First Nations engagement resources
Guidelines for researchers’ respectful engagement with First Nations peoples.
Guidelines for researchers’ respectful engagement with First Nations peoples.
Researchers can play a central role in the transmission and safeguarding of important cultural, linguistic and historical information. It is therefore crucial to recognise the rights of First Nations peoples to maintain, control, protect and develop their traditional knowledges, histories, cultures and experiences.
It is a priority of Natural Hazards Research Australia (the Centre) to engage with First Nations peoples respectfully and meaningfully, and to foreground First Nations knowledges within research projects.
These priorities extend to researchers and research projects that are funded by the Centre.
This page provides high-level guidance and resources for non-Indigenous researchers on how to engage with First Nations peoples with respect and cultural safety. This applies to all Centre-funded research
Through our REFLECT Reconciliation Action Plan and Biennial Research Plans, the Centre has increased its inclusion and acknowledgement of First Nations knowledges into its research and research development processes.
To support this as a priority:
- We refer to, and ask that researchers funded through our programs also observe, the AIATSIS Code of Ethics for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Research (2020). This Code sets national standards for the ethical and responsible conduct of all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander research, across all disciplines and methodologies.
- We ask researchers to contemplate how First Nations peoples can be considered in all projects, in order that they may benefit from or contribute to the research, and that First Nations knowledges are reflected in the authorship of all publications and reports.
- We have an expectation that Centre-funded researchers will conduct themselves respectfully when engaging with First Nations knowledge experts, communities, leaders and people.
- We look favourably on project plans that meaningfully engage with First Nations knowledge experts, communities, leaders and people.
- We ask that research teams provide evidence, from project inception to completion, that they have engaged with First Nations peoples in a respectful and culturally safe way.
Several resources can provide support to researchers seeking to engage respectfully with First Nations peoples. Please find these below.
The Centre is also in the process of developing a First Nations Strategy which will further define our expectations for the engagement of and consideration for First Nations Peoples in Centre funded research.
The Centre acknowledges that many of its academic partners (universities, academic institutions etc) may have their own First Nations-specific research strategies and codes of conduct. We also recognise our role as a research funding organisation and the influence of this role in guiding the engagement practices of all researchers in emergency management and disaster resilience sectors, and that all researchers conducting research funded by the Centre also represent the Centre as they do so.
Principles and protocols for cultural land management governance and research
Natural hazards management agencies and research institutions all have legal and ethical obligations to engage with First Nations peoples no matter where they work in Australia.
Everywhere is Country and First Nations peoples speak for Country. Nonetheless, starting or maintaining intercultural collaborations can present many obstacles, and there is a need for guidance on how to best work together for the benefit of Country.
These resources summarise a review of relevant collaborative principles, processes and protocols and provide guidance for use by agencies and research institutions in implementing them. The resources are a starting point for local and in-depth conversations.
The November 2023 Hazardous Webinar launched Natural Hazards Research Australia’s Principles and protocols for cultural land management governance and research, which was developed through the Cultural land management research and governance in south-east Australia project by Bundjalung man Oliver Costello, Centre Board member and Director of the Jagun Alliance Aboriginal Corporation, and Dr Timothy Neale, Centre researcher from Deakin University.
A key premise of the webinar was to learn from other countries and their experiences, with the Canadian perspective from Dr Amy Cardinal Christianson (a Métis woman from Parks Canada and member of the Centre’s International Research Advisory Panel) and Alex Zahara (Canadian Forest Service).
Using cultural land management principles and protocols: a guide for collaborative principles, processes and protocols for governance and research is a companion guide to the Principles and protocols to support individuals, agencies, researchers and government in implementing the collaborative principles, processes and protocols.