Value and place in Aboriginal seafood enterprise development in Australia's Northern Territory: experiences and perspectives from the Maningrida region.
type: CreativeWork
description: 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 res…
abstract: 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 res…
author: Bresson, Clement
language: en_AU
date published: 2025
date modified: 2026-07-24T00:54:44Z
provider: Australian National University
publisher: Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations
type: WebPage
source organization: Australian National University

PropertyValue
property ID: Handle
value: https://hdl.handle.net/1885/733750030