Procedural vulnerability: Understanding environmental change in a remote Indigenous community

This research paper identifies a 'procedural vulnerability' in climate change research and policy, specifically regarding Indigenous communities in West Arnhem, Australia. It argues that failing to integrate Indigenous cosmological perspectives and the ongoing impact of colonisation leads to ineffective and potentially harmful adaptation policies.

• The author identifies a 'procedural vulnerability' in climate change research where Indigenous perceptions of environmental change, which are rooted in 'Dreaming', are marginalised in favour of Western scientific discourses of risk and hazard. This gap hinders the translation of knowledge into equitable adaptation policies.
• Adaptation efforts for remote Indigenous Australian communities may fail if they rely on the assumption that ecosystem dependence equals universal vulnerability, ignore cosmologically embedded risks related to the capacity to 'take care of country', or fail to recognize colonisation as an ongoing disaster, thereby misidentifying secondary issues like poverty and ill health as primary climate vulnerabilities.
• In the Australian context, procedural vulnerabilities risk creating policies that move people away from environmental risks defined by colonial traditions, but inadvertently move them into risks as perceived by remote Indigenous communities.

APA

Stockholm Environment Institute (2014). Procedural vulnerability: Understanding environmental change in a remote Indigenous community. https://www.sei.org/publications/procedural-vulnerability-understanding-environmental-change-in-a-remote-indigenous-community/

Chicago

Stockholm Environment Institute. Procedural vulnerability: Understanding environmental change in a remote Indigenous community. 2014. https://www.sei.org/publications/procedural-vulnerability-understanding-environmental-change-in-a-remote-indigenous-community/.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |author=Stockholm Environment Institute |title=Procedural vulnerability: Understanding environmental change in a remote Indigenous community |date=16 October 2014 |url=https://www.sei.org/publications/procedural-vulnerability-understanding-environmental-change-in-a-remote-indigenous-community/ |access-date=17 August 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{stockholmenvironmentinstitute2014procedural, author = {{Stockholm Environment Institute}}, title = {{Procedural vulnerability: Understanding environmental change in a remote Indigenous community}}, institution = {Stockholm Environment Institute}, year = {2014}, month = oct, url = {https://www.sei.org/publications/procedural-vulnerability-understanding-environmental-change-in-a-remote-indigenous-community/}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }