The winning manuscript is based on Dr Josie Douglas's PHD thesis stemming from years of research on Indigenous Ecological knowledge analysing the views of more than 150 Aboriginal youth.
Her findings defy commonly held perceptions about young Aboriginal youths and their relationship to their culture. She found that despite the stresses and forces of modern life' cultural knowledge persists and young people are integral to the future of Indigenous Ecological Knowledge and practices in Central Australia.
Dr Douglas cites examples of how young parents she surveyed maintain the ancestral tradition of smoking babies to make them stronger. Young people are also attached to other traditional rituals surrounding such events as deaths and marriages.
For example, young women will cut their hair as a mark of mourning when someone passes away. Dr Douglas also noted that half the people she surveyed reported seeing a traditional healer in the previous twelve months.
Dr Douglas observed that young people are still involved in culture despite having fewer and fewer people to learn from; despite growing urbanisation and notwithstanding adverse economic circumstances.
