In the past two decades, goat numbers have increased rapidly throughout Lao Peoples Democratic Republic (Lao PDR) due to rising demand for Lao goat meat from Vietnam. This provides an economic opportunity for Lao smallholders who are already benefiting from the growing goat trade. Despite increased market opportunity, goat production has remained traditional throughout Laos. The predominant management system is characterised by lowinputs, free-grazing, uncontrolled mating and opportunistic sale. Scientific literature suggests that the productivity of these systems is limited by technical constraints, including poor management, poor nutrition and prevalent disease. Previous development projects have begun to address these technical constraints through improved goat husbandry practices. However, there is little evidence of these practices being implemented by farmers in the long term or being adopted at a widespread scale. A contributing factor is lack of understanding of the social and cultural contexts surrounding goat production in Laos. In other developing countries, socio-cultural factors have had a profound influence on smallholders’ decision making. Their integration into the design of development projects has been linked to greater long-term livelihood impacts. To enhance the impacts of the research for development project titled “Goat production systems and marketing in Lao PDR and Vietnam” (LS/2017-34) funded by the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research (ACIAR), this Masters Thesis investigated the sociological aspects of goat raising. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 30 smallholder goat farmers across five villages in South-Central Laos. The semi-structured interviews revolved around three research questions:

1. What are the goat raising experiences of rural households in Laos?

2. What are the perceived benefits and burdens that small landholders have around goat raising?

3. What role do goats play in cultural and social networks/practices, and social learning amongst households?

Grounded theory methodology was used to analyse interview transcripts. The interviews revealed that goats occupy an agricultural niche in Lao smallholder farming systems that yield unique livelihood benefits. Goats were a profitable and liquid asset, providing income for small expenses that occurred frequently, such as paying utility bills and medical expenses, buying food and clothing and emergency expenses. Goats have been integrated into socio-cultural ceremonies, often replacing cattle and buffalo. This has enabled farmers to practice sociocultural traditions at a lower cost, more proportionate to their socio-economic status. Managing goats in free-grazing systems was considered easy and benefited the wider farming system by enabling household labour and land to be allocated to cropping, and for goat manure to fertilise crop plantations. The small herd size of goats (10-15 head) is unlikely to be increased dramatically without cancelling the time-saving benefits of current free grazing systems. This is because the trade-offs associated with free-grazing management such as occasional goat theft, goat injury through dog attacks and car accidents, and goat damage to crops, are likely to become unsustainable with larger, unsupervised goat herds. Low-input project interventions that enhance or at least do not interfere with goats’ specific roles, are likely to benefit the widest cohorts of farmers. Interventions that meet this criterion include improving goat kid management, goat house design and cleaning, and disease management.

Farmers relied on their experiences and observations of goat raising in their communities to inform their management decisions. Farmers valued trial and error as a learning strategy to judge the efficacy of project interventions and modify them to suit their own contexts and constraints more appropriately. Farmers also took guidance from exchanging experiences with other goat farmers. This thesis questions the assumption that technical interventions are inherently optimal and beneficial for smallholder farming systems. Development projects should not advocate increased inputs into the goat enterprise without considering trade-offs to the whole farming system. An understanding of the unique roles and purposes of goats, farmer objectives, learning styles, and trade-offs to goat raising should inform the assumptions that underpin the strategies adopted by development projects and ideally lead to sustained impacts in rural communities.

In this thesis I am giving priority to the recognition of Australian Aboriginal people as educators of the highest standard, and as master storytellers. Aboriginal people understand, and have practiced, the power of storytelling since ancient times. This Aboriginal practice has existed for millennia and is much older than the western education system. I also document and explain S.E.C.D.R.R.R: a model of knowledge sharing, that I have developed through my work as an Aboriginal Cultural Education Mentor in NSW. The S.E.C.D.R.R.R model was created from the principles and methods employed by Traditional Aboriginal epistemology of Lore and the Traditional pedagogy or knowledge sharing through the art of storytelling.

To date there has been limited research investigating the movement demands of rugby league referees and specifically the contribution of multidirectional movement to the overall locomotive demands. Previous methods utilised for detecting and quantifying multidirectional locomotion in rugby league referees have shown various limitations. Considering multidirectional locomotion has many biomechanical, physiological, and perceptual differences when compared to forward locomotion, valid methods are required for accurately understanding the overall movement demands placed on rugby league referees during match play. The first experimental chapter of this thesis aimed to address the limitations of previous research by utilising a novel approach for detecting multidirectional locomotion. Specifically, this chapter utilised key signal characteristics from microtechnology as inputs into a deep learning algorithm, with the results indicating that the algorithm was able to detect multidirectional locomotion during a simulated movement protocol in a group of rugby league referees. Following this, the aim of the second experimental chapter was to examine the feasibility of applying the novel algorithm derived in the first experimental study to match data of rugby league referees for detecting and quantifying multidirectional locomotion. In addition to this, it also provides a brief examination of the differences in movements demands between referee roles from a subset of data from a NRL season. The results of this chapter highlighted the practicality of the novel algorithm to elucidate multidirectional movement demands from match data of rugby league referees. Overall, the current thesis provides a novel approach to enhance load monitoring methods through utilising microtechnology and deep learning processes for detecting and quantifying multidirectional locomotion.

It is an unequivocal truth in the story of Australia that colonisation and has had catastrophic impacts on the story of Aboriginal people. Invasion, colonisation and assimilation has impacted every Aboriginal person in some way, causes harm across generations and continues to have negative impacts on the physical, spiritual, social and emotional wellbeing of Aboriginal people.

This thesis consists of two projects to support the current and future healing journey for Aboriginal people – a series of filmed interviews and this exegesis. The interviews take place with Aboriginal men who have been instrumental in the revitalisation of traditional Aboriginal Lore in NSW and surrounding areas. The films document our ways of knowing, being and doing over the past 25 years through the eyes of the men that have lived it. The exegesis intends to provide deeper layers of context to guide and support the content of the interviews.

This work is a tool to show that Aboriginal people exist as cultural practitioners in the current world. It shows that Aboriginal people can sit within a paradigm of Aboriginal people as researchers and subjects of research, with both groups being subject matter experts without any imbalance of power. It reveals that Aboriginal men are far more than that which dominant cultural narratives and the statistics suggest, and that our Lore is the framework that can set the direction for transgenerational healing.

As a Loreman, I have obligations to use the knowledge that my elders have shared, and the skills I have developed over my lifetime, to share these stories and these messages for the benefit of our children, their children, and their children’s children. Our stories and the lessons and morals contained within them transcend time and allow us to move forward as a nation, underpinned by unity. The Lore allows us to walk together with strength and unity, always.