Infrastructure governance on unceded land: progress and challenges toward Indigenous sovereignty and coexisting governance

Prevailing infrastructure governance systems are entangled with the reproduction of settler coloniality, yet confronting these dynamics holds potential to support Indigenous sovereignty and empowerment in urban governance. Reflecting on existing approaches in the Australian context, we advance an epistemological change toward mutually respectful coexistence of two distinct infrastructure governance systems (i.e. the Western urban planning governance and Indigenous governance). The paper draws on an in-depth case study investigation of infrastructure governance in Sydney’s Western Parklands City, involving 56 interviews with key stakeholders. Prioritizing insights from Indigenous interviewees, the findings note recent progress made in this novel case and unpack several interrelated structural and procedural/relational challenges to meaningful First Nations empowerment in governance. We finish with opportunities for building coexisting governance discussed from a First Nations perspective, focused on foundations for trust, attention to wider systems of power, and capacities for shared governance.