Value and place in Aboriginal seafood enterprise development in Australia's Northern Territory: experiences and perspectives from the Maningrida region.
The need to genuinely consider local ways of doing business in enterprise development processes is increasingly recognised in entrepreneurship research. Indigenous entrepreneurship stresses the place-based nature of enterprise development and local conceptualisations of enterprise value in the development and business models of enterprises. The Saltwater Aboriginal peoples of Australia's Northern Territory (NT), who hold rich and ancient spiritual, cultural, social, and economic connections with their coastal lands and seas, have engaged in seafood enterprise activities since before the 19th century and the colonisation of the NT region. Despite a range of external support provided to NT coastal communities, few Aboriginal seafood enterprises have endured since 1975. The research addresses the research question: how can value and place be better considered when supporting the development of remote Aboriginal seafood enterprises in the Northern Territory? Through centring the aspirations, experiences, and perspectives of Ndjebbana, Burarra, Na-kara, and Djambarrpuyngu Saltwater peoples from the Maningrida region of Arnhem Land in an exploratory case study, three aspects of seafood enterprises in Maningrida are investigated: (i) the value of past seafood enterprises from the perspective of the region's Saltwater peoples; (ii) place-based contextual influences on the development of an Aboriginal seafood enterprise established in 2015; and (iii) the value Saltwater people attribute to the current enterprise and the specificities of its business model. Through a collaborative community-based research approach with five Saltwater men with lifelong experiences of seafood enterprise development, the research examined the value of nine former seafood enterprises. The research found that Saltwater people associated the value of these enterprises first and foremost with the opportunities they offered to live and work on Country, generating income from locally owned natural resources. An entrepreneurial ecosystem approach applied in the study enabled place-based influences on contemporary seafood enterprise development to be examined. Findings spotlight several factors impacting on place-based on enterprise development, including legal pluralism (the co-existence of Aboriginal and Western regulations), local preferences and barriers to external markets, the region's human capital, and past seafood industry experience. The research reveals that the business model of the present Maningrida seafood enterprise is underpinned by a broad conceptualisation of enterprise value, incorporating cultural preservation, health and wellbeing, and connection to Country, which cannot be adequately captured by mainstream business model theory. The business model of the Maningrida seafood enterprise is characterised by small-scale, multi-species seafood harvesting occurring on the fishers' Sea Countries, predominantly for local markets. Through the study of Aboriginal seafood enterprise development in a remote area of the NT, the research makes two key contributions to Indigenous entrepreneurship knowledge. First is the recognition of the influence of Indigenous conceptualisations of value and place on enterprise development practice and business models. Second is a conceptualisation of enterprise value grounded in the connection to Country and the identity of Saltwater peoples. The research has implications for the design of Aboriginal enterprise development support including business planning assistance and for fisheries management in the remote communities of the NT.
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