Modernising water: Articulating custom in water governance in Australia and East Timor

Abstract

The modernisation of water governance, which can entail resource commoditisation and privatisation, requires the reformation of water allocation institutions. In many parts of the world, such transformations have empowered statutory systems to dominate or marginalise parallel, extant customary systems of water governance. The water policy and management frameworks of Australia and East Timor (Timor-Leste) are at different stages of a modernisation trajectory; yet, both have extant systems of customary governance and so lend themselves to a comparative analysis. This paper describes the institutions and negotiating arenas through which indigenous peoples of these two countries seek to define,..