Determined to revive her interest in cultural astronomy, Carla migrated from Portugal to Australia in 2014 to pursue her research.
Her studies revealed 40 years of conflict between First Nations people wanting to manage and protect their lands, and Western astronomers wishing to build research facilities on those lands.
“My research explored the origin of those conflicts, the consequences for both Indigenous peoples and astronomers and how those conflicts can be softened or maybe stopped in the future, which is a very ambitious goal,” she says.
What became clear is that the significance of sacred sites for the Indigenous community is culturally incompatible with the astronomers’ desire for scientific and commercial advancement.
The resulting conflict is generally long-lasting and diplomatically exhausting, she says.
“When astronomers have tried to both protect their projects and build appropriate relationships with Indigenous people, they have no culturally appropriate strategy to do so.”
Communication barriers and difficulty establishing social, cultural and political relationships with communities are some of the issues that signal poor cultural competence on the part of astronomers.
Carla’s work focussed on two case studies, both involving the construction of world-leading telescopes on Indigenous lands.
The ‘Thirty Meter Telescope’ (TMT) is astronomy’s largest observatory in the world, planned for Mauna Kea, the most sacred mountain in Hawai’ian culture. TMT failed in its approach to dealing with the local Indigenous culture. The project has received continued opposition and construction has been halted.
In contrast, Carla looked at the Square Kilometre Array (SKA), an international project to build the world’s largest radio telescope, and one of the largest scientific endeavours in history. The project is being developed in two Indigenous lands – in Australia and South Africa.
The Traditional Custodians are the Yamatji people from WA, and the South African San People. They were consulted from the beginning of the project which already has full approval from the Indigenous communities.
“They have unique, beautiful ways to explain why the sky looks like it does,” Carla says. “Indigenous artists from both regions were invited by the SKA scientists to do paintings and other artistic representations based on their traditional stories of the night sky.”
The concept has been named SKA Shared Sky to reflect a new and exciting form of knowledge sharing.
“So by showing interest, finding collaborative ways of working, respecting the culture and accepting that Indigenous peoples have relevant knowledge about the sky, SKA scientists found the best way to relate with the Owners of the lands they intend to use.”
Carla is now researching cultural competence within the higher education sector. She sees a glaring lack of culturally safe spaces for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students.
In addition to under-representation and inequitable access to universities, Carla found very few Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people employed by universities, particularly outside Indigenous centres.
Stepping back to move forward
As a non-Indigenous researcher working in the Indigenous area, Carla wants to put Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples first.
Three years into her PhD she decided to step back, to learn more and to “do better”.
“I need to accept and thoroughly understand my cultural heritage, and to reflect deeply on my white privilege to feel I am finally culturally competent enough to go back to this research,” Carla explains.
“I couldn’t be prouder of my decisions and I challenge other white researchers and educators to do the same. It is a very dark place to be at times, I must confess, but it’s also very liberating. And most importantly it’s the right thing to do when living in country where we must respectfully navigate a two-worlds context.”