Healing Through Enterprise: Kimberley Indigenous Women's Entrepreneurial Pathways to Economic Sovereignty
Tracks
Ballroom 1 - In-Person Only
| Tuesday, October 13, 2026 |
| 1:20 PM - 1:40 PM |
| Ballroom 1 |
Overview
Maree Cutler Naroba, MCN Consulting
Three Key Learnings
Presenting under the topic Economic Sovereignty and Collective Prosperity
1. Indigenous women's entrepreneurship already operates as a healing practice and an exercise of economic sovereignty; entrepreneurial ecosystems must recognise and support what is already happening, rather than imposing Western business readiness frameworks. 2. Omission trauma, the developmental experiences systematically withheld through colonisation, including cultural knowledge, economic agency and intergenerational transmission, requires developmental repair through culturally grounded enterprise, not deficit-based intervention. 3. Transforming entrepreneurial ecosystems from fragmented, trauma-blind structures to coordinated, healing-centred networks requires funding relational work, measuring cultural and community outcomes alongside economic metrics, and centring Indigenous-led program design.
1. Indigenous women's entrepreneurship already operates as a healing practice and an exercise of economic sovereignty; entrepreneurial ecosystems must recognise and support what is already happening, rather than imposing Western business readiness frameworks. 2. Omission trauma, the developmental experiences systematically withheld through colonisation, including cultural knowledge, economic agency and intergenerational transmission, requires developmental repair through culturally grounded enterprise, not deficit-based intervention. 3. Transforming entrepreneurial ecosystems from fragmented, trauma-blind structures to coordinated, healing-centred networks requires funding relational work, measuring cultural and community outcomes alongside economic metrics, and centring Indigenous-led program design.
Presenter
Mrs Maree Cutler Naroba
PhD Candidate
MCN Consulting
Healing Through Enterprise: Kimberley Indigenous Women's Entrepreneurial Pathways to Economic Sovereignty
Presentation Overview
Northern Australian Indigenous women experience trauma at rates demanding urgent response, yet entrepreneurial ecosystems remain largely trauma-blind — applying Western business frameworks that fail to recognise Indigenous economic paradigms or the healing dimensions of enterprise.
This research was conducted under Indigenous cultural governance throughout. An all-Indigenous supervisory team provided scholarly oversight, and an Advisory Circle of five experienced Kimberley Indigenous women entrepreneurs validated all research design, analytical themes and findings. Yarning conversations with 27 Kimberley Indigenous women entrepreneurs and questionnaires from 35 ecosystem stakeholders generated the data.
The research identified 11 healing pathways through which entrepreneurship strengthened social and emotional well-being across all SEWB domains simultaneously, not as a side effect of business, but as its core function. It also extended omission trauma theory into Indigenous entrepreneurship contexts: colonisation created wounds not only through harmful events but through the systematic withholding of cultural knowledge, economic agency and intergenerational transmission. Culturally grounded enterprise provides developmental repair for what was absent.
The Spinifex Spiral Framework, developed from women's narratives and validated by the Advisory Circle, operationalises this into practical ecosystem guidance. Like spinifex regenerating through underground root networks after bushfire, Indigenous women's enterprises create expanding healing circles when supported by systems built around sovereignty, not deficit.
Three key learnings:
1. Indigenous women's entrepreneurship already operates as a healing practice and an exercise of economic sovereignty; entrepreneurial ecosystems must recognise and support what is already happening, rather than imposing Western business readiness frameworks.
2. Omission trauma, the developmental experiences systematically withheld through colonisation, including cultural knowledge, economic agency and intergenerational transmission, requires developmental repair through culturally grounded enterprise, not deficit-based intervention.
3. Transforming entrepreneurial ecosystems from fragmented, trauma-blind structures to coordinated, healing-centred networks requires funding relational work, measuring cultural and community outcomes alongside economic metrics, and centring Indigenous-led program design.
This research was conducted under Indigenous cultural governance throughout. An all-Indigenous supervisory team provided scholarly oversight, and an Advisory Circle of five experienced Kimberley Indigenous women entrepreneurs validated all research design, analytical themes and findings. Yarning conversations with 27 Kimberley Indigenous women entrepreneurs and questionnaires from 35 ecosystem stakeholders generated the data.
The research identified 11 healing pathways through which entrepreneurship strengthened social and emotional well-being across all SEWB domains simultaneously, not as a side effect of business, but as its core function. It also extended omission trauma theory into Indigenous entrepreneurship contexts: colonisation created wounds not only through harmful events but through the systematic withholding of cultural knowledge, economic agency and intergenerational transmission. Culturally grounded enterprise provides developmental repair for what was absent.
The Spinifex Spiral Framework, developed from women's narratives and validated by the Advisory Circle, operationalises this into practical ecosystem guidance. Like spinifex regenerating through underground root networks after bushfire, Indigenous women's enterprises create expanding healing circles when supported by systems built around sovereignty, not deficit.
Three key learnings:
1. Indigenous women's entrepreneurship already operates as a healing practice and an exercise of economic sovereignty; entrepreneurial ecosystems must recognise and support what is already happening, rather than imposing Western business readiness frameworks.
2. Omission trauma, the developmental experiences systematically withheld through colonisation, including cultural knowledge, economic agency and intergenerational transmission, requires developmental repair through culturally grounded enterprise, not deficit-based intervention.
3. Transforming entrepreneurial ecosystems from fragmented, trauma-blind structures to coordinated, healing-centred networks requires funding relational work, measuring cultural and community outcomes alongside economic metrics, and centring Indigenous-led program design.
Biography
Maree Cutler-Naroba (BCA, LLB, LLM) is a Doctor of Philosophy candidate at Griffith University's Queensland Conservatorium and Creative Arts Research Institute. A non-Indigenous researcher from Aotearoa New Zealand, she has worked alongside Kimberley Indigenous communities since 2017 and is the founder of MCN Consulting, supporting Indigenous economic development across Northern Australia. Her doctoral research examines how Kimberley Indigenous women experience healing through enterprise, developing the Spinifex Spiral Framework for ecosystem transformation. Guided by an all-Indigenous supervisory team and Advisory Circle of Kimberley Indigenous women entrepreneurs, her work centres Indigenous knowledge sovereignty and economic self-determination.
