CRC-REP students

The aim of this research is to explore the complex branding issues unique to remote Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander tourism operators. It seeks to understand branding challenges from the perception of the tourism operator and the consumer, and investigate the capacity of effective branding activities to support and sustain the industry.

The research will also investigate the contribution of this industry to reconciliation.

The research acknowledges that boutique remote tourism operators have limited access to marketing resources. Comprehension of branding within this industry, from operator and consumer perspectives, will strengthen the industry, gauge future capacity for branding activities and facilitate the formation of sustainable economic opportunities.

Understanding tourist behaviour enables more strategic product and promotional strategies to be developed. Activities and location are of equal importance to most tourists, with the Transferred Loyalty Concept considering tourists retain loyalty to new destinations.

This multi-stage empirical research examines Aboriginal tourists' destination choice behaviours across Australia using survey and case study data. It examines the sequential process of choice set formation, the influence of personal traits on destination choices, and tests a conceptual model of brand equity which considers how prior involvement in Aboriginal tourism positively influences the other dimensions.

The Art Economies Project is proposing two comparative case study-based analyses of the characteristics and success/failure of community arts enterprises.

This research aims to investigate and understand the interplay between community and cultural forces, commercial opportunity and art centre business practices, including human resources. It is anticipated that this research will provide evidence and information to reduce the fragility that characterises this sector.

This PhD research project aims to identify legal and institutional arrangements that best ensure pathways to bush food commercialisation assist Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in relation to bush food knowledge.

The exciting challenge that lies at the heart of this research project is the identification of arrangements that embrace diverse interests. The project looks at the legal and institutional arrangements invoked along various pathways to commercialisation, and the extent that these arrangements help Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people achieve their needs and aspirations in relation to bush food knowledge.

The analysis of current arrangements will help shape a conversation on reforms that may ensure various pathways to commercialisation help Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people achieve the most possible outcomes in relation to benefit-sharing and to safeguarding their bush food knowledge.

The project will lead to the compilation of a suite of legal and institutional models and a set of tools that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people may adopt to pursue their diverse interests in a variety of ways.

The work of this thesis is to construct an intercultural interface in which a sample of eighteen paintings and stories are considered by researcher and artist as a body of knowledge. The sample is drawn from the contemporary painting and storytelling that Eastern Arrernte artist Kathleen Kemarre Wallace produced between 2003 and 2010 and which represents many public attributes of her homelands.

A theory of practice emerges that encompasses the multimodal nature of cultural literacies as deep and cultural knowledge praxis. Wallace’s art objects, one result of cultural literacy praxis, are available to audience who are (a), culturally connected to the homelands source and (b), those engaged through the cosmopolitan Aboriginal arts market or (c), other everyday events.

The artist and the researcher engage in a process of interpretation that determines growing insight of a public homelands habitus, constructed against Wallace’s inheritance of knowledge and her Indigenous Standpoint, and influences of western knowledge the researcher brings.

A Theory of Cultural Literacy Praxis emerges from this thesis as agency of the arts-based and collaborative research.

Remote area art enterprises have a unique place within the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander art sector, blending creative, social, cultural and commercial roles. They are often the only enterprise in remote locations, support individual livelihoods and contribute to community cohesion.

These art enterprises are also highly variable in location, performance and approach, with a wide spectrum of micro-enterprise business practices in use. While art enterprises are widely acknowledged, they are also poorly understood and under-researched.

To address this lack of knowledge, the Art Economies Project is proposing two comparative case study-based analyses of the characteristics and success/failure factors of community arts enterprises.

This research aims to investigate and understand the interplay between community and cultural forces, commercial opportunity and art centre business practices, including human resources. It is anticipated that this research will provide evidence and information to reduce the fragility that characterises this sector. Research sites will be: Ngaanyatjarra and Anangu, Pitjantjatjara and Yankunytjatjara Lands of WA and SA.

This thesis is documenting remote community dependency on mining activities for a range of goods, services, employment and infrastructure.

While many mining companies claim to be independent of communities, their tenure, economic and environmental size, political value and international interface inevitably impacts on the local community and region in a variety of ways.

Using a mapping tool the thesis will analyse the nature and intensity of costs and benefits flowing from resource industries and how they impact on different stakeholders. It will assesses whether company policies and mine lifecycle planning assists communities to properly plan for their future, after mine operations have ceased.

This research will investigate the use of mobile technologies for indigenous teacher training courses and professional development programs in remote communities in South Australia and the Northern Territory. These locations were chosen because of the large number of remote communities, the length of time such courses and programs have operated, the history of cooperation between the two Education Departments, and the amount of existing data on allied educational issues in the literature. Data collection will be by analysis of existing records, written questionnaires/surveys, interviews with human subjects and compilation of technical results of hardware capabilities from field experiments.

The Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander art market has experienced an increasing downturn in recent years. Art has been a key source of economic and cultural development in remote Indigenous communities.

The relationships between artists, agents and consumers have not yet been comprehensively documented to assess the viability of existing markets and opportunities for growth.

Research on the market and the ideological frameworks within which art is presented is not sufficiently current or comprehensive to capture rapidly changing production and consumption landscapes.

Further data is required to understand demand in the market and the motivations and preferences of buyers.

The project will aim to identify business models characteristics that contribute to resilience in Aboriginal tourism enterprises and share the knowledge in an appropriate way to make a direct contribution to the people impacted by such tourism operations.

Governments promote tourism as a pathway to reversing the current economic and social trends faced by many Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander remote communities. Yet there remain few Aboriginal-owned and -operated tourism enterprises in remote Australia. This study built understanding of Aboriginal remote tourism entrepreneurship ‘on country’ and the motivations and challenges faced by an Aboriginal-owned and -operated tourism business in the Kimberley region of Western Australia: UPTUYU Aboriginal Adventures and the community-owned Oongkalkada Wilderness Camp.

The study used a qualitative approach based on principles from constructivist/interpretivist and Indigenist paradigms. A sociological approach to inquiry was adopted to examine the role of the entrepreneur within society, internal and external influences shaping their motives and their ability to access resources. These underlying philosophies informed a case study approach and fieldwork strategy based on a set of principles ensuring sensitivity, respect and reciprocity to study participants.

Findings suggest that many challenges faced by the study participants on country may not be apparent when operating privately off country. Findings also suggest that study participants implement diversification strategies in an attempt to deal with the low revenue gained because of the seasonal nature of remote tourism. The study findings suggest that the motivation to operate on country outweighed these challenges. In particular, study participants emphasised that tourism provides an opportunity for cultural preservation, Reconciliation, and importantly, an avenue to remain living on country.

This project will research into the human resource issues associated with recruiting, retaining and engaging staff for challenging remotely located, cross-cultural jobs. Focusing specifically on the intercultural challenges managers’ face in the art sector, such as linguistic and monetary barriers.

Despite growing interest in mobility patterns and quantification, little is known about the lived experiences of mobile young Aboriginal Australian people. Mobility research to date has focused primarily on remote to remote movements. Supported by a Cooperative Research Centre for Remote Economic Participation Honours Scholarship, this study feeds into the 'Pathways to Employment' research project and develops new knowledge for understanding and enabling education and employment pathways which have relevance to young Aboriginal people from remote Australia.

It explores understandings of mobile young Aboriginal Australian people aged between 13 and 25 years, who move in, out and through remote, regional and urban locations.Considering dreams and aspirations in the context of cultural difference is the central focus.

This project will make both theoretical and empirical analyses of art centre e-marketing from a new media and sociological point of view. It will address consumer behaviour, multimedia opportunities, and resource availability.

It will clarify current and future practices, will examine motivations to invest in eCommerce marketing, and will deepen conceptual understandings of the significance of eCommerce. It also will focus on 1-2 main case studies researching the practices of eCommerce within specific art centres. It will provide solid measures to achieve increase in benefit through eCommerce.

The relationship between education and wellbeing will be explored to identify both the role of education in relation to employment and health, and also the characteristics of education that lead to optimal wellbeing outcomes. These include the quality and cultural relevance of education, and experiences of cultural connection, engagement, empowerment and opportunity through education.

The project aims to gain insight into the aspirations and outcome expectations of attendance at boarding school for Pitjantjatjara students, their families and their communities.

Employing qualitative research methods such as life history interviews, semi-structured interviews and focus groups will allow data to be collected from families, community members and students. It is intended that this research will assist in policy making and the construction of support structures that allow desired outcomes to be recongnised, vocalised, and achieved for all involved in boarding.

The topic is education as development in the Lands, history and future prospects. The central question underlying the research is the extent to which Ngaanyatjarra epistemology and ontology converge with the goals of mainstream education in ways that lead to better outcomes for Ngaanyatjarra people.

Assessment of the enduring nature of corporate social responsibility strategies developed through the Wiluna Regional Partnership Agreement (a combined mining company and Martu family groups within the Wiluna Shire) regarding land and resource management/industry partnerships.

This project will explore innovative options for developing renewable and sustainable energy sources to support the livelihoods of remote communities. The inclusion of renewable energy technology in a community’s energy mix has the potential to provide economic opportunities, both directly and indirectly. However, the transition from fossils fuels to renewable energy sources needs to be congruent with community aspirations, plans for building social capacity and respectful of cultural contexts. This transition can be informed by evaluating similar experiences in Australia and internationally, interviewing a diversity of stakeholders and working with remote communities to explore how they conceptualise their energy futures.

Literature review in Australia and internationally suggests that education systems have failed in optimising structures and processes for Indigenous students’ success. This research will explore the area of inclusive curriculum, pedagogy, teacher relationships and the effect of school and systems leadership for senior secondary students to further contribute to the body of knowledge on transferrable best practice for Indigenous student success.

It will examine and document transferrable best practice for Indigenous students in rural and remote location who are presently at risk of being excluded from the economic, educational and social advantages available to other Australians.

This research will use spatial analysis techniques, scenario modelling and systems thinking to undertake spatial and temporal modelling to aid strategic decision making at a local and regional level. Based in the Pilbara region, this research will bring together cultural systems and influences, social networks, regional planning thinking and spatial technologies in order for local governments and policy makers to plan for resilient and sustainable communities that are attractive places to live and work. There are multiple end-users of the research results, some of which are local and state government agencies, traditional owners and Aboriginal corporations as well as major infrastructure and utility providers.

The mining sector contributes directly to the Western Australian economy via taxes, royalties and state agreements. This thesis will explore how the sector impacts in an indirect manner (via employment, services, etc.) and through the redistribution of rents such as the Royalties for Regions program.

This thesis will measure the economic impact of the minerals sector over other areas of the Western Australian economy and to determine the enduring benefits derived from royalties, taxes and state agreements for resource communities in remote locations.