{"id":76,"date":"2023-07-16T03:50:59","date_gmt":"2023-07-16T03:50:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/libraryresources.nse.org.ng\/engineeringwithcountry\/chapter\/indigenous_design_on_water_country\/"},"modified":"2026-03-16T13:46:31","modified_gmt":"2026-03-16T13:46:31","slug":"indigenous_design_on_water_country","status":"publish","type":"chapter","link":"https:\/\/libraryresources.nse.org.ng\/engineeringwithcountry\/chapter\/indigenous_design_on_water_country\/","title":{"raw":"Indigenous design: Water Country","rendered":"Indigenous design: Water Country"},"content":{"raw":"This chapter introduces Indigenous design principles in the context of water and highlights their theoretical and practical applications. \u00a0I write this chapter as yinaa wiradyuri\/wiradyuri woman, water woman and engineering sceptic. \u00a0This chapter includes some activities to encourage you to engage with these ideas beyond this book. \u00a0An exercise to develop student\u2019s sense of country and Indigenous design principles is also included.\n\nAll design systems operate with an associated scientific system.\u00a0 The scientific system you are familiar with came with the colonisers and is referred to as settler-state science in this chapter.\u00a0 Human centred, this science tends to be exploitative and extractive, and marked by its reliance on western engineering and its use to change waterscapes (harriden, 2023).\u00a0 Settler-state science results in a transactional understanding of scientific priorities, practices and outputs.\u00a0 This brief characterisation of settler-science informs its relationship to water, with water regarded as transactional; a commodity to be used for human purposes and profit.\u00a0 By contrast, Indigenous sciences are country-centred, relational and adaptive (harriden, 2023), requiring the human be but one of many entities considered when practicing science and crafting designs.\u00a0 The relationality in Indigenous sciences strongly contributes to water being seen as having life and rivers regarded as kin which is the basic premise of this chapter.\n\nIndigenous design principles stand independent of settler-state principles and are best used as such, rather than attempt shoehorning them into settler-state design frameworks and paradigms.\u00a0 The principles presented in this chapter are high level and do not represent the specific design principles or knowledge of any particular Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander group.\u00a0 Indigenous design principles exemplify how all aspects of country are considered simultaneously, thus reflecting country\u2019s indivisibility and the relational interconnectedness of Indigenous sciences with other types of knowledge.\n

Country<\/h3>\nCountry is an actor in Indigenous design, hence when using Indigenous design practice you are working with country.\u00a0 The importance of country cannot be overstated.\u00a0 Thus, it is necessary that when designing a technology or process that students have some understanding of country, its complexity and enduring significance to Indigenous peoples.\u00a0 Designing is working with country, including the materials used and the sites where they are accessed, the physical sites where designs are located or used, and sites where the manufacturing and construction occurs.\n\nCountry continues to guide Indigenous people practices and daily activities.\u00a0 Rather than empty rhetoric, the phrase \u2018caring for country\u2019 is a guiding ethos for Indigenous lives.\u00a0 County is more than soil, water, plants and animals; more than \u2018the environment\u2019.\u00a0 Certainly, these are part of country, but so too are the stars, sky, moon and sun, earth, wind, air, mountains and ancestors, songlines, dreaming, humans and language.\u00a0 How these, and other, entities relate to each other within in specific place\/space is<\/em> country.\u00a0 Importantly, country is indivisible (Marshall, 2017).\u00a0 This means no one entity can be considered in isolation or attributed more importance than another.\u00a0 That is, the web of relationships between all aspects of country is the primary focus of research and design.\n\nAs well as indivisible, country is unique.\u00a0 No one country is the same as another, be it the waterscapes, landscapes, skyscapes or the animals and plants.\u00a0 Thus, there is an element of bounded territorially to the web of relationships forming country.\u00a0 Certainly, the ancestors, dreaming and songlines of each Indigenous Nation differs.\u00a0 These differences contribute to an imperative of country centred design \u2013 to design with country.\n
\n

Activity 1\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Introduce yourself to water country<\/strong><\/p>\n\n<\/header>\n

\n\nSpend some time every day for at least a week consciously, deliberately walking around a body of a water near you.\u00a0 If you can walk to this body of water, do so in a conscious and deliberate manner.\u00a0 Some tips:\n