Winners and finalists of the 2022 Indigenous Governance Awards talk about the importance of developing the next generation of leaders and how succession planning takes place in their organisation...
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Home
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01 Understanding governance
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02 Culture and governance
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03 Getting Started
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04 Leadership
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05 Governing the organisation
- 5.0 Governing the organisation
- 5.1 Roles, responsibilities and rights of a governing body
- 5.2 Accountability: what is it, to whom and how?
- 5.3 Decision making by the governing body
- 5.4 Governing finances and resources
- 5.5 Communicating
- 5.6 Future planning
- 5.7 Building capacity and confidence for governing bodies
- 5.8 Case Studies
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06 Rules and policies
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07 Management and staff
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08 Disputes and complaints
- 8.0 Disputes and complaints
- 8.1 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander and non-Indigenous approaches
- 8.2 Core principles and skills for dispute and complaint resolution
- 8.3 Disputes and complaints about governance
- 8.4 Your members: Dealing with disputes and complaints
- 8.5 Organisations: dealing with internal disputes and complaints
- 8.6 Practical guidelines and approaches
- 8.7 Case Studies
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09 Governance for nation rebuilding
- Governance Stories
- Glossary
- Useful links
- Acknowledgements
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Preview new Toolkit
9.1 What is nation rebuilding?
As Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander groups in Australia continue with their work of rebuilding systems of governance and look for new governing tools to assist them, they are faced with fundamental questions about their own collective cultural identities, such as:
- Who are the members of the group, clan, tribe or community that we might now call our nation?
- What do we value and what are we trying to protect?
- What kind of laws, relationships and behaviours do we want to foster among ourselves?
- What kind of future do we want to create for our grandchildren?
- What kind of relationship do we want to have with other Indigenous nations, and with Australian governments?
- What kind of governing arrangements will we need to achieve those goals?
In other words, how do we constitute ourselves as an effective polity (that is, an organised form or process of governing or government) in contemporary times?
These questions deal with the very practical tasks of self-determination and nation rebuilding.
Definition: A nation refers to a group or community of people who share a common language, culture, ethnicity, descent or history. A nation may share a single common territory with physical boundaries and government, or it may be located as a nation within another lager nation.
The concept of ‘nation’ in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australia can include:
- a small clan or tribal unit
- a native title–holder or traditional land-owning group
- people who are dispersed across a wide region or city, but see themselves as a single cultural unit
- a discrete community whose differently related residents share the desire to collectively govern themselves.
A nation does not rely on legislated or treaty recognition, although that greatly enhances its jurisdictional and decision-making power:
“Understood as a human right, the essential idea of self-determination is that human beings, individually and as groups, are equally entitled to be in control of their own destinies, and to live within governing institutional orders that are devised accordingly.”
(James Anaya, quoted in conference report on ‘Common Roots, Common Futures: Different Paths to Self-determination—An international Conversation’,
University of Arizona, 2012)
Definition: Self-determination refers to genuine decision-making power and responsibility about what happens on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples’ lands, in their affairs, in their governing systems, and in their development strategies. It means having meaningful control over one’s own life and cultural wellbeing.
As decision-making power and responsibility moves from external authorities into the hands of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, self-determination grows.
Governance of this kind does not refer to self-administration or self-management of programs and services that are controlled by outside authorities.
Definition: Nation rebuilding thus “refers to the processes by which a Native [Indigenous] nation enhances its own foundational capacity for effective self-governance and for self-determined community and economic development” (Miriam Jorgensen, Rebuilding Native Nations: Strategies for Governance and Development, Editor’s Foreword, University of Arizona Press, 2007).
Nation rebuilding is really about how Indigenous peoples can pull together the tools they need to build the futures that they want—and put them into place.
By tools, we mean the rules, processes, checks and balances, and structures of governance.
While there are many cultural, historical and legal differences between the situation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples in Australia and the Indigenous peoples of the United States of America, there are important commonalities in their desire to rebuild their governance and nations in this way.
In this video link, Indigenous leaders from the United States define what nation building means to them, and what it entails for people who are working to reclaim control over their own affairs and build vibrant futures of their own design.
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