Native title and the traditional authority of traditional owners have been informing each other since the Mabo decision, and traditional authority and colonisation have had a much longer period of interaction, an interaction which has also informed the conceptualising of native title. The MLDRIN confederation is a particular example of how these interactions have been interpreted by traditional owners in south east Australia, and how the traditional owners have decided to organise and incorporate a regional governance structure.

While the delegates assert their distinct traditional identities, the formation of MLDRIN has occurred within a very complicated intercultural context. The term ‘intercultural’ has come into increasing use in Indigenous studies as part of a rejection of the notion of cultures as exclusively bounded, self-defining, and self-reproducing domains (Martin 2003: 4). James Tully describes what he calls ‘interculturalism’ as being where cultures overlap geographically, are interdependent in their formation and identity, existing in complex historical processes of interaction (2004 [1995]: 10–11). For example, the term ‘nation’ has a long history of interaction. The use of the term to describe the social and cultural organisation of Indigenous peoples comes from the late 19th and early 20th century anthropologists who used ‘nation’ to describe Aboriginal groups that were cultural blocs based on genealogical descent. At that time, the term ‘nation’ did not carry implications about sovereignty, which have developed since the early 20th century (Blackburn 2002: 150, 153). By describing themselves as Nations, emphasised with a capital letter, the MLDRIN delegates assert the reference to sovereign authority that is now linked to the term. They are also connecting their experiences to the Indigenous rights struggles of First Nations people in North America. However, not all of the traditional owner groups within the alliance have adopted the term ‘Nation’ to describe themselves.

Interculturalism informed Indigenous peoples’ way of life prior to colonisation. However, since colonisation Indigenous peoples’ cultures have experienced radical upheavals in a very short space of time. As part of surviving and adapting to the colonial context, the identities of traditional owner groups have been transformed. The more finely defined relationships with country, such as clan and estate groups, have not always continued through colonisation, and the trend in south east Australia has been for traditional owners to broadly define themselves with language groups as their most important political identity (Sutton 1995: 47). In addition, the early anthropologists were keen to identify Indigenous people as part of broader groups—as tribes or nations—and to produce maps that fixed these groups to physical land boundaries (Blackburn 2002: 135). These simplistic maps have misrepresented the complex, indeterminate, and multi-layered relationships held between traditional owners and with country (Sutton 1995: 40, 49–50). However, this mapping of boundaries and peoples is a practice that influences how land claims are recognised today. The Native Title Act 1993 (Cwlth) requires traditional owners to provide a clear explanation of how the group is defined, what laws and customs unite them, and the extent of their territory. The influence of native title in south east Australia has been to consolidate an already existing trend of describing relationships between traditional owners and their country in a more bounded way. The creation of the MLDRIN alliance has also contributed to this trend of articulating traditional owner identities and matching them to their particular country. Indeed, it is a consolidation of that trend into a regional alliance.

In such a confederation of diverse Nation groups based on the traditional owner identity there are complex issues concerning how identity relates to the political formation embedded in its governance structure. That is, the governance processes of the MLDRIN alliance are intertwined with how the identity of both a traditional owner and a traditional owner group is determined. For example, the Wamba Wamba and the Barapa Barapa have separate delegation on MLDRIN. However, kinship and language ties between the two groups are very close and some of their country is shared. The language of the Wamba Wamba is almost identical to their eastern neighbours the Barapa Barapa (Hercus 1992: 3). The identity networks move further outwards geographically, following this language heritage. Both Wamba Wamba and Barapa Barapa are part of what has been called the Kulin language group in western Victoria, which also includes the Mutti Mutti, Wergaia and the Wadi Wadi (Hercus 1992: 1). The positioning of identity is also being negotiated in the alliances which are being made over native title. The Wergaia are part of the Wotjobaluk native title determination, which includes the Jaadwa, Jadawadjali and Jupagulk peoples as well. There are relationships of scale and definition here: where does a family group, clan, tribe, nation and language group begin and end? A fraught example is that of the Yorta Yorta and the Bangerang. The Yorta Yorta Nation Aboriginal Corporation is a union of the Wolithiga, the Moira, the Ulupna, the Bangerang, the Nguaria-iiliam-wurrung, the Kwat Kwat, the Kailtheban and the Yalaba Yalaba clans (Atkinson 2004: 23). Since the unsuccessful Yorta Yorta native title determination, some members of the Bangerang have asserted a separate identity as a traditional owner group rather than as a clan within the Yorta Yorta Nation.

Identity issues and representation are important to the governance of MLDRIN, to ensure that an individual delegate is representative of their traditional owner group. For individuals, their personal genealogical history can link up with numerous traditional owner groups, connected by the marriages and alliances made through the generations. Individuals are born or adopted into their traditional owner group, and the complicated genealogical histories they inherit are accommodated by some flexibility in self-identification. Identity is influenced by family heritage—drawing on two parents, four grandparents, eight grandparents and so on—as well as the individual’s own personal history and experiences (Davies 1995: 77).

When complex identity issues about an individual are presented to the alliance, the delegates defer to the authority of the Nation groups. The delegates argue that it is an internal matter for the traditional owner group to determine who is a member of that group. Yet, when it comes to issues of the identity of a Nation, arguably the traditional owner groups regulate the group identity of other traditional owners groups among themselves. This can be seen in the formation of the MLDRIN alliance. For example, the Manatunga Council of Elders, who are based in Robinvale on the Murray in Victoria, used to sometimes send a representative to the MLDRIN meetings. However, in the process of becoming incorporated, MLDRIN sent the Manatunga Elders Corporation a letter which clarified that, as they are not a traditional owner group in their own right, they are not eligible for MLDRIN delegation. These are politically sensitive decisions, and depend crucially upon the networks of knowledge and relationships held informally between the traditional owners.

By formalising their governance structures on a large scale, as a confederation of Nations, the delegates are exposed to, on very rare occasions, making decisions about group identity. While negative native title determinations can be discredited as an exercise in colonialism by the Australian legal system, and the decision making process of the traditional owners can be argued to be otherwise, MLDRIN’s decision making processes are not being made in a realm external to the colonial experience. It is also a decision making process which is informed by native title. It is hard to predict whether the success or failure of the currently lodged native title claims will cause readjustments and realignments in the MLDRIN alliance, however, clearly assertions about distinct traditional owner authority are complicated by this interconnected intercultural life.