Water knowledge systems

Abstract

Our research focuses on how to empower and recognize traditional water knowledge systems. With this in mind, we questioned how best we could share our collective conversation about the relationship with water from three different perspectives: an Indigenous perspective, a depth-psychology perspective and a stewardship perspective. As we explored our relationship and synergies in water knowledge systems, we realized that adopting an Indigenous research framework utilizing the conversational method was the best way to share our collective story. We each bring particular cultural and disciplinary approaches to water knowledge system issues. Dr Lorina Barker is a Wangkumara and Muruwari woman from northwest NSW and emphasizes the many examples where Aboriginal Elders are conveying traditional Indigenous water knowledge to government agencies and the wider public, to ensure the cultural, spiritual, social and emotional wellbeing of people, place and the environment. There are many complex reasons why Elders are sharing these water stories, and why they have chosen multimedia as the vehicle for that transmission. The inclusion of traditional water knowledge in water governance recognizes the importance of Indigenous water knowledges. Dr Patricia Please considers the questions at the centre of this project from the perspective of public engagement with, and participation in, natural resource management, using an integrated holistic approach that accommodates the importance of empathy, affect-emotion and eco-psychology. Dr Jacqueline Williams explores environmental stewardship from an enviro-social perspective, as a white Australian rural landholder and as an environmental scientist. She identified globalization as one of the main barriers to the recognition of traditional water knowledge systems, suggesting it is best understood as another wave of colonization. Our chapter is presented in the form of a narrative where each author presents their perspectives through an on-going dialogue from different cultural and disciplinary backgrounds.