Exploring the myth of the single solution: an anthropological study of housing maintenance and infrastructure issues in Australia. Indigenous housing is a core challenge for improving Australia's social and economic fabric. Urgent issues of amenity, maintenance and responsibility remain unresolved. By documenting what is involved in taking a difficult yet successful intervention model for targeting small-scale repairs and maintenance to scale in Australia, the research will shed critical light o ....Exploring the myth of the single solution: an anthropological study of housing maintenance and infrastructure issues in Australia. Indigenous housing is a core challenge for improving Australia's social and economic fabric. Urgent issues of amenity, maintenance and responsibility remain unresolved. By documenting what is involved in taking a difficult yet successful intervention model for targeting small-scale repairs and maintenance to scale in Australia, the research will shed critical light on: the complexities of program replication and effect; the social and political context such programs operate within; the characteristics required for sustained reform. It will also add an Australian contribution to a growing international field: namely, the anthropology of policy, aid and development. Read moreRead less
Playing for Life: A Case Study in Childhood, Culture and Transition. This study will advance Australian research on identity formation in postcolonial societies; develop child-focused research in academic anthropology; align Australian Aboriginal Studies with recent international progress in the field of children's social imagination; innovate the analysis of transforming Indigenous worldviews; create a perspective for in-depth psychological research with Aboriginal Australians; build a rich res ....Playing for Life: A Case Study in Childhood, Culture and Transition. This study will advance Australian research on identity formation in postcolonial societies; develop child-focused research in academic anthropology; align Australian Aboriginal Studies with recent international progress in the field of children's social imagination; innovate the analysis of transforming Indigenous worldviews; create a perspective for in-depth psychological research with Aboriginal Australians; build a rich resource for comparative research and for teaching. It also offers distinct social benefits: fostering the understanding of Aboriginal children's social and mental needs in processes of cultural transformation; enhancing equality by identifying the positive potentials in children and Aboriginal society.
Read moreRead less
Special Research Initiatives - Grant ID: SR200200346
Funder
Australian Research Council
Funding Amount
$258,000.00
Summary
Rangingur: a Yolngu digital art of renewal . The Yolngu word rangingur means coming from the beach. This collaboration with Yolngu researchers seeks to enrich Australia's understanding of the beach as a critical zone of Indigenous history, identity, and environmental knowledge. Concerned that they face a devastating tipping point, participants seek to use co-creative methods to document endangered songs, stories, and beach environments. New knowledge will be produced about Indigenous observation ....Rangingur: a Yolngu digital art of renewal . The Yolngu word rangingur means coming from the beach. This collaboration with Yolngu researchers seeks to enrich Australia's understanding of the beach as a critical zone of Indigenous history, identity, and environmental knowledge. Concerned that they face a devastating tipping point, participants seek to use co-creative methods to document endangered songs, stories, and beach environments. New knowledge will be produced about Indigenous observations of - and responses to - environmental threat. Outputs will include a website co-designed by ritual and digital experts. Multiple generations of Yolngu families, and the wider Australian community, will benefit as this project models new of ways of caring for coastal futures. Read moreRead less
Warlpiri songlines: anthropological, linguistic and Indigenous perspectives. This partnership combines anthropologists, linguists, Indigenous knowledge holders and Indigenous bicultural linguists to record, document and analyse Warlpiri song series. Warlpiri songs link ancestral power, landscape, emotions and aesthetics and are central to religious life. Because the diversity of performance contexts in which these songs are learnt is rapidly reducing, this aspect of Warlpiri high culture is unde ....Warlpiri songlines: anthropological, linguistic and Indigenous perspectives. This partnership combines anthropologists, linguists, Indigenous knowledge holders and Indigenous bicultural linguists to record, document and analyse Warlpiri song series. Warlpiri songs link ancestral power, landscape, emotions and aesthetics and are central to religious life. Because the diversity of performance contexts in which these songs are learnt is rapidly reducing, this aspect of Warlpiri high culture is under threat. This project will create a cultural archive informed by Indigenous exegesis, that integrates it into the world of anthropological and lingusitic scholarship and provides materials for the school curriculum.Read moreRead less
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
Establishing the provenance of Torres Strait Islander remains: genetics, craniometrics and isotopes. The repatriation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander remains has been a focus of Commonwealth and State Governments for over two decades. It remains as a significant social and cultural issue for many Indigenous Australians. One of the main hurdles to repatriation is the fact that hundreds, and possibly thousands of human remains have very little contextual detail associated with them. A num ....Establishing the provenance of Torres Strait Islander remains: genetics, craniometrics and isotopes. The repatriation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander remains has been a focus of Commonwealth and State Governments for over two decades. It remains as a significant social and cultural issue for many Indigenous Australians. One of the main hurdles to repatriation is the fact that hundreds, and possibly thousands of human remains have very little contextual detail associated with them. A number of techniques have been developed in the field of biological anthropology to reconstruct the history of individual skeletal remains. This innovative project aims to use advances in the fields of ancient DNA, isotope analysis and craniometrics to resolve the provenance of 113 trophy skulls from the Torres Strait Islands.Read moreRead less
Transformations in Aboriginal central Australia: A study of Warlpiri social relations in a time of crisis. By investigating the deterioration of social relations currently experienced by Warlpiri people at the settlement of Yuendumu, this project develops a paradigmatic case study contributing towards better understanding contemporary Aboriginal Australia. It explores on-the-ground realities and historical material to identify patterns underlying the transformations of social relations. It analy ....Transformations in Aboriginal central Australia: A study of Warlpiri social relations in a time of crisis. By investigating the deterioration of social relations currently experienced by Warlpiri people at the settlement of Yuendumu, this project develops a paradigmatic case study contributing towards better understanding contemporary Aboriginal Australia. It explores on-the-ground realities and historical material to identify patterns underlying the transformations of social relations. It analyses these and their effects through an innovative conceptual framework integrating anthropological approaches with the interdisciplinary study of the emotions. The outcomes will considerably further current developments in Australian anthropology and it will make a timely qualitative contribution to current public debates about Aboriginal policy.Read moreRead less
Rescuing Carl Strehlow's Indigenous cultural heritage legacy: the neglected German tradition of Arandic ethnography. In collaboration with Arrernte and Luritja speakers, this project will result in the translation of Carl Strehlow’s 10,000 word German dictionary and other major, unavailable cultural heritage materials and at the same time incorporate the work of the neglected tradition of German humanistic anthropology into scholarship on Central Australia.