are in harmony with what the environment can sustainably provide, and what is consistent with cultural values and practices of the people. At a philosophical level, this approach is close to the way of life in Bongo, a marginal village in the border regions of Bhutan. However, when implemented as policy practice, the planning system in Bhutan undermines the very values that it promotes at a philosophical level. This happens because unlike GNH as a 'philosophy', which is indigenous to Bhutan and which is informed by global discourses on sustainable and desirable practices, GNH as a 'planning system' in Bhutan is borrowed from elsewhere, and so heavily influenced by them. Thus, instead of upholding Bongo's development culture and practices as ideal outcomes, it has to undermine them in order to achieve harmony with its system imperatives. This paper is the outcome of a year's ethnographic fieldwork conducted as part of a doctoral project and the ethnographer's background in policy analysis and development theories. The presentation of ethnographic materials revolves around a single person who is concurrently a member of the Bongo community and a part of the state development apparatus, thus inhabiting and negotiating two 'value arenas'.

Paper short abstract:

This paper explores the role fisheries research for development (R4D) projects play in the livelihood of local people, their relationship with other ethnic groups, and the changes in the relations between local and external actors and local and scientific knowledges in Papua New Guinea.

Paper long abstract:

In the highlands of Papua New Guinea (PNG) people are dependent on subsistence farming. These areas are considered food insecure, and protein is hard to source. To alleviate food insecurity and nutritional deficits in these communities, the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research (ACIAR) started to work with its local counterpart, the National Fisheries Authority (NFA) and funded several fisheries (inland aquaculture) research for development (R4D) projects since 2000. The main purpose of these inland aquaculture R4D projects was to build local capacity and improve farming techniques to increase the volume and quality of fish production, particularly in the highlands of PNG. Between 2015 and 2017, a Sustainable Livelihood Approach (SLA) was used to assess the socio-cultural and economic impact of the inland aquaculture R4D projects. SLA is a methodology that puts people, context and capacities and capabilities of local people at the centre of local development. It assumes that people have capabilities and basic assets and may operate in the context of vulnerability. This paper uses anthropological approaches to uncover the role played by the R4D projects in the livelihood of local communities, and in changing or maintaining the relations between different ethnic groups, local and external institutions and local and technical knowledges; and how these changes affect local communities and local development in PNG.

Paper short abstract:

Sweeping Indigenous rights have occurred in Tasmania since 2016, together with a deep societal shift, that looks to Aboriginal Tasmanians as leaders in developing regional development. We 'love-bombed' the government for rights.

Paper long abstract:

Sweeping Indigenous rights have occurred in Tasmania since 2016, together with a deep societal shift, that looks to Aboriginal Tasmanians as leaders in developing regional development. This panel will discuss the Aboriginal Tasmanian methods to seek change in land and sea management, together with gaining constitutional reform. The term 'love-bombing' is important here, as the approaches to change rest on cultural strengths and assets of kinship and reciprocity that reflect the love of country and families.

The Tasmanian efforts have built a respectful relationship between Aboriginal peoples and the Tasmanian government that is based upon dignity and mutual recognition rather than a prescriptive list of rights to be achieved. In this manner, the condition-setting to negotiate rights has been more important as the means to demonstrate Aboriginal Tasmanian leadership, thus leading to programs of change that suit the regions instead of abstract rights.