On gravel – socio-material objects of northern development

IF 1.5 Q2 EDUCATION & EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH
Kirsty Howey
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The entities the paper focuses on are gravelly; gravelly roads, and legal contracts that concern gravel. Northern development certainly requires that these two entities, very different though they are, must go on together. But seeing that necessity, we also see that a third gravelly entity, often obscured, needs to be foregrounded to understand what is also at stake in northern development projects. The ‘people-places’ that are gravel pits need to be explicitly involved as objects if northern development is to be inclusive, and is to disrupt the dominant power relations within which it is enmeshed. As socio-material entities, the places that are the gravel pits, intimately involved with gravelly roads and legal contracts, are about gravel supply. Yet they are owned by Indigenous landowners. These places are constituted in quite different institutions, alternative and diverse languages, and in disparate knowledge traditions, compared with those that constitute the gravelly roads, and the legal contracts concerning gravel. The paper argues that all three are ‘northern development objects,’ and all need to be involved in northern development policy. Introduction: on gravel In recent years, buoyed by the release by the federal Coalition government of a ‘White Paper’ on developing northern Australia in 2015 (Australian Government, 2015), a raft of NT and Commonwealth government agencies have worked furiously towards a common goal of ‘Developing the North.’ The objectives of these development imperatives can nonetheless be slippery, particularly in the underpopulated NT where according to the NT Government a “large undeveloped land mass” has yet to reach its “full potential.”1 But typically, the agenda 1 https://business.nt.gov.au/investment-and-major-projects/investment-and-development/northern-australia-development. 41 Learning Communities | Special Issue: Collaborative Knowledge Work in Northern Australia | Number 26 – November 2020 involves the establishment of large-scale mining and petroleum operations, pastoralism, agriculture and aquaculture, and can also involve state exploitation of land, including for defence training purposes, and infrastructure such as housing, dams or roads. Such projects are presented axiomatically as being for the “common good” (Blaser & de La Cadena, 2017, p. 185), certainly for the NT as a political and economic jurisdiction, but also for Indigenous people who will be lifted from poverty via the jobs, business opportunities and services generated. This paper interrogates the assumptions and knowledge traditions underpinning northern development in an unorthodox way: by mobilising a ‘ground up’ STS approach to understand how often mundane socio-material objects of development in the north are differentially constituted. Taking the example of gravel, the core constitutive element of much of the NT’s road network, I consider how my interlocutors employees at an NT Aboriginal land council enact this rocky aggregate as either a legal contract or as a road according to the material, social and textual epistemic practices they deploy (Shapin & Schaffer, 1985). Absent from this analysis, however, is a third conception of gravel pits as “people-places” (Verran, 2002). In this conception, gravel pits are constituted by Indigenous knowledge practices that recognise the “relations between human beings and other-than-human beings that together make place” (de la Cadena, 2010, p. 356). 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引用次数: 0

Abstract

Wealth from extractive development has been at the forefront of political aspirations for the Northern Territory of Australia (NT), and of northern Australia more broadly, for many decades. According to political, bureaucratic and industry rhetoric, the north is insufficiently developed to reach its full potential. The most recent iteration of this development agenda has been catalysed by the Commonwealth Government’s White Paper on “Developing the North”. Eschewing the usual frames for analysing ‘development,’ this paper proposes that northern development can be seen as a going on together doing differences with development “objects.’ It mobilises a ground-up STS to understand what such objects are in an unorthodox way, as socio-material entities. The entities the paper focuses on are gravelly; gravelly roads, and legal contracts that concern gravel. Northern development certainly requires that these two entities, very different though they are, must go on together. But seeing that necessity, we also see that a third gravelly entity, often obscured, needs to be foregrounded to understand what is also at stake in northern development projects. The ‘people-places’ that are gravel pits need to be explicitly involved as objects if northern development is to be inclusive, and is to disrupt the dominant power relations within which it is enmeshed. As socio-material entities, the places that are the gravel pits, intimately involved with gravelly roads and legal contracts, are about gravel supply. Yet they are owned by Indigenous landowners. These places are constituted in quite different institutions, alternative and diverse languages, and in disparate knowledge traditions, compared with those that constitute the gravelly roads, and the legal contracts concerning gravel. The paper argues that all three are ‘northern development objects,’ and all need to be involved in northern development policy. Introduction: on gravel In recent years, buoyed by the release by the federal Coalition government of a ‘White Paper’ on developing northern Australia in 2015 (Australian Government, 2015), a raft of NT and Commonwealth government agencies have worked furiously towards a common goal of ‘Developing the North.’ The objectives of these development imperatives can nonetheless be slippery, particularly in the underpopulated NT where according to the NT Government a “large undeveloped land mass” has yet to reach its “full potential.”1 But typically, the agenda 1 https://business.nt.gov.au/investment-and-major-projects/investment-and-development/northern-australia-development. 41 Learning Communities | Special Issue: Collaborative Knowledge Work in Northern Australia | Number 26 – November 2020 involves the establishment of large-scale mining and petroleum operations, pastoralism, agriculture and aquaculture, and can also involve state exploitation of land, including for defence training purposes, and infrastructure such as housing, dams or roads. Such projects are presented axiomatically as being for the “common good” (Blaser & de La Cadena, 2017, p. 185), certainly for the NT as a political and economic jurisdiction, but also for Indigenous people who will be lifted from poverty via the jobs, business opportunities and services generated. This paper interrogates the assumptions and knowledge traditions underpinning northern development in an unorthodox way: by mobilising a ‘ground up’ STS approach to understand how often mundane socio-material objects of development in the north are differentially constituted. Taking the example of gravel, the core constitutive element of much of the NT’s road network, I consider how my interlocutors employees at an NT Aboriginal land council enact this rocky aggregate as either a legal contract or as a road according to the material, social and textual epistemic practices they deploy (Shapin & Schaffer, 1985). Absent from this analysis, however, is a third conception of gravel pits as “people-places” (Verran, 2002). In this conception, gravel pits are constituted by Indigenous knowledge practices that recognise the “relations between human beings and other-than-human beings that together make place” (de la Cadena, 2010, p. 356). If we pay attention to the different ways that gravel is enacted, we can begin to recognise what versions of the world are privileged and excluded in the mantra of “Developing the North”, opening up the potential for more inclusive development policy.
论北方发展的砾石社会物质对象
几十年来,采掘开发带来的财富一直是澳大利亚北领地(NT)乃至更广泛意义上的澳大利亚北部的首要政治诉求。根据政治、官僚和工业界的说法,北方发展不足,无法充分发挥其潜力。联邦政府关于“发展北方”的白皮书推动了这一发展议程的最新更新。本文避开了分析“发展”的通常框架,提出北方的发展可以被看作是与发展“对象”一起进行的差异。它动员了一个草根STS以一种非正统的方式来理解这些对象是什么,作为社会物质实体。本文关注的实体是细粒的;砾石路面,以及与砾石有关的法律合同。北方的发展当然要求这两个实体,尽管它们非常不同,但必须共同发展。但在看到这种必要性的同时,我们也看到,第三个经常被模糊的实体需要被突显出来,以理解北方开发项目的利害关系。如果北方发展要具有包容性,并且要打破其所纠缠的主导权力关系,那么砾石坑中的“人-地方”需要明确地作为对象参与进来。作为社会物质实体,砾石坑与砾石道路和法律合同密切相关,与砾石供应有关。然而,它们属于土著土地所有者。与那些砾石道路和砾石法律合同不同的地方相比,这些地方是由完全不同的制度、不同的语言和不同的知识传统构成的。这篇论文认为,这三个都是“北方发展对象”,都需要参与北方发展政策。近年来,受联邦联合政府发布的2015年开发澳大利亚北部的白皮书(Australian government, 2015)的鼓舞,北领地和联邦政府机构纷纷为实现“开发北部”的共同目标而努力。然而,这些发展的目标可能是不稳定的,特别是在人口稀少的北部地区,根据北部政府的说法,“大片未开发的土地”尚未发挥其“全部潜力”。“但通常情况下,议程https://business.nt.gov.au/investment-and-major-projects/investment-and-development/northern-australia-development。学习社区|特刊:北澳大利亚的协作知识工作|第26期- 2020年11月涉及建立大规模采矿和石油业务、畜牧业、农业和水产养殖,还可能涉及国家对土地的开发,包括用于国防训练目的,以及住房、水坝或道路等基础设施。这些项目理所当然地被认为是为了“共同利益”(Blaser & de La Cadena, 2017,第185页),当然是为了北领地作为一个政治和经济管辖区,但也为了土著人民,他们将通过由此产生的就业、商业机会和服务摆脱贫困。本文以一种非正统的方式质疑支撑北方发展的假设和知识传统:通过动员一种“自下而上”的STS方法来理解北方发展的世俗社会物质对象是如何经常被不同地构成的。以砾石为例,砾石是北部大部分道路网络的核心构成要素,我考虑了我的对话者在北部土著土地委员会的雇员如何根据他们所采用的材料、社会和文本认知实践,将这种岩石集料作为法律合同或道路(Shapin & Schaffer, 1985)。然而,这个分析中缺少的是第三个概念,即砾石坑是“人的地方”(Verran, 2002)。在这个概念中,砾石坑是由土著知识实践构成的,这些实践承认“人类与非人类之间的关系共同构成”(de la Cadena, 2010,第356页)。如果我们关注砾石的不同制定方式,我们就可以开始认识到,在“发展北方”的口号下,世界上哪些地区享有特权,哪些地区被排除在外,从而为更具包容性的发展政策开辟了潜力。
本文章由计算机程序翻译,如有差异,请以英文原文为准。
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