Aboriginal Women and Caring for Country in NSW, Australia with Vanessa Cavanagh

Good Fire

I think when most people imagine a firefighter they picture a man. Women, it would seem, are still trying to shake the stigma of historical gender roles. Across the colonized world these gender roles have created a mold through which we all perceive and think about our world. Vanessa is trying to break that mold. Through her own life experiences climbing the ladder of the western fire model, as well as through her research, Vanessa has great perspective and insight into the importance of women in cultural fire.

Episode highlight

In this podcast, Vanessa Cavanagh shares her journey as an Aboriginal woman in cultural burning and firefighting.

Resources

Vanessa Cavanagh: https://scholars.uow.edu.au/display/vanessa_cavanagh

Sponsors

The Canadian Partnership for Wildland Fire Science

Support from:

● California Indian Water Commission

● Firesticks Alliance Indigenous Corporation

Quotes

36.09 - 36.25: “I am in an identified role. I've got the capacity now to compete on merit with non-Indigenous people in these other roles, so I want to go for those jobs and open up the door behind me for the next Aboriginal person to come into that identified role that I'll be leaving.”

1.01.23 - 1.01.32: “We never know all the answers, it’s always just an ongoing experience and … that’s the work and the process where we're trying to change as we go along.”

Takeaways

Reconciliation (1.45)

Vanessa is an Aboriginal woman completing her Ph.D. at the School of Geography and Sustainable Communities, University of Wollongong, and is grateful to the communities whose land she works on. She is passionate about maintaining her mother tongue from the Bundjalung country in New South Wales. She discusses how land acknowledgements and other protocols and processes are being reinstated as a way to respect ancestors and maintain cultural identity.

On the shoulders of other women (5.55)

Vanessa believes that in traditional times, there would have been no separation in the role of men and women in caring for the land since there was “no distinction between humans on the landscape and the landscape itself”. This would have included cultural burning, harvesting and passing on knowledge for future generations. She shares her career journey, and how fire forms a part of the belief systems that were founded on a relationship with the land.

The role of women in cultural burning (13.47)

Vanessa acknowledges that gender roles do come into effect at work, and encourages more space for Aboriginal women in her cultural burning research. She recalls how she was inspired to create a women’s sharing circle after attending the National Indigenous Fire Forum, which included women from all backgrounds. Speaking to women this way and in workshops is showing her that Aboriginal women have always played an important role in cultural burning.

The social dynamics of gender (22.07)

In Vanessa’s experience, “Indigenous men working in cultural burning have always promoted the position of Aboriginal women’s roles in cultural burning”. She has felt encouraged in her work as a field officer but also wants to maintain the cultural protocols that dictate the areas that are inappropriate for women to be involved in.

Cultural change (28.45)

Vanessa points out how people are more open to learning from Aboriginal knowledge and land management practices today. Agencies have new Aboriginal positions to help facilitate engagement with Aboriginal communities. She acknowledges the power imbalance due to colonization with settlers deciding societal structures. She views her role as “infiltrating and learning it and unpacking it and dismantling it and then rebuilding it in a way that is more inclusive of Indigenous world views”.

Change is uncomfortable (31.57)

Vanessa states that since social structures promote the privilege of one group, that group becomes resistant to change. It takes energy and political effort to change the dominant narrative. She recounts how the Aboriginal Social Justice movement in Australia in the 80s and 90s has brought about a minimum benchmark of 3% reservation of Aboriginal Employees in government agencies to increase cultural diversity at the workplace.

Celebration of learned individual success (38.59)

Vanessa considers maintaining her connection with the community as one of the reasons people find her inspiring. She narrates how the youth today are establishing their resistance to social injustice by refusing participation in areas that are not inclusive of Aboriginal Peoples. When teaching primary school teachers about Indigenous geography, she helps them identify and dismantle their ignorance and biases, empowering them to change the narrative for kids.

Lifelong learning and teaching (46.01)

In her workshops, Vanessa finds that people are excited and eager to learn about Aboriginal fire when given the opportunity to engage with it. She recognizes that she is privileged to be in the position to teach and share knowledge to non-Indigenous people and contradict their biases, as she may be the first of the 3.3% Aboriginal people in Australia they would have met. However, she shies away from the term expert and thinks of herself as a lifelong learner.

Three-pronged approach (52.04)

Vanessa outlines the 3 questions she is seeking to address in her Ph.D. within an Indigenous methodological approach: 1) How do Aboriginal women engage in cultural burning in New South Wales? 2) How do Aboriginal women want their knowledge and narratives of cultural burning to be presented and shared? 3) Are there barriers or challenges to the full participation of Aboriginal women in cultural burning that can be addressed through policy implementation or development? If yes, how can those be developed to help assist more participation?

Knowledge sharing opportunity (55.17)

Vanessa has developed a huge network through her work in the national parks’ annual meetings of Aboriginal staffers and had women approaching her about burning when she shared her Ph.D. topic. She has been balancing organic observations, interactions and processes with her research methodology to allow for Aboriginal participants to have a say in her process too, to ensure the narrative is a correct interpretation of the stories that inform her research.

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