Mabu liyan: The Yawuru way

Indigenous peoples around the world describe living well from a relational perspective. For the Yawuru, the traditional owners of Broome in Western Australia, that is mabu liyan. Mabu liyan or good liyan is centred on Yawuru’s sense of belonging and being, emotional strength and pride. Expressions of liyan are articulated based on collective structures and is based on a model of living well in connection with country, culture, others and with oneself. The narratives from Yawuru women and men show there is no one single conceptualisation of mabu liyan. Instead achieving and maintaining mabu liyan is related to having strong family relations, maintaining and fulfilling one’s responsibility to country and culture, feeling respected and valued by others and being able to be self-determining on matters concerning one’s self, one’s family, community and one’s country. Furthermore, conceptions and experiences of mabu liyan is intertwined with the interface of surviving in the modern world with Yawuru women and men negotiating the trade-offs in maintaining the various dimensions of living well. Starting with mabu liyan to understand Yawuru wellbeing ensures that the measures of cultural, spiritual and emotional wellbeing are grounded in Yawuru’s way of knowing, seeing and being in the world. Using mixed-methods approach, this chapter will explore how conceptions and measures of mabu liyan can lay the foundation for measuring wellbeing from a relational perspective. The stories will be interwoven with findings from the Yawuru wellbeing Survey to elucidate how mabu liyan conceptions overlap and differ from orthodox wellbeing frameworks and measures.