Kimberley friction: complex attachments to water-places in Northern Australia.

Toussaint, Sandy

This article explores water as central to defining complex attachments to place, an approach that is concerned to contribute to discussion beyond water's conceptualisation as a vital and natural resource in need of environmental management. The value of an active discourse and practice that emphasises water as a resource to be managed is obvious, for example, in cases where a sudden increase in water flows has the potential to transform rivers into floods with serious consequences for humans and other species. My interest, however, is to consider whether discussion of attachment to water sources in the Kimberley region of northern Western Australia, can show how, and to what extent, contemplation of water/human relationships might fruitfully facilitate understandings of 'place-based cultures' (Escobar 2001:142).

While notions of 'attachment' are sometimes conflated or confused with concepts of 'belonging'--about how and why persons (and/or native and introduced species, and so on), reveal or describe a sense of belonging to certain places and environments (see, for instance, Trigger and Mulcock 2005, 2005a who discuss nature, culture and belonging in an Australian urban setting)--the emphasis here is primarily on attachment. Like my co-contributors (some of whom examine concepts of belonging), I am concerned to extrapolate varied interpretations about a key environmental trope--in this case, water--to foster a deepened understanding not only about a precious environmental resource, but also about social life, cultural politics and material struggles in an Australian setting.

Concentrating on the remote (1) Kimberley region's Fitzroy River, and examples where water sources sit on their own or become agents of transformation (for example, as rain or in food preparation), I begin with a consideration of guiding themes and then turn to Australian literature about people's relationships to water, especially to texts concerned with indigenous perspectives. A selection of Kimberley ethnographic data, a region where I have undertaken fieldwork since 1981, follows. (2) Discussion of this material is used as a backdrop to canvass the ideas of Escobar (2001) on attachments to place, and of Tsing (2002, 2005, 2007) on the creation and outcome of 'friction' when cultural and environmental perceptions and activities collide. I conclude with the claim that studies of human/water relationships benefit when they are examined within the context of a place-based-culture analysis. Such a context is characterised by a mix of attachments that happen to be about places that involve water.

FRICTION, ATTACHMENT, PLACE

Conflicts and disputes over scarce or abundant water sources are major points of inquiry in current water studies (see, for instance, chapters in Coles and Wallace [2005]; Leybourne and Gaynor [2006] and in Whiteford and Whiteford [2005]). Tsing's use of 'friction', however, has the potential to provide a more comprehensive and nuanced way to explore the complexities of disjuncture and/or resonance that occurs when proposed developments threaten fragile ecologies and the life styles of nearby populations. This is especially the case on projects involving indigenous groups. Tsing (2002:472) encourages intellectual and ethical space to help make visible, rather than leave in unexamined form, problematic ideologies about environmental and indigenous interests. Tsing adopts the expression 'friction' (3) to encompass elements of what she describes as the 'grip' and 'irritation' that interact to, on the one hand, facilitate and, on the other, limit, productive engagement and positive outcomes when environmental matters are a point of departure (Tsing 2005, 2007:58).

Tsing's (2005, 2007) work is mostly focused on Indonesia, but her conceptualisation of 'friction' facilitates a fertile framework from which to examine issues outside south-east Asian locations. Friction also sits nicely alongside 'traction'. Whilst arguably a term that emphasises the value of 'grip', traction is increasingly used in Kimberley settings to indicate a desire for concrete commitment and action. The comments of a local indigenous resource agency coordinator (identified here as 'Leo') give voice to my claim:

 What people [referring to indigenous communities] around here need
 is a bit of traction--government and industry getting a grip on
 what people are talking about, what their needs are. Consultation
 means nothing around here without grip, without proper traction,
 without something or someone actually taking hold (Fieldnotes,
 Kimberley, November 2007).

Leo's use of traction is not too distant from Tsing's 'friction', albeit in contrasting contexts. His comments, made to myself and two indigenous people present, took place after a phone conversation with a major developer who had offered to put a large amount of funding into local initiatives--as long as any plans that were put forward accorded with the developer's time-line. In later discussion, it became evident that both the phone call and the caveat were not unusual occurrences and, despite a need for funding, the offer had implications attached to it that were not straightforward, a point that indicates how Tsing's use of 'friction' might be understood. This is most apparent when Tsing argues that evidence of 'grip' and 'irritation' as 'friction' emerges when examining social and environmental movements and their relationship to the corporate sector. In the above case, for instance, it is obvious that whilst the indigenous organization was offered some sort of 'grip' in the form of financial support, the offer was not without the 'irritation' of an unrealistically short timeframe. As Tsing notes, however, while there is little evidence to show that social, environmental or indigenous movements have the ability to 'displace the hegemony of private property and capitalist development', a certain 'messiness' (2002:472, 476) exists in such situations, such that 'not all indigenous peoples support environmental causes; some are in active conflict with conservation' (Tsing 2007:55).

Escobar (2001) seems less concerned with the problem of inflexible categories and the characterization of issues that lend themselves to an analysis based on friction. His concern is on practical engagements with, and resistances to, the unwanted development of places people hold dear for a variety of culturally endowed meanings. Escobar (2001: 147) is critical of studies that over-emphasise mobility and de-territiorialization to the extent that 'place-based practices and modes of consciousness for the production of culture' are overlooked. A proponent of the need to problematise unqualified generalisations, he also aims to de-centre the uncritical use of 'Western' forms of knowledge (Escobar 2001:151; see also Raghuramaraju 2005, and Lins Ribeiro and Escobar 2006, for critiques of 'Western' epistemologies). Concentrating on the work of theorists such as Auge (1995), whose binary construction of 'non-place' tends to undermine concepts of place as multi-sited, contingent and relational, Basso (1996) and Bender (1993), among others, Escobar claims that contestations about place help to unravel the tensions embedded in material struggles. Such a process inevitably attracts consideration of local cultural beliefs and practices (2001:170171). Adding a further layer of meaning with regard to how concepts and constructs of place are constituted, Escobar cogently claims that local knowledge can also be read as political knowledge: 'Local knowledge is a place-specific way of giving meaning to the world' (p.153).

Whilst commending the literature on place as a site of sensory and phenomenological attachments (e.g. as discussed by Merleau-Ponty 1962/2006 and Milton 2002; see also Magowan 2007:25 who eloquently explores 'people-as-places'), Escobar's main concern is with the politics of place-based cultures. He shows how attachments to place are constantly created and re-created by people's social and political engagement with that place, such as via active resistance to protect an area against development projects predicted to cause harm. In Escobar's parlance, social, cultural and political attachments are formed and become meaningful through active dialectical processes of 'connectivity, interactivity and positionality' (p. 170). Such an approach logically includes consideration of divergent identities that emerge within 'the dynamics of place, networks and power' (p. 170). (4)

Giving prominence to the need for the cross-fertilization of political, economic and cultural approaches within the theories and practices of a political ecology framework, Escobar (2001:153) opines that an inter-mix of attachments to 'place' is given meaning by diverse groups of women and men through active political involvement (p.164). Escobar is also concerned to analyse attachments to place as an outcome of beliefs and practices where interactions between persons and their environments are in the constant process of mutual transformation. Such a process accords with Tsing's view that social (including indigenous or 'subaltern' to use one of Escobar's terms) and environmental movements fluctuate over time, a process that results in them being difficult to classify coherently, especially in circumstances where the local and global interconnect. (5)

Read separately or in tandem, what these authors provide is a creative and dynamic framework to explore how and when description of water/human relationships might benefit from an approach that privileges culture as place-based attachment. That social, indigenous and environmental movements and issues can be constructively interpreted through the intertwined notions of friction and traction, is also a point of inquiry.

Next I outline a selection of Australian literature in which it is plain that contemplation of water prompts a rich and diverse range of studies. Most of these texts concentrate on Aboriginal and Islander groups and inter that water-places are significant religious and economic sites, sources of survival, and places endowed with cultural and political meanings.

HUMAN/WATER RELATIONSHIPS

A visible social science and humanities research and publishing interest in water/human relationships has become increasingly evident in the past decade. Such a key epistemological shift has the potential to ensure that cultural description and analysis, and past and present human activities, are regularly embedded in studies of the environment. It remains the case that more independent anthropological and cross-disciplinary research needs to occur to augment environmental, biophysical and natural science inquiry (see, for example, Minnegal 2005; Strang 2007), but there is no doubt that a substantial volume of more explicit culturally attuned work with water at its centre is emerging. As well as contributions in this volume, monographs in the field of Australian, Pacific and south-east Asian water studies include those by Balint (2005), Brearley (2005), Leybourne and Gaynor (2006), and LahiriDutt (2006). This list does not include works outside these geographic areas, nor does it acknowledge texts focused on relational inquiries, such as that by Beresford et al. (2001) who discuss the salinity crisis in Western Australia from social science perspectives. (6)

Recent trends are especially evident in research being conducted with and/or about Aboriginal and Islander Australians, in part because of the High Court's 1992 Mabo Decision where the Meriam Islanders in the Torres Strait off the northern Queensland coast were found to have long-term cultural affiliations with not only land but also with fresh and saltwater sources on the Island of Mer (Sharp 2006; see also Toussaint 2004 in a volume that includes discussion of Mabo and the Native Title Act, as well as case-study material). Altman (2004), with regard to water issues, canvasses property rights and interests in native title provisions and land-use agreements, and Bagshaw (2003; see also Yu 2000, 2002) outlines the Kimberley Karajarri native title claim where water featured prominently. (7)

Notwithstanding the water-based research that is now occurring in native title claims and cross-disciplinary environmental research more broadly, (8) a selection of material involving Australian indigenous groups reveals a spectrum of relational topics ranging from past and present subsistence and customary law marine activity, to spiritual affiliations, beliefs and rituals, to environmental implications of water planning policy. Of particular interest is that each writer indicates, without always making it explicit, water-inspired beliefs and practices as these accord with the making and meaning of place-based cultures. Bayly (1999), for instance, brings anthropological, archaeological and historical data together to show the ability of indigenous groups in the Western Desert bloc to 'read' the landscape and find surface and groundwater in desert locations, a quality that disadvantaged non-indigenous travellers and explorers in the distant and recent past whose cultural experience did not involve such engagements (p.17; see also Bayly 2002:41). Like other commentators and researchers, Bayly argues that, historically, indigenous migration was largely dictated by knowledge about the presence or absence of water, and water's ability to transform the environment (pp.23-24). Rose (2004) is also concerned with how water sources were and are central to sustaining life and land, especially in the desert during prolonged drought. Rose, in a way comparable to Escobar's (2001) usage, describes this process as one of 'connectivity' that includes ground water, surface water and rain mediated through the Rainbow Serpent or mythical snake deemed responsible for water's creation (p.39; see also Toussaint et al. 2001, 2005 and Yu 2000 with regard to the Kimberley, and Strang, 2006, with regard to northern Queensland). As Rose makes plain, indigenous groups had in the past and continue in the present to have a responsibility to care for all water sources. Any negative interventions (such as the uncontrolled drinking of water by cattle, or the implications of mining, both of which can result in contamination) pose major problems for people (indigenous and non-indigenous or 'settler' (9)) and the culture-based landscape in which they are embedded.

Writing specifically about the Gulf of Carpentaria in northern Queensland, Trigger's (1985) research takes a more fine-grained ethnographic approach to explore the naming of fresh and saltwater sources. He argues that water is a highly significant feature of the environment: water acts as a 'key signifier of meanings attributed to nature that extend beyond water places themselves to encompass the landscape more broadly' (p.6). Langton (2006), with supporting cultural data gathered from groups with traditional affiliations to the Laura Basin area of Queensland's Cape York Peninsula, claims that people relate to water through the regular and interconnected cycle of 'earth, wind, fire and water' (p.158). Morphy and Morphy (2006), sharing some resonance with Langton's discussion of the relationship between spirituality and the environment, describe how successive generations of Yolngu at Blue Mud Bay in the Northern Territory's Arnhem Land enact rituals to enhance contrasting spiritual connections with salt and freshwater places. In a framework conceptualised as 'eco-mythology', where the authors are keen to make a distinction between interactions with land and with water, Morphy and Morphy discern that an imposed dualism between salt and freshwater 'fails to capture the complexity of the environmental, ecological and mythological relationship between the two' (2006:74). Morphy and Morphy also observe that 'The Yolngu have an overall model of water as process' (p.75), a claim that is explored through the use of metaphor to explain fluctuating patterns of water ownership, ritual performance, local interactions and attachments to water-based places. Magowan (2007) writes too about Yolngu attachments to water in a way that highlights the metaphorical re-cycling of practical and symbolic interconnections. These are evident in description of water currents, long-term ecological knowledge, music production and performance, and an all-embracing spirituality derived from the body of religion and law known as the Dreaming (2007:133-141).

Whilst I am less concerned in this article with people's relationship to saltwater sources and marine tenure than with freshwater rivers and related waterways, (10) Bradley's (2006) research is useful here because it attends to how (salt)water influences identity formations and kinship interactions among the Yanyuwa living in Queensland coastal communities (see also Rose 2004:39 for general comment on water and kinship). In such a process, attachments to (salt)water-places are privileged. His work cogently embraces the sociality and interdependence of humans with their environment, a summation that specifies cultural attachments to saltwater places that have been reproduced throughout time (see also Sullivan 2006:96-108 with regard to Kimberley saltwater people and issues).

According to Bradley, identity is constructed around named and relational saltwater sources and interdependent sea-living species. Similarly to other authors whose work is discussed above and below, Bradley presents rich ethnographic data to consider water/human issues as these explain Yanyuwa social and cultural life. He argues that the Yanyuwa see no distinction between land and water and that 'the sea and seagrass beds ... [are all part of] ... geographic land units' (Bradley 2006:128). Indicating the importance of saltwater interactions, alongside analyses based on the qualities of 'sea knowledge' and attendant power relations, Bradley concludes that Yanyuwa identity is largely founded on 'enduring emotional links between people, sea-country and many of the creatures which inhabit the area' (p. 139).

Goodall (2002) contemplates issues of water and identity too, and in a way that accords with Escobar's (2001) place-based cultures framework. Her research also facilitates a return to freshwater rivers and associated waterways, in particular how forms of attachment were heightened when water resources were threatened. Focusing on indigenous and non-indigenous (or 'settler') groups in New South Wales who contested irrigation for cotton production on the Darling floodplain, Goodall shows how the project impacted negatively on local groups and the broader social and political life of nearby towns (p.31). Cognisant of the intertwined relationship between land and water, she observes that people construct attachments to place because of their (often long-term) lived experience with it, their social history and livelihood, and a series of remembered, sentimental associations. In such places, water is a key social as well as environmental element because 'it is water which creates and replenishes the land and the soil' (2002:36), a circumstance that influences people's work practices and social activities at nearby lands and waters.

A further dimension to Goodall's research is that demographic changes are shown to have occurred as a result of introduced irrigation and cotton production. Demographic change has obvious implications for social change. In the case presented by Goodall, one of these was that many senior citizens moved away from the area once the development was established. Their relocation resulted in the loss of long-term local knowledge, support and experience (2002:47-48). Goodall also shows how people's hitherto positive attachments to places associated with the floodplain were frequently replaced by 'a set of fears so deep they can only be expressed in terms of overturning the most basic rule of nature' (p.49). The struggle over a place around which water was central to how people constructed and maintained their identity, enacted social relations, undertook past and present work-practices and sustained sentimental associations, resonates with Escobar's ideas on how and when attachments to place are created and re-created. Evident also in Goodall's material is that indigenous groups and non-indigenous graziers were united in their opposition to the project, and that friction existed between them and the developers. This situation also reveals that attachments to place were amplified when the Darling floodplain was threatened; whilst the floodplain mattered, it was the struggle over it that mattered most.

Among the issues that emerge when evaluating water/human relationships in Australia, is that most studies highlight the intrinsic, local nature of the land/water/people interaction and connection. It also becomes clear that salt and freshwater sources should not be treated as one and the same. That a hydro- and ecological change in how a water source is used can lead to a change in how people relate to it encompasses a range of culturally complex issues, including that water is engendered with a variety of meanings. Identity formation and kinship affiliation can also be determined through research on water, as can knowledge about contested usage, and patterns of migration to and from temporary and permanent water places (see also below). Each study implies, and sometimes explicates, ways in which local groups become attached to sources of water beyond water's obvious nourishing, life-giving force. This is especially the case when water sources are endangered, and cultural ideas, beliefs and activities collide.

The Kimberley's Fitzroy River and associated waterways (discussed throughout as local 'water-places') present excellent scope to evaluate matters related to how and when attachments to place are formed in the way Escobar describes. It also presents data to explore Tsing's conceptualisation of 'friction'. I begin by explaining a little of the Kimberley, in particular the Fitzroy Valley in the West Kimberley landscape, (11) and then turn to a case-study which features the Fitzroy River.

KIMBERLEY WATER-PLACES

The Kimberley is a vast and rugged region of over 100,000 square kilometres with temperatures ranging between 20 and 45 degrees Celsius and landscapes alternating between desert, ranges and coastline (Brown 2004; Storey et al. 2001). A place of many contrasts, the Fitzroy River and its tributaries (including the intersecting Margaret and Leopold Rivers) is central to understanding the West Kimberley landscape from different environmental, geographic, economic and cultural vantage points. One of the last unregulated rivers in Australia, the Fitzroy River traverses from the West to the East Kimberley across 85,000 square kilometres of landscape (Storey et al. 2001).

Published and unpublished research in the field of native title discusses indigenous affiliations with a range of Kimberley water sources, such as rivers, soaks, creeks, pools, lagoons and 'living water' (known locally as jila) and so on (Bagshaw 2003; see also footnote 7). Research available in other material describes the manifold ways in which groups manage and make meaningful interconnections with waters and rivers. In the West Kimberley, the Ngarinyn, Karajarri, Bunuba and Gooniyandi are renowned as river owning and using groups, with members of the desert-related Walmajarri and Wangkajunga groups establishing a form of cultural co-existence in the area as the result of a 40 year process of voluntary, involuntary, and negotiated migration (Bent, Lowe, Chuguna and Richards 2004; Richards, Hudson and Lowe 2002; Toussaint 1999, 2003; Toussaint et al. 2001, 2005). A Walmajarri woman, Daisy Andrews, describes this interaction thus: 'It's really good now how we can all sit down and work together. It's really good, river and desert together, whole lot' (Mangkaja Arts, 2003:6). Other desert people evoke river-based totemic affiliations for children born post-migration, and often describe how the river people taught them how to fish. Walmajarri woman 'Ngunda' put it this way:

 We had to learn about the martuwarra [river], how to fish with
 string and burnt needles shaped like a little hook, we didn't have
 throw nets. Nothing! The Gooniyandi and Bunuba [meaning river
 groups] taught us how to fish--how to hunt, cook and eat fish
 (Fieldnotes, Kimberley, July 2006).

In parallel with other Australian indigenous groups discussed above and elsewhere, distinctions exist between salt and freshwater sources, and rivers and other forms of water (such as rain, and permanent or ephemeral waterways), (12) continue to be conceptualised as having been inspired by the Dreaming (cf. Magowan 2007 and Morphy and Morphy 2006 with regard to Arnhem Land communities; see also Strang 2006 in relation to northern Queensland contexts such as Kowanyama).

Home to approximately 40 Aboriginal communities and four major towns (Broome on the western coast, Derby and Fitzroy Crossing in the Kimberley's heartland, and Halls Creek, approximately 800 kilometres east of Broome), people in the region, like the landscape of which they are an integral part, are constantly responding to change and some extremely tough social and economic conditions (Toussaint 2003a, 2007, 2008). Despite these conditions and, in many cases what can only be described as circumstances of poverty and neglect, indigenous rights to, and interests in, land and water continue to be based on a complex combination of patrilineal and matrilineal descent, conception sites, birth sites, totemic affiliations, historical associations and residence (Toussaint 1999; Toussaint et al. 2001, 2005).

Whilst economic initiatives for indigenous groups are improving in the region, evidenced in projects such as the Manbana Aboriginal Aqua Culture Centre in Broome which is now providing study programs for local people, aquatic tours for visitors, and expanding fish markets into south-east Asia, (13) many Kimberley groups continue to exist on government controlled social security entitlements, an economic problem with social implications that has received ongoing local attention (see, for example, Hill, Golson, Lowe, Mann, Hayes and Blackwood 2006). Opportunities that add to household incomes include contract cattle station work, intermittent involvement in tourism activities, for example as tour guides on Aboriginal land and in national parks, and the results of subsistence work. Fishing is an important economic activity too, including the exchange of fish when one family is more successful than another after a day at the river. Education for young people also occurs via fishing with the teaching of local language names for fish during what would otherwise be regarded as recreational and economic activity (see Morgan et al. 2006 for discussion of the Kimberley Fish Project where this process was involved). During periods of mourning when fish as a sole food source are necessary to accommodate taboos on the consumption of beef products following the death of a loved one, the catching, cooking and consumption of fish becomes vital (Toussaint et al. 2005:66).

Relationships to water also continue to be understood by most women and men as having been inspired by the Dreaming, known locally as Ngarrangkarni or Jumungkarni. Walmajarri man, Joe Brown, recounts the cyclical interconnections between the Dreaming, people, land and water:

 Everything we know comes from the Dreamtime. People even in town
 still know how to sing story for their country. Every jila [water
 hole] has its own songs, story and skin groups. Without the snake
 underneath the water will go away. We have been looking after our
 waterholes and rivers for thousands of years. We have respect
 because we know that if you don't treat it right many things can
 happen. This is the reason that we need to make other people learn
 (quoted in La Fontaine 2006:217).

Janjin Rogers, also a Walmajarri man, adds example to Joe Brown's description. His narrative also reveals the transformative and cyclical qualities of water:

 My mother was worrying about me getting thirsty. She started
 singing for rain, I couldn't believe that the rain would come.
 There was a little cloud in the sky, my mother sang it and it got
 really big. Then it started pouring rain on the ground, water
 everywhere. I was really happy. My father came back, he saw
 everything wet and he was happy for the good rain (Karrayili
 Education and Manghkaja Arts 1993:8). (14)

Seasonal rains, whilst sometimes causing flood and community isolation for up to three weeks a year, are central to ecological restoration and to local perceptions of what is considered to be the river's natural course: annual monsoonal rains ensure the replenishment of vital resources (waters, lands, plants, animals, fish, and so on) for humans and other species. River stories also find expression in the production of art, such as paintings made for sale to locals and visitors, and for state and national art exhibitions (Toussaint et al. 2005:68-71). Paintings about water also increasingly reflect political themes, including the need to protect local rivers and waters with which people have long-term culture-based connections and attachments. This point is elaborated below.

From the insights raised here and expanded elsewhere (Toussaint 2003; Toussaint et al. 2001, 2005; see also Kimberley Language Resource Centre 1998; Marshall 1988; Pannell 2000; Yu 2000, 2002), (15) it can be inferred that Kimberley indigenous stories and activities regularly explicate complex matters relating to how people interact with, and subsequently form attachments to, the river and other water-places. The water/human relationship evident for Kimberley groups also shares certain parallels with indigenous peoples in other northern Australian settings. Local groups have rights and interests in waters and lands through customary law, via forms of residence, and as a result of desert migration. The painting of water-places has added to some people's income, and the river presents a location where subsistence activity and learning occur. Less well known is how non-indigenous people relate to local water-places. A discussion of non-indigenous/water relationships is, of course, just as vital as those of an indigenous kind, especially when canvassing how frictions might emerge and place-based cultures be identified.

THE FITZROY RIVER, FRICTION, AND PLACE-BASED ATTACHMENTS

Unlike indigenous peoples who have generations of involvement with the river's creation and protection through their own body of religion and customary law, social and political networks and economic activities, settler relationships are less well documented. In broad terms, these can be classified as having occurred more recently and incrementally through temporary and permanent residency, often involving work for government, non-government and industry (e.g. tourism, mining), and pastoral work on cattle stations (see Jebb 2002 for discussion of the West Kimberley pastoral industry; Storey and Toussaint 2007 present an East Kimberley example). In addition to work-related interactions, activities such as fishing, camping, bird watching and recreation are regularly reported (Environs Kimberley Bulletin 39, 2006:7). Such practical, economic and social activities have undoubtedly established memorable ties of affection and sociality that, on some occasions, are shared with indigenous people. Settler environmental groups are the focus group here, especially as they have been actively involved in protecting the river in particular, and the broader environment more generally, against unwanted developments. This circumstance has drawn a mix of groups and organizations together.

A timely beginning is 1996 when government and industry plans to dam the Kimberley's Dimond Gorge, and two of its major tributaries on the Margaret and Leopold Rivers, became public knowledge. With parallels to the study outlined by Goodall (2002), the aim was to establish a cotton enterprise based on irrigated water (Environs Kimberley Bulletin 37, 2006:1; Prior 2006; Toussaint et al. 2005). Local organizations such as the Kimberley Land Council and the Kimberley Aboriginal Law and Culture Centre contested the development with support from national environmental agencies such as the Australian Conservation Foundation. As I have shown elsewhere (Toussaint 2008a), this situation united local groups in their opposition to the proposed developments. The regional aim, involving a diverse range of local indigenous, tourism, hospitality and pastoral groups, became to protect the Fitzroy River's waters for Kimberley people and Kimberley lands, in particular the economic value of locally-controlled tourism to the region, of which the river was a central component (Fieldnotes, Broome Tourist Bureau, June 2006; Toussaint 2008a).

The 1996 initiative also resulted in the establishment of a Kimberley-based environmental organization that involved non-indigenous people committed to local conservation and nature issues. Called 'Environs Kimberley', the organization has become increasingly active in the region where it now has a Broome-based office, several permanent staff, and a large assortment of dedicated members and volunteers. (16)

Whilst the 1996 plan was eventually withdrawn, in 2005 the Western Australian State Government (in concert with industry) again expressed interest in the Kimberley's extensive river system. They established an inquiry to assess the feasibility of diverting the river and/or transporting its water 3,500 kilometres south to offset water shortages in the State's southern region (Department of Premier and Cabinet 2006). Three options were investigated: a Kimberley to Perth pipeline, a canal and ocean transport (Department of Premier and Cabinet 2006:7). The inquiry recommended in its final report that all three options were too costly and that limited knowledge existed about the 'hydrogeology and ecology' (p.9) of the West Kimberley. Despite such an outcome, indigenous and non-indigenous groups continue to be agitated that some form of river diversion is not too distant from the minds and plans of government and industry (Environs Kimberley Bulletin 44, 2007:5; Spagnolo 2007). (17) This has resulted in a series of nuanced frictions. Before explaining this situation, it is useful to outline certain beliefs and practices that characterize non-indigenous relationships to the river, some of which parallel those of an indigenous kind.

'Sam' has lived in the Fitzroy Valley for several decades. He is one of the few non-indigenous workers regularly employed by an indigenous organization. His work often involves him in field trips to desert locations several hundred kilometres south of the town of Fitzroy Crossing. Sam's comments make plain his love of the area, especially the Fitzroy River:

 I like going to the desert [hundreds of kilometres south of the
 Fitzroy River] for native title and heritage work. We usually
 travel in convoy, a few four-wheel drive vehicles travelling
 together. It's the jila [water holes] I'm most interested in. And
 then I'm happy to be back [in town] near the river. It's everything
 here [Fitzroy Valley]. I wouldn't be here if the river wasn't here.
 A lot of people wouldn't be (Fieldnotes, Kimberley, June 2006).

Sam's views can be positively compared with those of a local ecologist who worked for an indigenous resource agency and described himself as feeling 'passionate' about the Fitzroy River, a place where he regularly fished and camped on weekends. Noting the importance of the river to his work, 'Didier' commented that frictions could arise 'when indigenous people aren't actually present to explain their interests to outsiders, such as to developers ...' (Fieldnotes, Kimberley, July 2006). Despite indicating a passion for the river, Didier also stressed his long-term 'commitment' to the place and the local people, in part by talking about how 'proper, fee-paying' tourism might help to support and conserve the Kimberley's ecological and cultural environment. He commented on the importance of exploring the feasibility of commercial projects that might:

 result in the environment being more sustainable, and help to get
 people and organizations away from a reliance on government
 funding. The traditional owners [meaning local indigenous people
 who sustained customary law rights and interests in lands and
 waters] would need to agree, of course, and their rights and
 interests in all this [lands, waters, coastlines] are not
 unreasonable. But we've got a long way to go, and not many
 resources.... (Fieldnotes, Kimberley, July 2006).

In such a positioning, Didier makes plain his concern for indigenous groups and cultural matters. But in a later conversation, he positioned himself slightly differently. Didier pointed out that whilst it was constructive to see that indigenous people were becoming increasingly involved in carefully controlled tourism projects (such as at a place called Jarlmadangah where several Walmajarri and Mangala families operated a successful tourism business [see also Wynne 2007:7]), he and other ecologists were worried about the impact an increase in river cruises was having. Run by another indigenous group with assistance from local operators and/or in conjunction with state-based conservation agencies, the boat cruises for tourists had resulted in the Fitzroy River experiencing expanding environmental flows, and the wash from these often impinged on the river's banks with consequences for wildlife. For example the nesting habits of crocodiles were affected as they had been obliged to move further inland (to less safe places) when the seasonal time came to lay their eggs (Fieldnotes, Kimberley, July 2006). Of interest in this scenario is that while Didier's comments suggested he could understand the need for indigenous groups to be involved in a tourism venture, he felt torn about such an initiative because of the venture's impact on the environment. What was not at issue, however, was his attachment to, and connections with, the Fitzroy River as a culturally-endowed place.

Whilst it is evident that non-indigenous people such as Sam and Didier value the Fitzroy River and the broader environment, this was not always the case. 'Craig', an environmental health officer with a government agency, had quite a different perspective:

 I don't really care much about the environment here, like it's
 interesting, I guess, and I'm an environmental health officer so I
 get out and about a bit, into the bush, along the river system,
 visiting communities and stations ... but it's the easy life style
 that gets me in. It's nothing to do with the environment, and I'm
 not sure how long I'll stay here (Fieldnotes, Kimberley, June
 2006).

Craig's comments make clear his position. At the same time they both support and diverge from Escobar's framework about how and why attachments to place occur. At one level, Craig showed that he is attached to the environment because of the 'life-style' it provided, but at another he revealed the lack of a long-term commitment to people and place in a way that differs from Sam's and Didier's emphases. The comments of a freshwater campaigner, 'Gary', are particularly apposite here, perhaps because they help to crystallise the two perspectives. With a background in sociology and ecology, Gary's work with a Kimberley environmental agency shows how his attachments to two different rivers--one of which is the Kimberley's Fitzroy River--were reliant on a struggle to protect each resource. His personal positioning clearly shows how human/water connections were established through active political engagement:

 I can see that it [the Fitzroy] is a beautiful river ... but I
 haven't formed an attachment in the way that I did for the McArthur
 River [in the Northern Territory]. I was a freshwater campaign
 officer there too and although I only visited the river twice, I
 formed a real attachment to it ... I felt passionately about it,
 partly through my experience with the local people ... but also
 because I had to defend the river against mining and other
 activities that threatened to damage it. I guess you could say I
 had a personal experience with the McArthur ... I might develop
 something with the Fitzroy River if I have to campaign for it. It
 depends a lot on what happens when I do more work on it and mix
 with the local people (Fieldnotes, July 2006; see also Land Rights
 News, December 2006:5 for discussion of the McArthur River Mine
 Dispute).

Coordinator of Environs Kimberley, Maria Mann, makes a similar point about how extensive involvement with a place can enhance people's social and cultural relationship with it. In a 2006 event celebrating ten years' of active campaigning, Maria was on site near a narrow Fitzroy River Gorge when asked by a journalist to talk about river campaigns: 'You have to try to imagine--if the dam had gone ahead this would all have been under water ...' (quoted in Prior 2006:4). In the same article, co-founder of Environs Kimberley, Pat Lowe, said that the environmental group:

 simply couldn't believe that it [damming or diversion of the
 Fitzroy River] would happen in the Kimberley ... There's been so
 much land clearing and so much destruction already ... Also, we
 were concerned about riding roughshod over indigenous peoples'
 rights (quoted in Prior 2006:5).

After a three day event at a Kimberley Wilderness Conservancy Camp, about 50 Environs Kimberley members were involved in activities such as 'bird watching, ecology tours, canoeing, and swimming' (Prior 2006:5). As a parting comment, Lowe pointedly claimed: 'When we were flying out here Ito the Wilderness Camp] ... I felt moved to look down on the river and think we had a bit to do with saving it ...' (quoted in Prior 2006:5).

What these comments reveal from non-indigenous perspectives, at least, is that when a water-inspired place became a contested site, people's struggle with it, their positioning with the river as ally, resulted in a profound sense of attachment. Such an attachment cannot, of course, be confined to settler groups. As I have argued elsewhere and above (Toussaint 2008a, Toussaint et al. 2001, 2005), indigenous groups have for countless generations sustained a complex suite of connections to, and attachments with, the Fitzroy River and associated water-places. A perfect example to illuminate this point further can be seen in the imagery and artistry of Gooniyandi artist Butcher Cheryl who, each time the Fitzroy River was threatened, produced a series of paintings to visually position his concern. A quote from Butcher articulates his concerns as well as his cultural connections:

 I have been making these things (images) for a long time. I put
 what I am looking at, tree, river, bush tucker, all that thing,
 that Ngarrangkarni (Dreaming) story too.... I know that
 Ngarrangkarni from nay mother's side. I know that country too from
 long time, like Manjoowa [permanent waterhole on the Margaret
 River]. There's crocodile, fish, everything there. I know this
 country from long time, they can't change that river country
 [referring to the damming or diversion of the Fitzroy River], it's
 no good that idea (Mangkaja Arts, Martuwarra and Jila, 2003:18).

Whilst both indigenous and environmental groups remain concerned that efforts to dam or divert the Fitzroy River's flow have not completely disappeared (Environs Kimberley Bulletin 44, 2007:5; see also Toussaint 2008a), these are not the only issues they have to face. Others include the impact of large-scale gas projects, poorly managed tourism, the problem of introduced weeds, and climate change (Environs Kimberley Flyer '10th Anniversary Celebrations' 2006; see also Courtenay 2007:8 for problems associated with algae bloom as an outcome of development projects). Within this spectrum of concerns a number of frictions emerge. For example, INPEX, an internationally owned petroleum company is hoping to secure access to locations such as the Maret Islands off the Kimberley coast to progress a major gas project, a move that has distressed conservation groups. INPEX executives have also made plain their intention to directly consult with indigenous groups in keeping with an Indigenous Land Use Agreement being negotiated in accordance with policies embedded in native title processes. (Fieldnotes, INPEX Public Forum, Broome, Kimberley, October 2007). Such a possibility has upset local environmentalist groups whose interest is to protect local biodiversity and the broader landscape; it also signals the kind of friction embedded in Tsing's analysis. (18)

CONCLUSIONS

I can see that it (the Fitzroy) is a beautiful river, but....

With different forms of water as guide, and the culturally influenced human/environment relationship as imperative, it is possible to engender ethnographic description and analysis as a means of interpreting place-based cultures. From the data provided here it is plain that Kimberley indigenous river and desert-related groups have long-term religious, socio-cultural ties to water-places, and that these are central to understanding the broader historical ecology as well as native title laws. It is also the case that the Fitzroy River, in particular, is a meaningful place for many non-indigenous women and men. The river is central to why many people live, work, stay and play in the area.

Escobar (2001) claims that places are endowed with meaning because of what occurs there, especially in situations where cultural politics are at issue. In the case discussed here, attachments indigenous groups have with the river, alongside attachments that non-indigenous groups have developed with the river over time, result in the Fitzroy River being not only an important water-place, but also a site of meaningful engagement, including struggle over its usage. Sectors of indigenous and settler societies who live in the Kimberley care deeply about the river for many different socio-cultural, economic, emotional and political reasons: the river is part of their permanent or temporary homeland, some people have customary law affiliations with the river, others fish and swim in the river for food and/or for fun, and some cherish the times when the annual flood replenishes wildlife.

The sort of experiential knowledge and practice that influences people's history, beliefs, activities and passions about water-places that contain, channel and sometimes transform fresh and saltwater sources, provides a unique trajectory to understand what socially, politically and emotionally connects people to place. This situation emerges when water sources are potentially or actually affected by unwanted change or developments that threaten, and generate friction, about its place-based cultural value. That sources of friction, and forms of attachment, can be understood as complementary presents a framework that might help to extend knowledge not only about the water/human relationship, but also about how place-based cultures are given meaning and by whom. This scenario cannot be solely confined to Kimberley indigenous groups. For some of the reasons I have described, non-indigenous peoples have also developed complex attachments to water-places overtime.

One of the implications from this discussion is to inquire whether it mattered that the sites of focus were specifically marked as water-places. I have suggested here that while the waters and rivers mattered, engagements about their protection mattered more. It was through multi-layered social and political engagements over environmental and ecological protection that place-based cultural attachments were formed.

POSTSCRIPT

Contestations over Kimberley water-places and environments have been increasingly amplified in the electronic, print and cyber media (Weekend Australian, March 15-16, 2008; ABC1 TV 7.30 Report March 13, 2008: Radio National Australia Talks, 26 March 2008). With saltwater places and nearby islands under imminent threat of gas project development, local concerns have intensified. While indigenous groups have finally secured 'grip' via native title success, many are now facing the 'irritation' that such success has engendered. Notwithstanding ecological concerns, native title leverage ensures economic support (such as work and housing) if the project is agreed to, but not if it is declined. With or without native title success, indigenous groups cannot veto such a project. Whilst in no way categorically oppositional, alongside indigenous concerns are those of a non-indigenous kind, especially for people aiming to privilege the rich bio-diversity of local waters, wildlife, lands and coasts. Lines are being increasingly drawn and intersected in human/environment articulations that cut across social groups (indigenous, settler, migrant), disciplines (conservationists, ecologists, naturalists), industry (pastoralists, developers, tourist operators, agriculturalists), and government and non-government agencies. Not too far from each interest and claim, are social and political attachments that reveal culturally complex anchors to place.

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