‘It would be good to know where our food goes’: Information equals power?
‘It would be good to know where our food goes’: Information equals power? Conference Paper
- Author(s): Cleary, J
- Published: 2010
Abstract: The Australian Bush Foods industry is a complex fledgling industry where raw product inputs originate from both wild (bush) harvest and cultivated supply of multiple native fruits, nuts and seeds. In remote Australia, where much of the bush harvested supply of raw product originates, the industry spans the two socio-cultural worlds of western commerce and Aboriginal women’s business. These two worlds come together in the supply chain associated with bush harvested produce, at the juncture where this is sold by remote Aboriginal women to (mostly) non-Aboriginal others. This paper examines a participatory action research (PAR) project undertaken with Aboriginal bush harvesters and growers of katyerr from central Australia. The project, called ‘Information = Power: Walking the Bush Tomato Value Chain’ enabled members of a component in the industry chain to physically follow the raw product through various stages of the chain from processing through manufacture to the retail sector. The paper focuses on the participatory nature of the project and the effectiveness of this as a methodological approach, and the multiple learnings that resulted. The paper highlights and illustrates the importance of relationship development in PAR approaches and discusses this particularly in the two-worlds paradigm. The paper concludes with recommendations around using PAR in future bush foods research with remote Aboriginal peoples.
- Urls: https://webarchive.nla.gov.au/awa/20180419091728/https://press.anu.edu.au/node/256/download
- Keywords: supply chain, bush food, bush food industry, katyerr, participatory action research, Bush tomato