"The purpose of this report is to identify key issues in the sustainability of Alice Springs as a desert settlement that services its own and surrounding populations. It necessarily takes the assumption, therefore, that the sustainability of Alice Springs is at risk. This research has focused on human and physical resources, including demographic mobility and economic transactions."--Scope of the project.

The book develops a practical approach to public policy issues that have continued to be intractable because of a lack of emphasis on transcultural understanding. Sustained examples help to increase the readability and the accessibility of theory and methodology. The key themes address the issue that: -Management needs to be more systemic. Critical Systemic Praxis is the process whereby we find ways to work across discipline areas and sectoral areas, in order to address complex social, political, economic and environmental problems. -The way we define and address problems depends on an ability to work with, rather than within knowledge areas. -By introducing the notion of governance we can extend traditional management from an organisational context to an inter-organisational context and locate governance as the goal for sustainable social and environmental justice. The core aspects of praxis are: -Respectful listening and dialogue to set up appropriate contexts for participatory design. -Participatory designs based on participatory action research to map tacit and explicit knowledge of participants (professional and ordinary citizens). -Strategic decision making across discipline areas, cultural contexts and knowledge areas. -Action learning to transfer the policy and practice learnings. -Mainstreaming the approach to governance in the social, political, economic and environmental sectors. The book develops a systemic approach to public policy issues. Examples are used throughout to exemplify theory. The integrated approach to policy and practice is ideally suited to addressing the socio-economic and environmental issues.

Writing Home explores the literary representation of Australian places by those who have walked them. In particular, it examines how Aboriginal and settler narratives of walking have shaped portrayals of Australia’s Red Centre and consequently ideas of nation and belonging. Central Australia has long been characterised as a frontier, the supposed divide between black and white, ancient and modern. But persistently representing it in this way is preventing Australians from re-imagining this internationally significant region as home. Writing Home argues that the frontier no longer adequately describes Central Australia, and that the Aboriginal songlines make a significant but under-acknowledged contribution to Australian discourses of hybridity, belonging and home. Drawing on anthropology, cultural theory, journalism, politics and philosophy, the book traces shifting perceptions of Australian place and space since precolonial times, through six recounted walking journeys of the Red Centre.

The book makes a plea for systemic governance. It follows a practical approach including case studies and conceptual tools. Policy makers and managers need to work with rather than within theoretical and methodological frameworks. The closest we can get to truth is through compassionate dialogue that explores paradoxes and considers the rights and responsibilities of caretakers.

With knowledge from our deserts, Australians can reshape the human story. Dry Times: Blueprint for a Red Land provides new insights into how our desert environments and institutions work - and how this affects the people living in them, Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal alike.