Filters
Availability
Publication Year
Resource Type
Faculty
School/Institute
Publication Search Results
Sort
Results per page
1 - 2 of 2
-
(2023)ThesisThis thesis uses a Talanoa Research Methodology (TRM) approach to explore the concepts of traditional knowledge, knowledge, custom and customary law in Samoa. TRM uses the principles of fa’asamoa to guide and conduct interviews where participants are collaborators, co-developing the research agenda. Open-ended questions focused on centring participant perspectives to reflect their authentic voices, understand their life experience and recommendations for future directions for reform. Interviews were conducted with Samoan government officers, cultural practitioners, and village individuals across 2019 to 2021. Participants were asked to identify traditional knowledge or knowledge, intellectual property, custom and customary law from their perspective, allowing the terms and examples to demonstrate connections between where knowledge is situated, and how life is lived and practiced, and its day-to-day regulation. A TRM approach was chosen to help make more visible how knowledge is regulated in a pluralist post-colonial legal order. In Samoa, customary law is not inferior or superior to the legislative framework of the state. Customary law plays a crucial role in village governance and regulates how knowledge operates in society. This is not well understood in the international literature about TK and intellectual property and this creates problems in implementing treaty conventions such as the World Trade Organization Agreement on Trade-Related Rights of Intellectual Property Rights 1994 (TRIPs), Convention of Biological Diversity 1992 (CBD), Nagoya Protocol on Access to Genetic Resources and the Fair and Equitable Sharing of Benefits Arising from the Utilization to the Convention of Biological Diversity 2010 (Nagoya Protocol), and the UNESCO Convention for the Safeguarding of Intangible Cultural Heritage 2003 (Convention on ICH). Participants reflected on their experiences with current regulatory frameworks, including the role of the village fono. Discussion includes reflections on the value and limitations of international legal frameworks and externally funded development initiatives. Recommendations are canvassed for improvement of current regulatory frameworks and alternative mechanisms that could provide practical avenues for the future development for the protection of knowledge or traditional knowledge in Samoa. Recommendations also have potential relevance for other Pacific Islands. This research has wider relevance beyond the Pacific, providing critical insights into the significance of international discussions about traditional knowledge, access and benefit sharing, and other attempts to decolonise intellectual property. Understanding the value of research informed by TRM is particularly relevant to outside researchers, consultants and international agencies who work in the Pacific and are interested in progressing TK and intellectual property reform agendas in ways that benefit and support the local community.
-
(2024)ThesisTechnological advances in big data and artificial intelligence have led to a resurgence of enthusiasm for using computers to solve urban planning problems. History shows, however, that high hopes for new digital tools do not always lead to their adoption in planning practice. Given this new wave of enthusiasm, there is a need for up-to-date empirical research to assess how data, analytics, and digital tools are being implemented in contemporary urban planning practice and how planners perceive their future utility. The research involved a multi-stage, mixed-methods study. Past studies have commonly focused on the design and use of individual digital tools. Instead, this research adopted a systems approach, to empirically examine expectations for the future digital transformation of planning practices. Methods focused on identifying inductive patterns arising from examination of relationships between the producers, regulators and users of data, analytics, and digital tools. Stage one involved a review of existing theories of digital planning and ideas, including a citation network analysis of the planning support systems literature. Stage two involved empirical research. Firstly, surveys of professional planners across Australia, United States of America, United Kingdom, Canada and New Zealand on their current and prospective use of data and digital tools. Secondly, a case study on the use of analytics in preparing the Greater Sydney Regional and District Plans, including a content and citation network analysis of planning documents, and key-informant interviews. In addition to updating empirical knowledge, the research provides a new characterisation of the social and political rationales shaping digital planning practices, and the barriers to adopting open and transparent approaches. For scholars, the findings of this research assist in evaluating published theories of digital planning and ideas. For practitioners, the findings contribute to more informed investment in data, tools, training, and governance frameworks that meet the specific needs of urban planning.