Hope and farce : indigenous peoples' water reforms during the Millennium Drought

Abstract

Unstable Relations examines the relationship between environmentalism and Indigenous people. This chapter sets out some of the challenges of engagement that Indigenous people face within the very connected context of river degradation and water reform, living as a minority within Australia's colonial-settler state. The author asserts that a particular kind of thinking has been normalised as culturally neutral universal knowledge, whilst simultaneously marginalising the contribution of other knowledge traditions; and that a different kind of thinking is needed to address river health.