Nurturing Culture Through Country: Resource Management Strategies and Aspirations of Local Landowning Families at Napranum

In the context of generations of living in the ‘long and terrible shadow’ (Berger, 1991) cast by hostile political structures, mission influences and industrial resource management systems, the culture and identities of the local Aboriginal landowning families of the Weipa area have survived. These families actively nurture their culture through the development of resource management strategies. Local landowners' experiences of colonisation and the ways in which they sense their history and geography are explored and various cultural maintenance and transmission practices centred on country and resources are described. Active engagement with wider scale processes is contributing to more effective outcomes for the landowning families.