ABSTRACT
This chapter challenges the prevailing pessimistic outlook on contemporary Indigenous places. It explores Indigenous definitions of place and provides a brief outline of the historical determinants of contemporary Indigenous places. The Indigenous concept of belonging to land is often encapsulated by the word ‘country’, which has been defined by Rose as follows: Country is multi-dimensional—it consists of people, animals, plants, Dreamings; underground, earth, soils, minerals and waters, air. While referendum lowered the financial and legal thresholds of returning to country, many Indigenous communities were displaced from pastoral stations as award wages made Indigenous participation in pastoral and other industries less profitable. For many Indigenous peoples, Natural and Cultural Resource Management is ‘caring for country’ because it embodies deep spiritual and practical customary obligations to country and patterns of behaviour proscribed by enduring metaphysical associations with geography. Interaction with country serves to socially integrate individuals through learning the normative rules based on the ancestors’ actions or Dreamings depicted in the landscape.
