*1.1. The Concept 'Country'*

As pervious research shows in the *Tayal* settings, governing water resources is not about exercising sole ownership over a natural resource, but about governing human and non-human agencies in a more-than-human world [7]. In this paper, I explore *Tayal* ontological understandings of their place in the world, and its implications for resilience research. Further, this paper proposes methodological principles for engaging Indigenous knowledge in a more-than human world on an ethical and constructive basis.

The idea of 'Country' as a way of characterizing the relationships between Indigenous groups and their territories and the wider world is a central concept in this paper. The concept is drawn from Aboriginal Australians' usage of an English term. In Aboriginal Australian settings, the term Country implies a very different meaning from general English usage to refer to either a nation-state or to a rural setting. Country is "an Aboriginal English term that encompasses particular areas as they co-become–shape and enable each other–in human and more-than-human relations of response and responsibility" (p. 24) [8]. The concept comprises complex ideas about relationships and connections. It simultaneously encompasses "territorial affiliation, a social identification and cosmological orientation" (p. 370) [9]. Learnt from her working experience with Australian Aboriginal peoples, Rose [10] develops the concept of Country as a "nourishing terrain". In her words she notes: "Country is a place that gives and receives life. Not just imagined or represented, it is lived in and lived with" (p. 7). To further elaborate, Rose [10] explains that Australian Aboriginal peoples do not perceive their Country as a nature/culture dualism. On the contrary, "Country in Aboriginal English is not only a common noun but also a proper noun. People talk about country in the same way that they would talk about a person: they speak to country, sing to country, visit country, worry about country, feel sorry for country, and long for country "(p. 7).

### *1.2. Ontological Pluralism*

Recognizing 'Country' and setting it is central to understanding the challenges of resilience science. It implies a centrality for a more-than-human ontology. It demands de-privileging any human-centric understanding and practices of natural resource management and opens up a space to recognizing plural and non-linear relationships between people and environment. 'Country' encompasses human and non-human agencies in a more-than-human world [11]. If one's starting point is acceptance that western science has a self-evident advantage over all other forms of knowledge, this requires quite a fundamental rethinking of humans' place in the world. Acknowledging Aboriginal Australians' connections to and custodianship of their Country ultimately requires acceptance of the need to recognize ontological pluralist understandings of nature and has implications for how to pursue sustainability.

Ontology, understood as a branch of metaphysics, is the science of being, embracing such issues as the nature of existence and the categorical structure of reality [12]. That is, ontology is about being, existence and knowing in the Cosmos. Ontology is the foundation of how humans know themselves and the Cosmos. While ontology is clearly defined in many philosophy and social theory texts [12,13], the implication for understanding and for claiming its power is rarely understood in the common discourses of climate change and disaster management. Howitt and Suchet-Pearson [14] advocate that ontological pluralism should be recognized in contested cultural landscapes [14,15]. They [14] argue "academic discourse typically represents its knowledge as detached, objective and universal". They propose engaging with "alternative ontologies-diverse ways of knowing, being-in-place and related to complex, often contested cultural landscapes at various scales" (p. 557) as their alternative to relying on an inadequate singular, homogenous and dominant ontological discourse.

For Howitt and Suchet-Pearson, ontological pluralism goes beyond Euro-centric philosophies as the foundation for being-in or knowing the world. They argue that diverse ways of knowing the world are extremely important for reframing dominant forms of natural resource governance. Culture shapes the way people know the world, and the way people locate themselves in relationship with the Cosmos [16–18]. To decenter the dominant human-centric ontology, which assumes a hierarchical order between human/non-human, Suchet-Pearson and her research partners raise the idea of a 'relational ontology' [16,19]. They elaborate it as "a relational ontology of connection means understanding all beings and things as inherently connected. Neither one's identity, actions or ethics can be understood in isolation from other research partners, family members, other people, or the natural world. Rather, humans, animals, plants, winds, rocks, spirits, songs, sunsets and water, indeed all things, are connected together in a web of kinship and responsibility" (p. 1076) [19].

#### *1.3. Situated Resilience*

In climate change adaption discourses, resilience has a long history [20–26]. I advocate the notion of 'situated resilience' in this paper. It emphasizes the specific temporal-spatial context in which the concept and practice of resilience are generated, defined and exercised. It alters the conventional thinking that resilience strategies are universally applicable and propose that resilience strategies are responsible for and ethically engaging a specific temporal-spatial context. The notion of 'situated resilience' requires a careful tackling on ontological politics. It is useful to visit the discussion on relational ontology proposed by the work of the Bawaka Collective (e.g., Lloyd K [19] and Bawaka collectives [16,27]). The relational ontology not only de-centers human-centric privilege in the creation and evaluation of knowledge, but also profoundly asserts the need to recognize that multiplicity resides within the concept of ontology. This in turn implies that the concepts mobilized to engage with relationality on more-than-human systems must also be carefully contextualized and situated.

The deployment of resilience is neither self-evident nor universally applicable and there are multiple versions of resilience being mobilized in contemporary discourses [28]. Scholars reflect on Indigenous ontologies to argue the importance of situating resilience in a specific temporal-spatial context. Fisher [29] reviews how 'resilience' has been deployed and applied in fundamentally different ways in two research-focused settings. She argues that the notion of resilience is not a modern invention, and that in Aotearoa/New Zealand, Maori ontologies influence how resilience is enacted and that "entanglements that arise when worlds collide" (p. 34) provide a catalyst for change as Maori "assert their rights to different ways of knowing and being and as the differentiated effects of resilience interventions are made apparent" (p. 35).

The Bawaka Collective [8] maintain that "ontological politics must be sited" (p. 24), and that the ontological politics of resilience not only can be learned from place, more importantly, it is of place. They maintain that the resilience demonstrated by Indigenous peoples in their more-than-human settings is always to be understood as situated. There is a deep sense of place in this notion of resilience. From this perspective, there is no universalized, abstract notion of resilience because resilience is inherently situated in a relational web of connections across time and space. They also demonstrate for Indigenous Yolngu people in Australia, weather is not a 'natural' phenomena that is separated from 'culture' and call for an "embodied, emotional, affective experience" (p. 297) on weather and climate [30]. The importance of local scale practice has been widely acknowledged in resilience science [26,31].

So, resilience strategies are not, and cannot be universally applicable. On the contrary, it is important to acknowledge that engaging with the ontological politics of resilience requires engagements with those whose situation has given rise to the resilience (or lack of resilience) that is at issue. In other words, given that recognition of ontological pluralism demands the recognition that situated resilience of Indigenous groups is embedded in the geographical, historical, cultural and political context in which people are entangled, researchers, policy-makers and advocates alike must develop methodological approaches that respond respectfully, humbly and patiently to context.
