Right Fire, Wrong Fire. Burning together with Country, evolving our culture with fire.

• In Event: Flammable Futures: Encountering Combustion in a Changing Climate 1

Abstract

The question of our responsibilities toward the Earth and each other is intimately bound to our cultural relationships with fire. We might contrast two pyro-cultures, or pyro-technologies. First, the Aboriginal / Indigenous knowledge practice of caring for Country with cool burns which 'trickle through the country like water’, currently undergoing a renaissance. Second, the mainstream European / industrial culture, which either represses fire in the landscape or burns ‘fuel load’ hot for ‘hazard reduction’, with often disastrous consequences for ecological communities. Then there is the enormity of industrial fire, burning much of modern material culture into being. Mainstream political institutions have sought continually to expand the combustion of mined fossil energy in enclosed motors, power stations and materials processing. The global warming caused by industrial fire is increasing frequency of ‘catastrophic' heatwaves and fire conditions over the Australian continent. From the point of view of Indigenous country keepers, our responsibility to heal Country and take responsibility for the ‘flammable future’ requires a decolonisation of mainstream pyro-cultures and land management regimes. Uncle Victor Steffensen, who works to pass on fire lore from Kuku Thaypan Elders of Country (Cape York) to Countries in the South, argues that “There needs to be a cultural shift. We need to evolve our culture with fire” (SBS Insight 16 Feb 2016). In this presentation, we would like to share our experiences as Firesticks practitioners, opening the question of how we might collectively ‘evolve our culture with fire’, from the deep past into the future to come.

Authors

• Den Barber, Koori Country Firesticks Aboriginal Corporation

• Lauren Tynan, University of New South Wales

• Michelle Bishop, University of New South Wales

• Jeremy Walker, University of Technology Sydney