Indigenous Community Governance Project Understanding, Building and Sustaining Effective Governance in Rural, Remote and Urban Indigenous Communities Effective governance for small kin-based communities: The Laynhapuy outstations of north-east Arnhem Land, NT   Frances Morphy , in association with Laynhapuy Homelands Association The focus of this case study is the small, clan-based, outstation communities of the Laynhapuy region in north-east Arnhem Land, serviced by the Laynhapuy Homelands Association (LHA). The research is looking at how the Yolngu people living in these outstation communities envisage their future, and how they conceptualise the ‘community’ and the governance processes and structures that impinge upon it. Many Yolngu want to see their communities survive and thrive in the long term, and they also wish to retain a degree of autonomy from the settler state and from the hub community of Yirrkala where their resource centre (LHA) is based. During the field work phase of this project, both these aspirations are coming increasingly under threat as a result of changing government policy settings, particularly with respect to the CDEP program. Approximately 800 people normally reside at the Laynhapuy outstation communities, all of which are located on Aboriginal-owned land. People of the Laynhapuy outstations also have close links to the communities of Gapuwiyak and Galiwin’ku to the south and west—both of which have their own satellite outstations—and consequently there is considerable intra-regional mobility, particularly in the context of funeral and circumcision ceremonies. Outstation residents are overwhelmingly dependent on CDEP income, and rely for infrastructural support on the Laynhapuy Homelands Association, which also acts as the administrator of the CDEP scheme. Collected and hunted food forms a significant part of the diet of Laynhapuy homelands dwellers. A number of other organisations and institutions make up the governance environment of the Laynhapuy homelands: the Yirrkala Dhanbul Association, Buku-Larrnggay Mulka, the Northern Land Council, and government providers of services such as health and education. The research for this case study began in early 2005. Work has begun on a regional demographic profile and a profile of governance organisations. The research to date has also produced a critique of the language and rhetoric of ‘good’ governance, which appeals to so-called universal concepts such as democracy, transparency and accountability as if they were culturally neutral, axiomatic principles. Frances argues, however, that for governance mechanisms for remote Indigenous Australia to be viable their design must take into account local models that are grounded in the values and sociopolitical practices of small kin-based communities, and must explore the place of those local models within the wider ‘governance environment’. During the course of the research in 2005 and early 2006, it became increasingly evident that the Laynhapuy Homelands Association was vulnerable in the face of changes in Commonwealth government policy, because of its overwhelming dependence on government monies. Frances has been helping the organization to undertake an internal structural review with the assistance of a consultant, in order to equip Laynhapuy to face the challenges that it now faces. There is one bright spot in this rather gloomy picture. The Laynhapuy Indigenous Protected Area will be declared in August 2006, and its associated Yirralka (Homeland) Ranger Program has the potential to provide employment and a springboard to small business ventures on the homelands.   Papers arising from this research include: 'The language and concepts of governance: Cross-cultural cultural conundrums', ICGP Occasional Paper No. 3, by Frances Morphy. An extended version only of this paper, presented in the NARU seminar series, is currently available from the NARU website. [46 Kb PDF document] Click here to download document. 'The future of the homelands in north-east Arnhem Land', ICGP Occasional Paper No. 4, by Frances Morphy. [122 Kb PDF document; see also the PowerPoint presentation, 3.0 MB PDF document] Click here to download document.