The research on which this volume draws has arisen from a comparative research project—the ‘Indigenous Community Governance Project’ (ICGP)—which has been carried out over the five years 2004–08. The project involves a partnership between researchers from the Centre for Aboriginal Economic Policy Research at The Australian National University and Reconciliation Australia, as well as individual researchers from several other tertiary institutions. While national in coverage, the project is community and regional in focus, bringing together a multidisciplinary team^[2] to investigate Indigenous governance arrangements and processes across different rural, remote and urban settings.

Researching governance is challenging given the multidimensional complexities of politics, ideology and institutions that are encompassed, and all the more so given its different cross-cultural meanings and expressions and the multiple agents involved (see Holcombe and Hunt this volume, Chapters 3 and 2 respectively). With these conditions in mind, and in order to support the objectives of the research project, the team leaders developed an overarching comparative methodological framework with several core components (see Smith 2005).

At the heart of the project are a number of ethnographic case studies undertaken with participating Indigenous communities and organisations. These include a sample of different ‘types’ of Indigenous ‘communities’ in diverse geographical locations (see Fig. 1.1). Researchers were engaged with the same communities and organisations over three to five years so that the dynamic aspects of local governance could be documented over time. A community collaboration strategy was developed that aimed to engage Indigenous organisations, leaders and community residents as active researchers in these case studies.

ICGP researchers also undertook case studies of the ‘governance environment’, which was conceptualised separately for analytical purposes. These studies focused on the changing policy, service delivery and funding frameworks being implemented by different levels of government. The goals and rationale of government strategies were analysed and their impacts on the ground investigated. Language is a key feature of political and policy processes. Indigenous and government discourse about governance was thus a key component of the analysis. Within their host communities, project researchers mapped the wider field of players, and external conditions and relationships that impinge directly on the legitimacy, effectiveness and outcomes of Indigenous governance.

Researchers employed a variety of methodologies, including: demographic analysis; investigation of the governance histories of communities and organisations; participant observation; language and discourse analysis; mapping the community and governance environment; conducting organisational evaluations; documentation of decision-making processes and meetings; analyses of policy and legal frameworks; recording the life histories of individual leaders; and a range of interview, survey and questionnaire techniques. This approach was designed to elicit valid and meaningful information about the diverse conditions and attributes of Australian Indigenous community governance, and to help elucidate both the Indigenous and government ‘cultures of governance’.

A comparative analysis of the case study evidence was undertaken (see Hunt and Smith 2006, 2007; Smith 2005). To enable comparative data to be collected at each field site the research leaders developed a set of questions and issues in a field manual, which each researcher investigated and subsequently reported upon. This enabled the project leaders to test hypotheses and location-specific evidence, in order to generate more broadly relevant insights into principles about Indigenous governance. These findings were then scrutinised at research workshops and the project’s advisory committee meetings. Across the research sites, fundamental concepts such as ‘governance’, ‘community’, ‘leadership’, ‘institutions’, ‘capacity’, ‘accountability’ and ‘legitimacy’ were unpacked. The research team was endeavouring to identify underlying values, meanings and norms, and to test what might constitute valid criteria and principles for designing and evaluating Indigenous governance (Hunt and Smith 2006, 2007).