Formation of INEQUALITY
Power, Structure, History, Human Consequence and Colonial Legacies
MLA Educational Series
Written and Researched by James Vegter
Magic Lands Alliance – Advanced Research
2026
ABSTRACT
Inequality is not merely the uneven distribution of wealth. It is a multidimensional structure shaping access to power, land, opportunity, education, health, and recognition. Across history, inequality has been justified through cosmology, religion, race, class, gender, and economics. Modern societies often frame inequality as inevitable or meritocratic; however, philosophical, economic, and anthropological scholarship reveals inequality as structurally produced and historically contingent.
This doctoral manuscript develops an interdisciplinary analysis of inequality across deep history, classical philosophy, Enlightenment liberalism, Marxist critique, colonial expansion, Indigenous dispossession, industrial capitalism, neoliberal globalisation, and contemporary digital economies. It integrates psychological research on status and hierarchy, sociological theory on stratification, and contemporary debates on justice (Rawls 1971; Sen 1999; Piketty 2014).
The central thesis argues that inequality is not an accidental by-product of civilisation but a system of organised advantage rooted in power consolidation. Sustainable futures require reconfiguring inequality from extractive hierarchy toward relational equity.
DEFINING INEQUALITY
Inequality refers to structured differences in access to resources, rights, recognition, and power. It manifests across multiple domains:
· Economic inequality (income, wealth distribution)
· Political inequality (representation, governance access)
· Racial and ethnic inequality
· Gender inequality
· Colonial inequality
· Educational inequality
· Health inequality
· Digital inequality
While differences between individuals are natural, structural inequality emerges when differences become institutionalised and self-reinforcing.
Modern economic inequality is often measured through the Gini coefficient or wealth concentration ratios. Yet inequality is not merely statistical. It is lived experience.
DEEP HISTORY — HIERARCHY AND EARLY SOCIETIES
Hunter-Gatherer Egalitarianism
Anthropological evidence suggests many hunter-gatherer societies were relatively egalitarian. Mobility limited accumulation. Leadership was situational rather than hereditary (Boehm 1999). Social cohesion required sharing.
Inequality increases with sedentism.
Agricultural Surplus and Stratification
The Neolithic Revolution (c. 10,000 BCE) enabled surplus production. Surplus enabled storage. Storage enabled control. Control enabled hierarchy.
With agriculture emerged:
· Property ownership
· Inheritance systems
· Class differentiation
· Patriarchal consolidation
Archaeological evidence shows increasing wealth stratification in early urban centres such as Mesopotamia and Egypt.
Inequality became institutional.
GREEK AND CLASSICAL PHILOSOPHY OF HIERARCHY
Greek philosophy both critiqued and justified inequality.
Plato and Hierarchical Order
In The Republic, Plato proposed a stratified society of rulers, guardians, and producers. Hierarchy was justified through natural aptitude. Justice meant each class performing its role.
Inequality was naturalised.
Aristotle and Natural Slavery
Aristotle argued some individuals were “natural slaves,” lacking rational capacity for self-governance. This provided philosophical grounding for hierarchical social order.
Greek democracy coexisted with slavery.
Inequality was embedded in classical political theory.
RELIGION AND DIVINE ORDER
Medieval European societies justified inequality through divine hierarchy. The “Great Chain of Being” positioned monarchs near divinity and peasants near base existence. Social rank reflected divine will.
Similarly, caste systems in South Asia structured hereditary inequality over millennia (Dirks 2001).
Religious cosmology legitimised stratification.
ENLIGHTENMENT AND LIBERAL EQUALITY
The Enlightenment introduced a radical shift. Thinkers such as John Locke argued for natural rights. Rousseau (1755) critiqued private property as origin of inequality. The American and French Revolutions proclaimed equality before the law.
Yet liberal equality focused on legal equality, not economic equality.
Slavery persisted.
Colonial expansion intensified.
COLONIALISM AND STRUCTURAL INEQUALITY
European colonial expansion from the fifteenth century onward created global inequality structures. Land dispossession, resource extraction, and racial classification consolidated power.
In Australia, British colonisation dispossessed Indigenous peoples of land, sovereignty, and economic base. Terra nullius doctrine erased Indigenous governance systems. Economic inequality was structurally embedded through land seizure and labour exclusion (Reynolds 1987).
Colonial inequality persists intergenerationally.
MARX AND STRUCTURAL ECONOMIC INEQUALITY
Karl Marx reframed inequality as structural exploitation embedded in capitalism. In Capital (1867), Marx argued that surplus value extraction from labour generates class stratification. Capital accumulates in fewer hands.
Inequality is systemic, not accidental.
Modern data supports concentration trends. Piketty (2014) demonstrates that when return on capital exceeds economic growth (r > g), wealth concentrates.
Inequality compounds.
LIBERAL JUSTICE, FAIRNESS, AND THE LIMITS OF FORMAL EQUALITY
The twentieth century witnessed renewed philosophical engagement with inequality through liberal political theory. John Rawls’ A Theory of Justice (1971) sought to reconcile freedom with fairness. Rawls proposed that principles of justice should be chosen behind a “veil of ignorance,” where individuals do not know their social position, wealth, or talents. In such a hypothetical condition, rational actors would design institutions that protect basic liberties and ensure that inequalities benefit the least advantaged. This latter condition, known as the Difference Principle, permits inequality only when it improves the situation of those at the bottom.
Rawls’ framework represented a moral advance over laissez-faire liberalism. However, critics argue that Rawls presumes stable institutional conditions and underestimates structural power. Formal equality under law does not dismantle historical disadvantage. If individuals begin from radically unequal starting positions, procedural fairness may preserve inequality rather than resolve it.
Amartya Sen (1999) extended the debate by shifting attention from resources to capabilities. For Sen, inequality should be assessed in terms of what individuals are actually able to do and be. Income equality alone is insufficient if health, education, or social recognition remain constrained. The capability approach reveals inequality as multidimensional rather than purely economic.
Together, Rawls and Sen demonstrate that justice cannot be reduced to market outcomes. Institutions structure life chances.
GENDER INEQUALITY AND STRUCTURAL PATRIARCHY
Gender inequality is among the most persistent forms of stratification. Historically, patriarchal systems concentrated property ownership, political authority, and inheritance rights in male hands. Women were excluded from formal political participation across most societies until the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
Simone de Beauvoir (1949) argued that woman has historically been constructed as “Other,” socially defined in relation to male normativity. Gender inequality is not merely economic disparity; it is structural subordination embedded in culture, labour division, and representation.
Contemporary gender inequality persists through wage gaps, unpaid care labour, underrepresentation in political leadership, and exposure to violence. Structural inequality reproduces itself across generations through norms, education, and economic systems.
Gender inequality intersects with race and class, producing compounded disadvantage.
RACIAL INEQUALITY AND COLONIAL LEGACIES
Racial inequality emerged as a justificatory system during European colonial expansion. Scientific racism, slavery, and legal segregation institutionalised hierarchical classifications. In settler-colonial contexts such as Australia, Indigenous peoples were dispossessed of land, governance, and economic base (Reynolds 1987).
Land dispossession produces enduring inequality. Economic capital, once extracted, compounds across generations. Meanwhile, communities excluded from property ownership face structural barriers to accumulation.
In contemporary societies, racial inequality manifests in disparities in incarceration rates, educational attainment, health outcomes, and income distribution. Structural racism operates through institutional design rather than solely through overt prejudice.
Inequality becomes embedded in systems.
PSYCHOLOGICAL AND BIOLOGICAL CONSEQUENCES OF INEQUALITY
Inequality is not merely material; it has psychological and physiological consequences. Wilkinson and Pickett (2009) argue that more unequal societies exhibit higher rates of mental illness, violence, and reduced social trust. Relative deprivation—the perception of lower status compared to others—activates stress responses.
Neuroscientific research demonstrates that chronic stress associated with socioeconomic insecurity affects cognitive development and long-term health. Cortisol dysregulation and allostatic load correlate with persistent inequality exposure.
Inequality shapes bodies as well as institutions.
Children raised in poverty experience reduced educational opportunity not only because of resource scarcity but because stress environments impair cognitive bandwidth. Inequality thus becomes biologically embodied.
EDUCATION, MOBILITY, AND INTERGENERATIONAL STRATIFICATION
Education is often framed as the pathway to mobility. Yet educational systems frequently reproduce inequality. Access to quality schooling correlates strongly with neighbourhood wealth. Elite institutions perpetuate social networks that reinforce advantage.
Bourdieu’s concept of cultural capital (1986) explains how non-economic assets—language style, behavioural norms, institutional familiarity—reinforce stratification. Meritocracy often disguises inherited advantage.
Intergenerational wealth transmission intensifies inequality. Piketty (2014) demonstrates that when returns on capital exceed economic growth, wealth concentration accelerates. Inherited capital reproduces itself faster than wages can compete.
Inequality compounds across time.
GLOBAL INEQUALITY AND NEOLIBERAL GLOBALISATION
Global inequality reflects centuries of colonial extraction and contemporary trade imbalances. Wealth accumulation in industrialised nations often correlates with historical resource extraction from colonised regions.
Neoliberal globalisation since the late twentieth century intensified capital mobility while labour remained geographically constrained. Corporations leverage global supply chains to minimise labour costs. Wealth concentrates in financial centres.
While global poverty rates have declined in absolute terms, wealth concentration at the top has increased dramatically (Piketty 2014). The top percentile accumulates disproportionate capital.
Inequality is globalised.
DIGITAL AND ALGORITHMIC INEQUALITY
The digital age introduces new stratifications. Access to high-speed internet, digital literacy, and algorithmic influence shapes opportunity. Technology platforms consolidate data ownership and market dominance.
Algorithmic systems may reproduce bias embedded in historical data. Credit scoring, predictive policing, and hiring algorithms can reinforce structural inequality.
Digital capitalism amplifies asymmetry between platform owners and users.
CLIMATE CHANGE AND THE ANTHROPOCENE
Climate inequality represents one of the defining justice challenges of the twenty-first century. Those least responsible for greenhouse emissions—often low-income and Indigenous communities—experience disproportionate environmental impacts.
The Anthropocene collapses temporal scales. Industrial activity within two centuries alters geological systems shaped over millennia. Climate change exposes the asymmetry between economic power and ecological vulnerability.
Future generations inherit environmental debt.
Inequality now operates across time.
STRUCTURAL VS RELATIONAL MODELS OF INEQUALITY
Traditional inequality analysis focuses on distribution—who has how much. A deeper structural analysis examines how institutions produce and reproduce disparity. Land ownership, taxation policy, educational access, corporate governance, and political representation form systemic architecture.
Relational models emphasise interdependence rather than competition. Indigenous governance systems often prioritised reciprocity and communal responsibility rather than accumulation.
Inequality is not inevitable. It is structured.
Structures can change.
TOWARD RELATIONAL EQUITY
Relational equity shifts the focus from accumulation to balance. It recognises:
· Historical context
· Intergenerational transmission
· Ecological limits
· Community interdependence
Policy responses may include progressive taxation, land restitution, educational reform, universal healthcare, and democratic participation expansion. However, structural reform requires cultural transformation.
The ideology of scarcity must give way to frameworks of shared flourishing.
AUSTRALIAN INEQUALITY — STRUCTURE, HISTORY, AND CONTEMPORARY DISPARITIES
Australia presents a distinctive case study in inequality because it combines advanced liberal democracy, high per-capita wealth, and persistent structural disparities rooted in colonial dispossession and economic concentration. While Australia ranks highly on global human development indices, wealth distribution, land ownership, incarceration, housing access, and intergenerational mobility reveal entrenched inequality patterns.
Colonial Foundations of Structural Inequality
British colonisation of Australia in 1788 was legally justified through the doctrine of terra nullius, which declared the continent legally uninhabited despite tens of thousands of years of Indigenous occupation. This legal fiction erased Indigenous sovereignty and enabled wholesale land appropriation (Reynolds 1987). Land in settler-colonial societies functions not merely as territory but as economic infrastructure. Its seizure transferred agricultural, mineral, and commercial opportunity into colonial hands.
The dispossession of land severed Indigenous communities from economic base, governance systems, and food security. Unlike many post-colonial states where independence movements reclaimed political sovereignty, Australia remains a settler-colonial nation-state in which the descendants of colonisers retain dominant land tenure and capital concentration.
The legal reversal of terra nullius in the High Court’s Mabo (No 2) decision (1992) acknowledged pre-existing Indigenous law and land rights. However, recognition did not equate to restitution. Native title claims are limited to land not already extinguished by freehold or exclusive tenure. Given that the most economically productive land had already been alienated, native title recognition has been partial and uneven.
Thus, inequality in Australia is not accidental. It is structurally rooted in foundational land transfer.
Wealth Concentration and Housing Inequality
Australia’s modern inequality is increasingly shaped by housing markets and capital gains structures. Over the past four decades, housing has become the primary vehicle for wealth accumulation. Policies such as negative gearing and capital gains tax concessions disproportionately benefit property owners.
Data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS 2022) shows that the top 20% of households hold approximately 60% of total wealth, while the bottom 20% hold less than 1%. Intergenerational wealth transfer increasingly determines housing access. Younger Australians face declining home ownership rates compared to previous generations at similar ages.
This transformation shifts inequality from income-based to asset-based stratification. When capital appreciation outpaces wage growth—echoing Piketty’s (2014) global thesis that r > g—wealth consolidates structurally.
Housing inequality also produces spatial inequality. Socio-economic segregation shapes educational access, healthcare proximity, and employment opportunity. Geographic postcode becomes predictor of life trajectory.
Indigenous Incarceration and Justice Inequality
One of the most visible expressions of inequality in Australia is incarceration disparity. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples comprise approximately 3–4% of the population yet represent over 30% of the national prison population (ABS 2023). This overrepresentation cannot be understood outside the context of socio-economic marginalisation, policing practices, and historical dispossession.
The 1991 Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody identified structural disadvantage as central driver. Subsequent decades have seen limited reduction in disparity. Incarceration perpetuates economic exclusion, employment barriers, and community disruption.
Justice inequality is cumulative. It compounds historical disadvantage into present marginalisation.
Education, Health, and Intergenerational Disadvantage
Educational outcomes correlate strongly with socio-economic background. Remote Indigenous communities face reduced access to secondary schooling and tertiary pathways. Health disparities remain pronounced, with lower life expectancy and higher rates of chronic illness among Indigenous Australians (AIHW 2022).
Intergenerational inequality emerges where poverty, reduced schooling access, and housing instability intersect. Inequality is not episodic; it is transmitted.
The Closing the Gap framework, established to address these disparities, has achieved limited success in structural transformation. Targets frequently focus on outcomes without fully addressing land, economic autonomy, and governance structures.
INDIGENOUS LAND RIGHTS — LAW, ECONOMY, AND RESTORATIVE JUSTICE
Mabo and the Legal Recognition of Native Title
The 1992 High Court decision in Mabo v Queensland (No 2) overturned the doctrine of terra nullius and recognised that Indigenous land rights survived colonisation where not extinguished. The subsequent Native Title Act 1993 established procedures for land claims.
However, native title is legally fragile. It can be extinguished by prior freehold grants, infrastructure development, or inconsistent tenure. Recognition does not automatically confer economic capacity.
The distinction between land rights (as seen in the Aboriginal Land Rights Act 1976 in the Northern Territory) and native title is critical. Land rights legislation can provide stronger tenure and economic autonomy. Native title recognition is often symbolic unless accompanied by negotiated economic agreements.
Land as Economic Foundation
Land is not only cultural identity; it is capital. Dispossession removed access to agricultural production, mineral royalties, fisheries, and ecological management. Contemporary land settlements increasingly incorporate economic dimensions, including negotiated mining agreements and joint management of national parks.
Yet cases such as the destruction of Juukan Gorge in 2020 demonstrate the vulnerability of heritage protections within extractive economies. Legal recognition without structural economic power remains insufficient.
True land justice requires economic restitution, not solely symbolic recognition.
The Uluru Statement and Constitutional Reform
The 2017 Uluru Statement from the Heart called for a constitutionally enshrined Voice to Parliament, treaty processes, and truth-telling. The 2023 referendum on the Voice was unsuccessful. Nevertheless, the movement reflects ongoing negotiation over political equality and representation.
Structural inequality persists where governance frameworks exclude those most affected by policy.
Political voice is a dimension of equality.
Yoorrook Justice Commission and Truth-Telling
The Yoorrook Justice Commission in Victoria represents the first formal truth-telling process into historical injustices against First Peoples. Truth processes reveal how land dispossession, violence, and exclusion produced structural disadvantage.
Recognition without redistribution risks perpetuating inequality.
Truth is precondition for structural reform.
Toward Relational Land Justice
A relational approach to land justice integrates:
· Legal recognition
· Economic participation
· Cultural continuity
· Environmental stewardship
· Shared governance
Indigenous land management practices offer sustainable ecological frameworks relevant to climate adaptation. Land rights thus intersect with environmental justice and intergenerational equity.
Inequality rooted in land requires land-based restoration.
INEQUALITY ACROSS TIME — INTERGENERATIONAL AND CLIMATE DIMENSIONS
Inequality operates not only across populations but across generations. Wealth inheritance structures opportunity before birth. Climate change introduces temporal injustice: those least responsible bear disproportionate consequences.
Future generations inherit ecological debt and economic imbalance.
Intergenerational justice extends inequality analysis beyond present distribution into temporal responsibility.
PSYCHOLOGICAL IMPACT OF INEQUALITY
Inequality is not experienced solely as material deprivation; it is lived psychologically. Beyond income gaps and asset concentration, inequality structures perception, identity, stress physiology, social trust, and cognitive development. The psychological consequences of inequality operate through both absolute deprivation and relative status comparison.
Relative Deprivation and Status Anxiety
Human beings are deeply attuned to social hierarchy. Wilkinson and Pickett (2009) argue that in highly unequal societies, social comparison intensifies. Individuals evaluate themselves relative to others, producing status anxiety, diminished self-worth, and chronic stress. The psychological burden of inequality is therefore relational, not merely economic.
Relative deprivation theory suggests that individuals experience distress not simply because they lack resources, but because they perceive unfair disadvantage compared to others. In societies where wealth disparities are highly visible, perceived injustice intensifies psychological strain.
Inequality thus shapes emotional climate.
Chronic Stress and Allostatic Load
Persistent socio-economic insecurity activates chronic stress responses. The body’s stress system—particularly the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis—releases cortisol in response to threat. When exposure is prolonged, stress becomes biologically embedded.
Research in social epidemiology demonstrates that individuals in lower socio-economic positions exhibit higher allostatic load—cumulative biological wear and tear resulting from chronic stress exposure (Marmot 2004). This contributes to increased rates of cardiovascular disease, metabolic disorders, and reduced life expectancy.
Inequality therefore manifests physiologically.
Cognitive Bandwidth and Decision-Making Under Scarcity
Scarcity affects cognition. Behavioural research suggests that financial precarity reduces cognitive bandwidth, narrowing attentional focus and impairing long-term planning (Mullainathan & Shafir 2013). Decision-making under scarcity becomes reactive rather than strategic.
In this sense, inequality constrains agency not only materially but cognitively. Poverty becomes self-reinforcing when stress impairs executive function.
Early Childhood Development
Inequality exerts disproportionate impact during early childhood. Neural development is highly sensitive to environmental conditions. Chronic stress exposure in early life alters neural circuitry associated with emotional regulation and executive control.
Socio-economic gradients correlate strongly with educational attainment and later employment outcomes. Inequality becomes intergenerational through developmental pathways.
Social Trust and Collective Cohesion
Highly unequal societies demonstrate lower levels of interpersonal trust (Wilkinson & Pickett 2009). Trust is foundational to democratic stability, civic engagement, and cooperative institutions. When inequality widens, social fragmentation increases.
Psychologically, inequality produces isolation.
SCIENTIFIC DIMENSIONS OF INEQUALITY
Inequality is not solely a moral or political issue. It has measurable scientific dimensions across biology, neuroscience, epidemiology, systems theory, and environmental science. Examining inequality through scientific frameworks reveals its systemic character.
Biological Embedding and Epigenetics
Emerging research in epigenetics suggests that chronic stress associated with socio-economic disadvantage can alter gene expression. Environmental stressors influence biological systems, potentially affecting health outcomes across generations.
This phenomenon, sometimes referred to as “biological embedding,” demonstrates how inequality becomes physically inscribed into bodies.
Inequality is not abstract. It becomes cellular.
Epidemiology and the Social Gradient
The “social gradient in health,” articulated by Marmot (2004), demonstrates that health outcomes improve incrementally at each higher socio-economic tier. The relationship is not binary (poor vs rich) but continuous.
This gradient indicates that inequality affects entire populations, not only those at the bottom. More unequal societies exhibit worse aggregate health outcomes, even among the relatively affluent.
Scientific evidence thus undermines the notion that inequality harms only the disadvantaged.
Neuroscience of Status Hierarchies
Neuroscientific studies reveal that social status affects neural reward systems. Hierarchical positioning activates dopaminergic pathways associated with reward and stress responses. Low-status positioning correlates with increased amygdala activation, associated with threat processing.
Status is biologically processed.
Inequality therefore influences neurological states.
Environmental and Climate Science
Climate inequality demonstrates how environmental systems intersect with social stratification. Lower-income communities often experience greater exposure to pollution, extreme heat, and climate vulnerability.
Environmental justice research reveals that industrial zoning, infrastructure placement, and resource extraction disproportionately affect marginalised communities.
Inequality shapes environmental risk distribution.
Systems Theory and Feedback Loops
From a systems perspective, inequality operates through reinforcing feedback loops. Wealth accumulation enables investment, which generates further capital gains. Conversely, deprivation limits opportunity, reducing mobility and perpetuating disadvantage.
Systems theory reveals inequality as dynamic rather than static. It self-reinforces unless interrupted through structural intervention.
INTEGRATED SYNTHESIS: INEQUALITY AS PSYCHO-SOCIAL SYSTEM
The psychological and scientific dimensions of inequality reveal its depth. Inequality is:
· Economically structured
· Historically rooted
· Psychologically embodied
· Biologically embedded
· Environmentally distributed
· Systemically reinforced
It operates across individual experience and macro-structures simultaneously.
Understanding inequality therefore requires interdisciplinary analysis.
Justice must be structural because inequality is systemic.
CONCLUSION
Inequality is neither accidental nor merely statistical. It is structured power operating across history, institutions, bodies, and generations. From the consolidation of agricultural surplus in early stratified societies to colonial land dispossession in Australia; from industrial capitalism to contemporary asset speculation and digital monopolies; from legal doctrines such as terra nullius to modern incarceration systems—inequality has been repeatedly institutionalised, normalised, and reproduced.
The Australian case demonstrates this with particular clarity. Indigenous land dispossession represents the foundational axis of structural inequality. Land transfer was not merely territorial expansion; it was economic displacement. Land functions as capital, governance base, cultural continuity, and ecological infrastructure. Without land, economic autonomy collapses. Without political inclusion, structural disadvantage persists. Legal recognition without economic restitution remains incomplete justice.
Across intellectual traditions, inequality has been alternately justified and critiqued. Aristotle naturalised hierarchy. Medieval cosmologies sanctified rank. Enlightenment liberalism proclaimed equality before the law while tolerating material disparity. Marx exposed structural exploitation embedded in capital accumulation. Rawls reframed justice through fairness, and Sen expanded evaluation toward capabilities rather than income alone. These debates reveal that inequality is not fate—it is institutional design.
Economic research demonstrates how wealth concentrates when returns on capital outpace economic growth (Piketty 2014). Sociological analysis reveals how cultural capital reproduces advantage across generations (Bourdieu 1986). Psychological research demonstrates that inequality is biologically embodied through chronic stress and social fragmentation (Wilkinson & Pickett 2009; Marmot 2004). Climate science introduces an intergenerational dimension: those least responsible for ecological degradation bear disproportionate consequences.
Inequality is therefore multidimensional: economic, political, racial, gendered, psychological, ecological, and temporal. It shapes who accumulates and who is excluded, who inherits and who is dispossessed, who participates in governance and who remains marginalised.
If time structures existence, inequality structures opportunity within that time.
The decisive question is not whether inequality exists; hierarchy has emerged in nearly every complex society. The question is whether societies choose to perpetuate extractive systems of organised advantage or to redesign institutions toward relational equity.
A sustainable and just future requires structural transformation—land justice, economic redesign, democratic inclusion, educational access, health equity, and ecological responsibility. Inequality is not natural hierarchy; it is organised advantage sustained through systems.
Justice, therefore, requires organised redesign.
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Written and Researched by James Vegter (17th, February, 2026)
MLA
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Magic Lands Alliance acknowledges the Traditional Owners, Custodians, and First Nations communities across Australia and internationally. We honour their enduring connection to the sky, land, waters, language, and culture. We pay respect to Elders past, present, and emerging, and to all First Peoples’ communities and language groups. This article draws only on publicly available information; many cultural practices remain the intellectual property of their respective communities.