Spaces of Becoming: Spatial Strategies and the Formation of Modern Identities in Urban South Asia. The intensification of urbanisation in South Asia calls for new ways of understanding the politics of identity, and social complexity. This project will explore ways in which urban spaces (such as places of worship, streetscapes, markets, festival grounds, procession routes, and 'neighbourhoods') are used by different groups as a fundamental principle of organising social relations, including trans ....Spaces of Becoming: Spatial Strategies and the Formation of Modern Identities in Urban South Asia. The intensification of urbanisation in South Asia calls for new ways of understanding the politics of identity, and social complexity. This project will explore ways in which urban spaces (such as places of worship, streetscapes, markets, festival grounds, procession routes, and 'neighbourhoods') are used by different groups as a fundamental principle of organising social relations, including transmission of culture and creation of identity.
This interdisciplinary project argues that historicism - an exclusive temporal emphasis - can not capture the fundamental relationship between spaces and social processes that shapes contemporary cultural and social complexity in South Asia.
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The Western Nation-State, Cultural Pluralism and the Transnational Circulation of Political Emotions in the Shi'a Lebanese Diaspora. At its most general level, this research aims to expose and explain the importance of emotions in the formation of all cultures. In so doing it opens the way for a more complex understanding of some of the invisible but important forces that shape intercultural relations within culturally plural nations. It will thus open the possibilities for ameliorating and refi ....The Western Nation-State, Cultural Pluralism and the Transnational Circulation of Political Emotions in the Shi'a Lebanese Diaspora. At its most general level, this research aims to expose and explain the importance of emotions in the formation of all cultures. In so doing it opens the way for a more complex understanding of some of the invisible but important forces that shape intercultural relations within culturally plural nations. It will thus open the possibilities for ameliorating and refining government policies concerned with the management of pluralism. At a more particular level, the research hopes to produce critical knowledge about diasporic Arab Muslim cultures that will ameliorate the thorny relations these cultures have today with western governments.Read moreRead less
New Regional Labour Circuits in the South Pacific: Gender, Culture and Transnationalism. This project aims to produce vital knowledge about transforming Pacific and Pacific Islander migration. Pacific mobility is being shaped by new patterns of international trade, investment and aid adopted by key regional players—China, United States, Australia and New Zealand especially—the effects of which are not yet well understood. Using a multi-sited analysis of regional labour circuits focusing on the C ....New Regional Labour Circuits in the South Pacific: Gender, Culture and Transnationalism. This project aims to produce vital knowledge about transforming Pacific and Pacific Islander migration. Pacific mobility is being shaped by new patterns of international trade, investment and aid adopted by key regional players—China, United States, Australia and New Zealand especially—the effects of which are not yet well understood. Using a multi-sited analysis of regional labour circuits focusing on the Cook Islands, Australia and New Zealand, this project aims to connect these broad geopolitical shifts to the movement of individuals and families, and to their gendered and culturally embedded economic practices.Read moreRead less
Sonic practice in Japan: sound in everyday life. This anthropological project focuses on 'sonic practice' - a way of understanding how sound is made significant to people in their everyday life - and its impact on social relations in Japan.
Discovery Early Career Researcher Award - Grant ID: DE120100394
Funder
Australian Research Council
Funding Amount
$375,000.00
Summary
From scientific specimen to Indigenous cultural property: the collection and use of Indigenous DNA samples since the 1960s. This anthropological and historical project will explore the provenance and present use of DNA samples collected from Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians. It will produce a new conceptual framework that will inform the conduct of genetic research in Indigenous communities and the governance of Indigenous sample collections and biobanks.
Reconstructing the Spencer and Gillen Collection: Museums, Indigenous Perspectives and the Production of Cultural Knowledge. Spencer and Gillen's research placed Australia at the heart of world discourse in anthropology at the beginning of the twentieth century and they influenced the paradigm changes that resulted in the development of the modern discipline. Digital technology now enables the material record of their research to be recreated as a whole revealing the richness of Aboriginal socie ....Reconstructing the Spencer and Gillen Collection: Museums, Indigenous Perspectives and the Production of Cultural Knowledge. Spencer and Gillen's research placed Australia at the heart of world discourse in anthropology at the beginning of the twentieth century and they influenced the paradigm changes that resulted in the development of the modern discipline. Digital technology now enables the material record of their research to be recreated as a whole revealing the richness of Aboriginal society in central Australia at the turn of the twentieth century and uncovering a crucial period in the history of anthropology. The research project will advance understanding of Australia's role in the history of anthropology and related disciplines in addition to creating a cultural resource of great value not least for the Indigenous communities themselves.Read moreRead less
Forced transnationalism: sending migrants' children home. Parents in some migrant groups in Australia send their children to the homeland in response to 'bad' behaviour. This project will entail a case study of Tongan migrants and their Australian born children and publications will address the implications of this practice for young people and their families and for both the home country and Australia.
Sorcery and Human Security in Vanuatu: Violence, Health, Governance, and the Implications for Effective Development. Belief in sorcery and violence caused by accusations of sorcery are endemic across the Western Pacific and pose serious challenges for effective healthcare and governance. Using Vanuatu as a case study, this research is the first to systematically analyse the link between sorcery and human security in the region. This includes addressing the current lack of awareness in key develo ....Sorcery and Human Security in Vanuatu: Violence, Health, Governance, and the Implications for Effective Development. Belief in sorcery and violence caused by accusations of sorcery are endemic across the Western Pacific and pose serious challenges for effective healthcare and governance. Using Vanuatu as a case study, this research is the first to systematically analyse the link between sorcery and human security in the region. This includes addressing the current lack of awareness in key development sectors of the social, health and governance implications of sorcery beliefs. The study will provide evidence and a framework for integrating local belief contexts into international development practice. It will also develop innovative theoretical approaches to understanding sorcery beliefs and related practices in terms of transformations of modernity.Read moreRead less
Time and timelessness in Aboriginal societies as exemplified in Ngarinyin body-imagery. My project is an investigation of northern Kimberley trading practices, arguing against some pervasive views in the Aboriginalist literature which cast Aboriginal people and cultures as emphasising timelessness and de-emphasising human creativity. Kimberley trading/sharing practices, I suggest, show that exchanges (at various levels of formality) between groups and individuals are locally experienced as an ac ....Time and timelessness in Aboriginal societies as exemplified in Ngarinyin body-imagery. My project is an investigation of northern Kimberley trading practices, arguing against some pervasive views in the Aboriginalist literature which cast Aboriginal people and cultures as emphasising timelessness and de-emphasising human creativity. Kimberley trading/sharing practices, I suggest, show that exchanges (at various levels of formality) between groups and individuals are locally experienced as an active and ongoing participation in the creation of the bodies of kin and of the country itself. This is done in a way which actively participates in, rather than merely reproduces, the creative travels of the first ancestral beings. Phenomenology and psychoanalysis theoretically inform my approach.Read moreRead less
Religion and Spirituality in the Contemporary World: An Indonesian Case Study. Religious extremism in Indonesia became a major security concern for Australia after the Bali bombing. Research thus focused on the networks of small and rather marginal Islamic radical groups such as Jemaah Islamiyah (JI), while the broader national and international trends that give rise to this and other, more moderate and popular new forms of religiosity remained unexplored. This emphasis on extremism contributed ....Religion and Spirituality in the Contemporary World: An Indonesian Case Study. Religious extremism in Indonesia became a major security concern for Australia after the Bali bombing. Research thus focused on the networks of small and rather marginal Islamic radical groups such as Jemaah Islamiyah (JI), while the broader national and international trends that give rise to this and other, more moderate and popular new forms of religiosity remained unexplored. This emphasis on extremism contributed to a stereotyping of Islam as intransigent, and of multi-ethnic and multi-religious Indonesia as an Islamic nation. The current project will deliver a more balanced appraisal of the impact of resurging religiosity in our region by focusing on the pluralistic and relativistic religious attitudes more representative of Indonesian society today.Read moreRead less