Decolonizing People, Place and Country: Nurturing Resilience across Time and Space

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

I very much enjoyed this manuscript. It is well conceptualized and well organized; a breath of fresh air when most needed.

I have minor comments, a few about grammar (in green) and a few that are more suggestions than requests for revision.

Line 119 -- I think you meant 2019-2020, not 1919-1920 (but I was game to see if I could make the time travel angle work!)

Line 153 -- extra comma after “Historically, settler-colonial systems,”

Lines 309-312 -- sentence structure hard to follow

Line 314 - 316 -- the phrase “reinforces the idea” repeated

Line 435 “are actually are enacted” -- extra "are?"  

Suggestions:

• Lines 200 - 226, approx. -- in building up the dichotomy of imperial kleptocracy // “majestic [indigenous] achievements” are you oversimplifying everyone who predates colonialization into a single group?  Or are these characteristics (spatially) universal enough to apply to all?

• Along the same universalizing lines:  I was mildly uneasy about the way you set up the need to reconceptualize scale in sections 6 and 7 (but not enough so I would necessarily recommend rewriting them).  I started notes about it starting at line 316, but after re-reading a few times I think it boils down to the assertion in line 349-50:  “Leaving the scale of catastrophe at the global, seeing it solely in terms of global governance…etc…”  You argue persuasively in other sections (both before and after Sections 6-7) that reality is messy and multi-dimensional, and I think I was instinctively assuming attempts at dominant narratives couldn’t possibly be successful at maintaining a global scale in the first place, either.  While I agree with the general idea that there are easily identifiable “dominant story lines about climate change and risk,”  at least as ideal constructs, I found Section 7 “Narrating risk and power” did not yet convincingly solidify them into conversation.  Back in Section 6, you introduce the grand and ominous scale of ontological risk, side-by-side with the mundane linearity of disaster preparedness -- are these the same dominant narratives to which you refer in Section 7?  Can you clarify with a few examples of what a “dominant narrative” looks like in practice?  Every time I try to trace one, it disintegrates (e.g. your own footnote #4) 

• Your work intersects in interesting ways with Sallie Marston et al.'s 2005 piece "Human geography without scale" (Trans IBG 30, 416-432).  I didn't notice it in your references or text; my apologies if it was there.  If I recall it generated a bit of a stir back then, and I'd be curious how those ideas hold up against your proposals.

Author Response

Thank you for your helpful comments.

1. I have corrected all the typographical errors identified by the reviewer and thank them for their careful reading (and apologies for my failure to pick them up prior to submitting). I have also taken the opportunity of re-reading the manuscript in the light of the reviews to simplify some language, structure and grammar throughout.
2. Comment on lines 200-226 – I acknowledge the reviewer’s comment about the risk of universalizing colonizing behaviors that were spatially specific and particular, but in this section I am referring specifically to the experience of colonization in Australia rather than globally, and I do think that there was sufficient commonality across the continent to put this generalization forward here.
3. I greatly appreciate the comment and have reviewed sections 5, 6 and 7 to remove any implied binary separation of local and global as my argument it that our discourse needs to recognize the mutual embeddedness of the local and the global (and the past, the present and future) in each other.
4. I have also added a comment regarding Marston et al’s ‘flat ontology’ approach to a geography without scale. This is not the place for an extended engagement with that argument, but I thank the reviewer for the challenge.

Reviewer 2 Report

I enjoyed reading this interesting paper that presents an entirely new perspective on climate change and associated risks through an Indigenous and postcolonial lens. I feel that in some parts the argument could be a bit tightened. Occasionally, the writing style reads more like the notes for a keynote speech rather than a polished article. I am wondering whether the lengthy footnote on page 6 is really necessary. To my view, the bullet-points at the end of the concluding section are a little disconnected from the content of the article. Should the author decide to keep them in the article, I think they need some more work. For example, the length is quite inconsistent (the first bullet-point is very short and not further elaborated upon; how should scholars document what they witness? what is the risk of misrepresentation of Indigenous voices and views?). I also think the heading of the last point "Act" is too generic; as we all know, not all kinds of action lead to positive and just change. Could you make it clearer what type of action you would like the reader (?), other scholars (?), practitioners (?) to take?   

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Thank you for your comments.

1. All footnotes have been removed with the contents either being drawn into the text (if appropriate) or removed (if superfluous).
2. I appreciate Reviewer 2’s observation that the paper retains some elements of its original ‘keynote’ setting. And I accept that this might be particularly the case in the deployment of dot points in my conclusion. But this was intentional. I particularly appreciate the critique of my shorthanded treatment of witnessing and acting and have made some amendment to the text in response.
3. I have responded to comments on the Reviewer's annotated PDF of the submitted manuscript. Thanks for your careful and helpful reading.

Reviewer 3 Report

This is an elegant essay, making the points about indigenous ontologies being silenced in climate politics clearly.

Decolonizing expert discourse is a necessary task and this essay makes the case well and as such is a useful contribution. The summary starting on line 490 is poignant and tragically accurate in present times.

A few minor points.

Line 115 something is missing here!!

Line 250 The lengthy quote from Liverman in the footnote is a distraction here that doesn't help the narrative. Its apposite, but doesn't really fit there. Perhaps a short reference to the failure of climate negotiations would be useful in the text instead.

Author Response

1. I greatly appreciate the reviewer’s comments and am humbled by them. Thank you.
2. At line 115 of the original manuscript, I have revised to ensure meaning is clear.
3. I note that the extensive quotation from Liverman in the footnote has been removed.