Re-storying the Roles of Animals in Cultural Burning

I employ a conceptual synthesis that bridges Western and First Nations sciences in pursuit of a broader understanding of cultural burning as a multispecies practice in Australia. The concept of ‘re-storying’ diminishes nature/culture dualisms and creates space for the role of culture in understanding and shaping ecologies; the concept of ‘niche construction’ fosters attention to the ways in which humans co-construct landscapes with other organisms in ways that affect the communities doing the co-constructing. With this conceptual toolkit, I draw attention to the species that play important roles in cultural burning practices through story, ceremony, and their actions upon the landscape. Animals such as bandicoots, brush turkeys, and raptors have pronounced effects on landscapes, and these in turn alter and affect the ways in which First Nations peoples apply fire. These stories demonstrate the complex, relational, and multispecies nature of cultural burning and the need for broader, more nuanced approaches that allow people to burn for, and with, animals.