‘Reading Fire Country’ aims to support us learning about the enduring deep connection of custodianship responsibilities that Traditional Owners hold, to appreciate the unceded sovereignty of land that First People’s hold, and to explore how our own stewardship responsibility to land may be held.
We will endeavour to understand fire from different ways of knowing and experiencing. We will explore resources in print, audio podcast, and online video, alongside walking areas of the Range to consider in relation to fire. Each session offers resources to explore as much as you like before we gather.
We imagine a process of moving our attention back and forth between the particulars of Black Range, and broader contexts that support big-picture long-view understanding. Through each taking responsibility for self-education, hopefully we develop more confidence in reading and working with fire, reading indicators of the health of Black Range Country, and working together in respectful partnership with Traditional Owners and their cultural knowledge and intellectual property.
Convenors: Fernanda & Mick
The Biggest Estate on Earth: How Aborigines made Australia, Bill Gammage, Allen & Unwin 2011.
Country, Bill Gammage and Bruce Pascoe, First Knowledges Series edited by Margo Neale, Thames & Hudson 2021.
Design, Alison Page and Paul Memmott, First Knowledges Series edited by Margo Neale, Thames & Hudson 2021.
Design by Fire: Resistance, Cocreation, and retreat in the pyroxene, Emily Schlickman & Beer Milligan, Routledge 2023.
Fire Country: How indigenous fore management could help save Australia, Victor Steffensen, Hardie Grant 2020.
The Fires Next Time: Understanding Australia’s Back Summer, Peter Christoff (ed), Melbourne University Press 2023.
Law, Marcia Langton and Aaron Corn, First Knowledges Series edited by Margo Neale, Thames & Hudson 2023.
Living on Stolen Land, Ambelin Kwaymullina, Magabala Books 2020.
Plants, Zena Cumpston, Michael-Shawn Fletcher and Lesley Head, First Knowledges Series edited by Margo Neale, Thames & Hudson 2022.
Songlines, Lynne Kelly and Margo Neale, First Knowledges Series edited by Margo Neale, Thames & Hudson 2020.
The Pyrocene: How we created an age of fire, and what happens next?, Stephen J. Pyne, University of California Press, 2022.
Wildlife of Victoria's South-West, Grant Palmer and Julie Farquhar, CSIRO 2024
#1. Fire and Black Range Country
Sunday 14 July 2024, 11am - 2pm
Walking an area of recent cool Cultural Burning and discussion over lunch around a fire.
Bring a plate to share.
Explore whichever resources below take your interest, and come along to discuss!
For meeting address RSVP to [email protected]
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If we want to learn about the Traditional Owners of Black Range, the published ‘Country Plans’ of Eastern Marr and Barengi Gadjin provide a comprehensive and accessible starting point, written by and for Traditional Owners.
Barengi Gadjin Land Council ‘Country Plan’ (2016)
Eastern Marr Aboriginal Corporation ‘Meerreengeeye Ngakeepoorryeeyt - our Country Plan’, 2015.
Victor Steffensen has become well known in recent years for rejuvenating interest in cool Cultural Burning. He is an engaging storyteller. In this entertaining and informative podcast interview, he tells of his learning with fire and its long time importance in Indigenous cultural relationships of Country.
Victor Steffensen, The Turning Point, 100 Climate Conversations (Video / Audio)
Relationships of non-Indigenous and Indigenous are complex. This 2-pager from Amnesty International invites self-reflection.
Amnesty International, 10 Ways to be a Genuine Ally to Indigenous Communities
