Entangled Knowledges in the Robert Neill Collection. This project aims to reverse the trajectories of Menang Nyungar knowledge imbedded in a historical fish collection, returning language, stories, and fishing practices to the Menang community. By working in a cross-sector, collaborative and Indigenous-governed team our research will enrich and re-frame the understanding of this collection in the Museum, unearth Indigenous taxonomic practices, produce new histories of biocultural collections, an ....Entangled Knowledges in the Robert Neill Collection. This project aims to reverse the trajectories of Menang Nyungar knowledge imbedded in a historical fish collection, returning language, stories, and fishing practices to the Menang community. By working in a cross-sector, collaborative and Indigenous-governed team our research will enrich and re-frame the understanding of this collection in the Museum, unearth Indigenous taxonomic practices, produce new histories of biocultural collections, and develop the 'kaardtijin model' for participatory cross-cultural and cross-sector collaborations. Workshops on country will produce content for a digital reassembling of the collection to be used by museum partners, ensuring wide cross-sector and community engagement with project outcomes.Read moreRead less
Return, reconcile, renew: understanding the history, effects and opportunities of repatriation and building an evidence base for the future. The repatriation of ancestral remains is an extraordinary Indigenous achievement and inter-cultural development of the past 40 years. This international project will provide critical new knowledge to understand repatriation, its history and effects and will provide scholarly and public outcomes that empower community-based research and practice.
Profit and Loss: The commercial trade in Indigenous human remains. This project will be the first to investigate the global commercial trade in Indigenous human remains. It will employ a multi-disciplinary approach involving history, economic anthropology, economic history, and data science. The project will generate new knowledge about the 19th century global marketplace in Australian Indigenous human remains, and will reveal whether and how these are involved in the trade’s modern manifestati ....Profit and Loss: The commercial trade in Indigenous human remains. This project will be the first to investigate the global commercial trade in Indigenous human remains. It will employ a multi-disciplinary approach involving history, economic anthropology, economic history, and data science. The project will generate new knowledge about the 19th century global marketplace in Australian Indigenous human remains, and will reveal whether and how these are involved in the trade’s modern manifestations from 1950 to the present. The project will uncover an unknown history, assist repatriation practice, provide information to help reduce the modern trade, and contribute to truth-telling as a precondition of healing and reconciliation.Read moreRead less
Family and Working Life in the North Eastern Goldfields: A Social History of Gwalia and Leonora (WA), 1890-1990. This project aims to supplement and use the results of a recent collection of oral history recordings along with rich documentary evidence and photographs to produce the first academic histories of the multi-cultural mining settlements of Gwalia and Leonora in the north-eastern goldfields of WA.These historical studies will focus on land use and the environment in the area, particular ....Family and Working Life in the North Eastern Goldfields: A Social History of Gwalia and Leonora (WA), 1890-1990. This project aims to supplement and use the results of a recent collection of oral history recordings along with rich documentary evidence and photographs to produce the first academic histories of the multi-cultural mining settlements of Gwalia and Leonora in the north-eastern goldfields of WA.These historical studies will focus on land use and the environment in the area, particularly the pastoral industry. The results will complement and build upon the significant community effort to preserve the heritage of Gwalia; will provide local resources to enhance the tourism potential of this remote area; and develop links with the main migrant-sending area in Bergamo, Italy.Read moreRead less
Empowering Australia: Collecting and Interpreting the Material Culture of Australian Technology in New South Wales, 1880-1972. In Australian social history, the industrial museum occupies an important but largely forgotten place. Today, Sydney's exciting Powerhouse Museum is increasingly conscious of its legacy and lineage, dating from its creation as the Technological and Sanitary Museum of 1880. Nevertheless, much of the material culture of manufacture and innovation that lies in its collect ....Empowering Australia: Collecting and Interpreting the Material Culture of Australian Technology in New South Wales, 1880-1972. In Australian social history, the industrial museum occupies an important but largely forgotten place. Today, Sydney's exciting Powerhouse Museum is increasingly conscious of its legacy and lineage, dating from its creation as the Technological and Sanitary Museum of 1880. Nevertheless, much of the material culture of manufacture and innovation that lies in its collections remains uninterpreted and inaccessible to historians and the public. This project seeks to 'recover' the past of the Museum, and its role in Sydney's heritage of research, design and the applied arts; and to demonstrate the dynamic relevance of historical research to the Museum's present and forward plannning.Read moreRead less
Mobilising Aboriginal objects: Indigenous history in international museums . The project aims to build knowledge about exceptional, but poorly-documented, Aboriginal objects from Sydney and NSW coast (c. 1770-1920s) in British and European museums. These objects have not been accessible to Aboriginal communities and other researchers. This project proposes a major innovation: to bring objects to Sydney for community-led and interdisciplinary interpretation. Outcomes will include strong relations ....Mobilising Aboriginal objects: Indigenous history in international museums . The project aims to build knowledge about exceptional, but poorly-documented, Aboriginal objects from Sydney and NSW coast (c. 1770-1920s) in British and European museums. These objects have not been accessible to Aboriginal communities and other researchers. This project proposes a major innovation: to bring objects to Sydney for community-led and interdisciplinary interpretation. Outcomes will include strong relations between Aboriginal communities and overseas museums; a model for collaborative research about historic objects; and a material history of Aboriginal/colonial relations. It benefits communities, governments and museums by laying robust foundations for future projects seeking the return of Indigenous cultural heritage.
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Reading the Objects: Developing Online Personal Stories from Australia's 'Museums of Madness', 1870-1980. Museum Victoria's Psychiatric Services Collection contains over 1,600 objects from mental hospitals that operated in the state between 1870 and 1980. It is one of the largest collections of its type in the world. As the relative merits of psychiatric institutionalization and community care remain controversial, making digitized images of all these objects available online, accompanied by exp ....Reading the Objects: Developing Online Personal Stories from Australia's 'Museums of Madness', 1870-1980. Museum Victoria's Psychiatric Services Collection contains over 1,600 objects from mental hospitals that operated in the state between 1870 and 1980. It is one of the largest collections of its type in the world. As the relative merits of psychiatric institutionalization and community care remain controversial, making digitized images of all these objects available online, accompanied by expert historical commentaries, will not only throw light on the daily lives of patients and staff and the care offered in institutions now largely vanished, but it will also help promote a better informed public debate about this vital area of mental health policy.Read moreRead less
Reconciling with the Frontier: Accounting for Colonial Conflict. This project aims to widen public access to different kinds of historical knowledge about colonial frontier conflict, and thereby to contribute to contemporary processes of truth telling and reconciliation. It will use the innovative technology of Story Map digital software to open up new dialogue on how different communities interpret the past. In addition to scholarly publications, outcomes include an updatable story-map of front ....Reconciling with the Frontier: Accounting for Colonial Conflict. This project aims to widen public access to different kinds of historical knowledge about colonial frontier conflict, and thereby to contribute to contemporary processes of truth telling and reconciliation. It will use the innovative technology of Story Map digital software to open up new dialogue on how different communities interpret the past. In addition to scholarly publications, outcomes include an updatable story-map of frontier relations for use by the partner museums and history organisations. Other expected public outcomes include a touring exhibition, education packs on frontier history for classroom use, and ongoing community applications of the Story Map digital database for use in regional reconciliation projects.Read moreRead less
How Meston's 'Wild Australia Show' shaped Australian Aboriginal history. How Meston's 'Wild Australia Show' shaped Australian Aboriginal history. This project aims to produce an authoritative and original interpretation of the Wild Australia Show (1892–93), staged by a diverse company of Aboriginal people for metropolitan audiences. The Show will be the focus of an interdisciplinary study of performance, photography, collections and race relations in colonial Australia, using archival and visual ....How Meston's 'Wild Australia Show' shaped Australian Aboriginal history. How Meston's 'Wild Australia Show' shaped Australian Aboriginal history. This project aims to produce an authoritative and original interpretation of the Wild Australia Show (1892–93), staged by a diverse company of Aboriginal people for metropolitan audiences. The Show will be the focus of an interdisciplinary study of performance, photography, collections and race relations in colonial Australia, using archival and visual records. The project will situate the Show in local, national and transnational narratives informed by contemporary Indigenous perspectives. This research should illuminate Aboriginal agency in the ensemble, reconnect Aboriginal kin to performers, and chart changing concepts of race at a critical juncture in Australian history.Read moreRead less
Conciliation Narratives and the Historical Imagination in British Pacific Rim Settler Societies. This project deepens Australian understandings of the negotiated forms of conciliation that occurred between Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples in the colonial period to present. By comparing these with conciliation events in New Zealand and British Columbia, the Australian experience is positioned within the global context of the Pacific Rim. The project's innovative approach unites historical an ....Conciliation Narratives and the Historical Imagination in British Pacific Rim Settler Societies. This project deepens Australian understandings of the negotiated forms of conciliation that occurred between Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples in the colonial period to present. By comparing these with conciliation events in New Zealand and British Columbia, the Australian experience is positioned within the global context of the Pacific Rim. The project's innovative approach unites historical and legal research with material culture of extraordinary heritage significance held by three major national collecting institutions (partner organisations) and others. Among the outcomes are scholarly publications, international symposia, publicly assessable web-based and educational materials, a travelling exhibition, and professional training. Read moreRead less