Maclean, Kirsten, Woodward, Emma, Jarvis, Diane, Turpin, Gerry, Rowland, Dwayne, and Rist, Phil (2022) Decolonising knowledge co‑production: examining the role of positionality and partnerships to support Indigenous‑led bush product enterprises in northern Australia. Sustainability Science, 17. pp. 333-350.

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Abstract

Knowledge co-production enabled via decolonised research approaches can support indigenous leaders to respond to the challenges and opportunities that result from their natural and cultural resource management obligations and strategies. For knowledge co-production to be realised, such research interactions must provide space for Indigenous peoples to position themselves as research leaders, driving agendas and co-designing research approaches, activities, and outputs. This paper examines the role that positionality played in supporting an Indigenous-led research partnership, or knowledge-action system, that developed between indigenous, industry, and research project partners seeking to support development of the Indigenous-led bush products sector in northern Australia. Our chosen conceptualisation of positionality informs sustainability science as a way for scientists, practitioners, and research partners to consider the power that each project member brings to a project, and to make explicit the unique positioning of project members in how they infuence project processes and the development of usable knowledge. We locate the research in northern Australia and then articulate how selected research methodologies supported the partnership that resulted in knowledge co-production. We then extend the literature on decolonising methodologies and positionality by illuminating how the positionality of each research partner, and the partnership itself, infuenced the research and knowledge co-production processes. In culmination, we reveal how an interrogation of post-project benefts and legacies (e.g., usable knowledge) can enable a fuller understanding of the lasting success of the project and partnership, illustrated with examples of benefts derived by project partners since the project ended.

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