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Professional
C.V. may be downloaded as an Adobe Acrobat document.
Recent
Writing - Comments Welcome
See PhD Thesis Below
Peer
Reviewed Publications
Moran, Mark. 2004. The Practice
of Participatory Planning at Mapoon Aboriginal Settlement: Towards
Community Control, Ownership and Autonomy. Australian Geographical
Studies 42 (3):339-355.
Moran, Mark. 2003. An Evaluation
of Participatory Planning at Mapoon Aboriginal Community: Opportunities
for Inclusive Local Governance. Australian Aboriginal Studies (2):72-84.
Moran, M., Memmott, P., Long,
S., Stacy, R. and Holt, J. 2002. Indigenous Home Ownership and Community Title
Land: A Preliminary Household
Survey. Urban Policy and
Research, 20 (4):357-370. (55 KB)
Moran, Mark. 2002. The
Devolution of Indigenous Local Government Authority in Queensland: Opportunities for
Statutory Planning. Australian Planner, 39 (2):72-82. (151 KB)
Memmott, Paul, and Mark Moran.
2001. Indigenous Settlements of Australia, In Australia: State of the Environment 2001:
Technical Papers. Canberra:
Environment Australia.
Moran, Mark. 2000. Housing and health in Indigenous communities in
the USA, Canada & Australia: the significance of economic
empowerment. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health
Bulletin, no.7.
PhD Thesis
in Geography and Planning. Practising
Self-Determination: Participation in
Planning and Local Governance in Discrete Indigenous Settlements
University
of Queensland; School of Geography,
Planning and Architecture
Supervisor: Associate Professor Paul Memmott
Examiners: Dr Tim Rowse and Dr Will Sanders
Download complete
thesis as single file (7.2MB)
Chapter 1 Introduction, and Chapter 2 Arenas and Forums (824 KB)
Chapters 3 Planning Mapoon, and Chapter 4 Actors and Agencies (1075KB)
Chapter 5 Kowanyama Governance (1919KB)
Chapter 6 Practice and Policy (1426KB)
Chapter 7 Conclusion (208KB)
Bibliography (177KB)
Appendices (1690KB)
A four page Policy
Impact Summary is available under the Growing a Smart State PhD Award
Abstract:
The principle and policy of self-determination holds that Aboriginal
people should have the right to pursue a lifestyle of their choosing
and to have control over their interactions with the wider
society. Self-determination policy has been in place at a federal
level since the 1970’s, yet after thirty years of implementation, there
is considerable disarray and disagreement over its merits.
This study
investigated the transactions of decision-makers as they practised two
of the main policy instruments of self-determination: participatory
planning and self-governance. The research settings were Mapoon
and Kowanyama, two discrete Indigenous settlements on the West Coast of
Cape York Peninsula, in the state of Queensland, northern Australia.
Three typologies
for settlements, planning, and organisations were established, which
gave the context for the study, as well as a basis from which to
generalise findings. From the types of planning in practice, a
participatory plan at Mapoon was singled out for further study since it
specifically recreated the language of self-determination. The
Mapoon Plan was found to be successful technically, but it fell short
of its stated social development goals. Planning proved to be a
highly politicised and idealised activity, brokered by external
consultants. The complex interplay among knowledge, ideology and
politics, as observed, could not be described in terms of two separate
domains, but rather in terms of intercultural production across an
interethnic field. The anthropological literature tended to treat
Aboriginal polities as cultural isolates, situated within
administrative vacuums. To progress the study, it became
necessary to apply a functional and administrative rationality to what
needed to be done in practice.
Twenty case
studies of decision-making forums were analysed in the main research
setting of Kowanyama. Each involved the contemporary practice of
self-determination, as local decision-makers engaged with the wider
society. In the majority of cases, all six proposed factors were
found to be necessary, but not sufficient, for success: (1)
participation, (2) technical expertise, (3) negotiation, (4)
institutional capacity, (5) focal driver, and (6) jurisdictional
devolution.
A typology of
actors was established to define the different decision-makers
involved. Of the 600 adults in Kowanyama, only 30 were found to
be actively involved in decision-making. This was unexpectedly
low given the quantity of government activity purporting to further
Kowanyama’s self-determination. Six determinants were found to
influence the level of participation: efficacy in practice,
jurisdictional devolution, representativeness, function, informality,
language and motivation. In particular, form followed function,
whereby the function of a decision-making forum decided the level of
participation that was appropriate.
Contrary to
accounts in the anthropological literature, the study found a fledgling
system of representation in Kowanyama, complete with informal
‘extra-constitutional’ checks and balances. Factions were a
powerful aspect of Kowanyama society, but they did not monopolise
politics. The local polity was better conceptualised in terms of
its political pluralism, encompassing a complex array of balancing and
competing interests. Significantly, constituents were beginning
to exert local political influence over their leaders.
The analysis
found that notions of ‘community control,’ as promulgated in the
community development literature, were not adequate to explain the
intercultural production underway. The full spectrum of
participation was relevant to the actors of governance, from political
activism to ambivalent apathy. Community control was found in the
absence of government interventions, imbedded within informal
institutions and cultural norms. Yet, introduced political
structures, including Councils, were no less a part of the local
political arena. The notion of governance better encapsulated the
array of decision-making activities and actors occurring across a broad
range of institutional positions.
The study
documented multiple dilemmas and indeterminacies as actors practised
self-determination in the interethnic field, especially the interplay
between local and external ideologies and knowledge. All of the
examples of political innovation in the contemporary history of
governance in Kowanyama involved productive social contexts developing
locally between leaders and trusted outsiders. The complexity of
problems and their solutions were only revealed through practice, one
step at a time. Successful initiatives in Kowanyama were to a
degree inadvertent; it was not until the end that actors understood
what they had done right or wrong. Significantly, political
innovation occurred in practice, often without any active intervention
by government.
Ironically, one
of the greatest obstacles limiting local capacity was the size of the
task of administering the programs of self-determination. An
accepted role for leaders and employees was radical action to
manipulate the system and to create the institutional space to permit
the subjects of self-determination to participate. The analysis
suggested that the importance assigned to government policy,
legislation, and structure has fallen out of balance with their actual
practice. Rather than fixating on policy solutions to
self-determination, policy-makers should be focusing more on creating
an enabling framework for practice. The six success factors
proven in the study give the basis for such a framework.
Home
Ownership on Community Title Land
Moran, M., P. Memmott, R. Stacy,
S. Long, and J. Holt. 2001. Home Ownership for Indigenous People living
on Community Title Land in Queensland: Preliminary Community Survey. Aboriginal Environments Research Centre,
Aboriginal Coordinating Council, and Queensland Department of Housing,
Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Housing. (379 KB)
Moran, Mark. 1999. Home
Ownership for Indigenous People Living on Community Title Land in
Queensland: Scoping
Study Report: Aboriginal
Coordinating Council, and Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander
Commission. (204 KB)
Gulf and
West Queensland Regional Homeland Plan
Moran, Mark, and Dell Burgen.
2000. Gulf and West Queensland Regional Homeland Plan: Stage II Main Report, Mount Isa: Gulf Aboriginal Development Company
and ATSIC Gulf & West Queensland Regional Council. (2183 KB)
Moran, Mark, and Dell Burgen.
2000. Gulf and West Queensland Regional Homeland Plan: Pictorial Summary, Mount Isa: Gulf Aboriginal Development Company
and ATSIC Gulf & West Queensland Regional Council. (1317 KB)
Gulf and West Queensland
Regional Homeland Plan: Stage II Main Report.
Winston
Churchill Memorial Trust: Churchill Fellowship Report
Moran, Mark. 1997. Technology And Health
In Indigenous Communities: USA, Canada and Australia: Winston Churchill Memorial Trust. (332 KB)
Centre
for Appropriate Technology Reports
Moran, Mark. 1999. Improved
Settlement Planning and Environmental Health in Remote Aboriginal
Communities (Report # cat 99/6).
Alice Springs: Center for Appropriate Technology. (512 KB)
The following reports may also
be ordered through the Cairns Office of the Centre for
Appropriate Technology.
Centre for Appropriate
Technology. 1997. Moojeeba-Theethinji: Planning for a Healthy Growing
Community, edited by M. Moran and S. Groome. Cairns: Port Stewart
Aboriginal Community.
Centre for Appropriate
Technology. 1995. Old Mapoon Planning for a Healthy Community: Stage II
Main Report, edited by M. Moran. Cape York Peninsula: Queensland
Health, Tropical Public Health Unit.
Centre for Appropriate
Technology. 1994. A Pictorial Summary: Old Mapoon Planning for a
Healthy Community, edited by J. Duddles and M. Moran. Cairns:
Queensland Health, Wigley Architects, Sinatra & Murphy, Health
Habitat.
Centre for Appropriate
Technology. 1994. Doomadgee Planning for Outstation Housing, edited by
M. Moran. Brisbane: Queensland Department of Housing, Local Government
and Planning.
Centre for Appropriate
Technology. 1994. Feasibility and Planning Study for an Appropriate
Technology Facility to serve Cape York Peninsula, edited by M. Moran.
Cairns: ATSIC Peninsula Regional Council.
Conference
Papers
Moran, Mark. 1994. Application of
Appropriate Technology to Outstation Development Throughout Cape York
Peninsula. Paper read at
National Conference on Technology Transfer in Remote Communities, at
Perth.
Moran, Mark. 1993. The Significance of
Social Context upon Design:
Experiences in Developing Communities in Rural Africa and Aboriginal
Australia. Paper read at Design in Education for Development (DECA)
Conference, at Alice Springs.
Aboriginal
Environments Research Center
The Aboriginal Environments Research Center (AERC) is a resource and research center based
in the Department of Architecture at the University of Queensland. It
provides a national focal point on issues of Indigenous settlements,
housing and architecture for the academic, government and community
sectors. It has grown out of initiatives undertaken in the Department
of Architecture at the University of Queensland in the early 1970s, and
now fulfills three functions; as both an undergraduate and postgraduate
teaching center, a research practice involved in a wide variety of
Indigenous projects ranging from land claims to architecture and
settlement planning, and as an archive incorporating an extensive
collection of bibliographies, literature and images.
Center
for Appropriate Technology
The Center for
Appropriate Technology (CAT) is
an Indigenous controlled organization committed to providing
appropriate technology services in remote Indigenous communities. CAT
undertakes activities relating to a number of areas of community
concern including water, waste management, housing, energy,
communication and technical training. Other key responsibilities of CAT
include research and evaluation of appropriate technologies and
operation of a national technology clearing house. CAT has its main
office in Alice Springs and operates regional offices in Cairns and
Derby.
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