Richard Howitt

My research focuses on the interfaces between community development, local institutions of governance, environmental change (including climate-related change) and natural resource development at the scales of the project, the community, the landscape and the nation. Much of my work uses highly participatory social impact assessment methodologies which aim to equip local groups to identify, address and respond to the processes of change affecting them. Much of my work has been with Indigenous groups and has aimed to support their efforts to challenge marginalisation of their legal and property systems.
In engaging with the institutions of mainstream society, my work relies on the metaphors of coexistence and engagement to provide a framework for ethical practice through processes of corporate social responsibility, institutional capacity building, negotiation and sustainability. This has recently expanded into development of high level local partnerships between the University, local government and community and state agencies in the Macquarie-Ryde Futures Partnership. In this role I have worked in supporting diverse research activities and providing leadership in thinking about connections between research in social science, science, economics and humanities, including work on community engagement, social indicators, social inclusion and participation within City of Ryde.
Theoretically, my work on geographical scale is seen as innovative and significant in the discipline. In developing a ‘relational’ view of scale, my work provides a framework for reconsidering legal pluralism in environmental and urban planning systems.
My role in Native title negotiations in South Australia integrated legal and social issues into consideration of reconfiguring various administrative and planning systems to allow formal recognition of Indigenous rights as a basis for transforming Aboriginal participation in the processes of governance in that state. This work provides a basis for negotiation-based approaches to community consultation, participation and collaborative management for adaptive responses to environmental, economic, political and social challenges facing local and Indigenous communities in diverse settings across urban, rural and remote Australia, This work. is widely seen as taking the lead in a new approach to resolution of cultural and racial conflict over collective rights and intercultural relationships.
More broadly, my work seeks to integrate the scholarship of teaching into all aspects of my teaching, research and community engagement.