Co-developing Indigenous wellbeing and sustainability indicators

Please join visiting academic Dr Mandy Yap (Centre for Indigenous Policy Research, Australian National University) for a seminar on Co-developing Indigenous wellbeing and sustainability indicators: Reflections from community-led approaches in Australia and Indonesia.

Title: Co-developing Indigenous wellbeing and sustainability indicators: Reflections from community-led approaches in Australia and Indonesia

Short blurb: There is now widespread recognition that concepts such wellbeing and sustainable development are multidimensional and contextually and culturally constructed. Despite this, the tendency has been to establish universal criteria and indicators for measurement and reporting. One problem with such universal applications is that the different meanings and understandings of what constitutes sustainability that are held by different peoples can be overlooked. This is particularly true for Indigenous peoples around the world where parameters of their development tend to be defined on their behalf. The international community have much to learn from Indigenous peoples and local communities who have long advocated for and practiced a way of relational living where human and non-human existence are intertwined. In a time when societies are re-imagining a way of existing and thriving where economic, social, and environmental concerns are indivisible against the challenges of recent times, these ways of living well provide an alternative pathway forward. This presentation will describe the collaborative journey of working the Aboriginal communities including the Yawuru in the Kimberley (Western Australia) and with the Angge Buntu Dea Kaju in Indonesia to explore their local wisdoms and philosophies for living well . Through co-developing indicators of wellbeing and sustainable development in a ground up manner, these approaches provide one way of giving priority to Indigenous worldviews while ensuring usability for policy and evaluation purposes.

Bio : Mandy Yap is Fellow at the Australian National University currently undertaking an Australian Research Council funded project titled ‘The United Nations Sustainable Development Goals and Indigenous perspectives: Closing the knowledge and data gap’. She is committed to working with communities and individuals to develop indicators and frameworks which give priority to their lived realities and perspectives on the ground. Since 2013, Mandy has been working in partnership with the Yawuru community in Broome to develop culturally-relevant indicators of Indigenous wellbeing. Prior to her current role, she was part of a team responsible for developing the Individual Deprivation Measure (IDM), a gender sensitive measure of individual deprivation grounded in the experience of people living in poverty and co-led the IDM study in two districts in South Sulawesi. Mandy is an Australian Endeavour Fellow and has collaborated with other researchers nationally and internationally on projects such as ‘Data sovereignty for Indigenous peoples’ and ‘Indigenous peoples, sustainable development and the capability approach’.

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