Land, language and heritage. The project will produce full documentation (written, audiovisual and web form) of the Jirrbal tribe from north Queensland, dealing with traditional life and language, ancient and recent history and cultural adaptation. The project works towards the empowerment of Indigenous Australians, reaffirmation of their identity and sustainable use of traditional environment.
Eco-colonial Australian literature and the shaping of Australia’s environmental consciousness. This project aims to consider how colonial Australian literary writing shaped Australia's environmental consciousness. It will explore how colonial Australian literature expressed ecological issues: questions of land clearance, species classification, habitat, extinction, climate change and the effect of environmental disasters. By examining colonial Australian literary writing, natural historians’ wor ....Eco-colonial Australian literature and the shaping of Australia’s environmental consciousness. This project aims to consider how colonial Australian literary writing shaped Australia's environmental consciousness. It will explore how colonial Australian literature expressed ecological issues: questions of land clearance, species classification, habitat, extinction, climate change and the effect of environmental disasters. By examining colonial Australian literary writing, natural historians’ works and debates about the management of resources, this project expects to reveal our literary past and add historical depth to current environmental concerns in Australia.Read moreRead less
The Laboratory of Modernity: Knowledge Formation and the Australian Settler Colonies (1788-1900). Colonial Australia was a laboratory in which European ideas could be tested, raw data collected, and social experiments trialled, especially in managing settler, convict, and Aboriginal populations. This literary historical project will analyse the production and circulation of colonial knowledge, by focusing on texts and print culture, and will map their influence on European thought and modern soc ....The Laboratory of Modernity: Knowledge Formation and the Australian Settler Colonies (1788-1900). Colonial Australia was a laboratory in which European ideas could be tested, raw data collected, and social experiments trialled, especially in managing settler, convict, and Aboriginal populations. This literary historical project will analyse the production and circulation of colonial knowledge, by focusing on texts and print culture, and will map their influence on European thought and modern social theory. Grounded in meticulous archival and textual analysis, this project will trace the ways in which knowledge created in the settler colonies was produced by individuals and circulated by correspondence, institutions, and publication through imperial networks. This project will produce new insights into Australia’s literary and cultural history.Read moreRead less
Discovery Early Career Researcher Award - Grant ID: DE160100238
Funder
Australian Research Council
Funding Amount
$313,000.00
Summary
Georgiana Molloy, Life Writing and Environment in 1830s Western Australia. This project aims to use ecobiography, a mode of life-writing that details the relationship of a person with their environment, to prompt a reconsideration of the anthropocentric relationship between humans and non-humans in a settler colony. Through analysis of archival and contemporary writing on the environment of 1830s south-west Western Australia, it aims to illuminate interactions between botanist Georgiana Molloy, ....Georgiana Molloy, Life Writing and Environment in 1830s Western Australia. This project aims to use ecobiography, a mode of life-writing that details the relationship of a person with their environment, to prompt a reconsideration of the anthropocentric relationship between humans and non-humans in a settler colony. Through analysis of archival and contemporary writing on the environment of 1830s south-west Western Australia, it aims to illuminate interactions between botanist Georgiana Molloy, the Noongar people and plants. The resulting monograph will be designed to demonstrate how syntheses of the sciences and humanities can respond creatively to environmental deterioration. The project also intends to contribute to recent scholarship on Aboriginal agency and land management practices.Read moreRead less
Significances of 'childhood' in postcolonial Australia. This project aims to investigate the rhetorical and political use of the figure of the Aboriginal child as a site of mediation in efforts to reconcile cultural tensions in Australia, particularly between Indigenous and non-Indigenous communities. Utilising an interdisciplinary critical analysis of concepts of childhood, the expected outcomes of the project include enhanced understanding of the specific character of injury inflicted upon Abo ....Significances of 'childhood' in postcolonial Australia. This project aims to investigate the rhetorical and political use of the figure of the Aboriginal child as a site of mediation in efforts to reconcile cultural tensions in Australia, particularly between Indigenous and non-Indigenous communities. Utilising an interdisciplinary critical analysis of concepts of childhood, the expected outcomes of the project include enhanced understanding of the specific character of injury inflicted upon Aboriginal communities through interventions targeting their children, such as their removal into out of home care. This should provide significant benefits to the contemporary social project of reconciliation, through increasing critical attention to the part of cultural misunderstanding in perpetuating Aboriginal disadvantage.Read moreRead less
Opening Australia's Multilingual Archive. Australian Anglocentrism raises important questions about the dynamics of living in a multilingual society. This project aims to mobilise Australia’s considerable and under-utilised non-English language resources in order to rethink our migrant and settler history. It asks what difference language makes in the ways people engage with, and ultimately think of themselves as ‘Australian’ or not. For the first time, a rich multilingual archive will be used t ....Opening Australia's Multilingual Archive. Australian Anglocentrism raises important questions about the dynamics of living in a multilingual society. This project aims to mobilise Australia’s considerable and under-utilised non-English language resources in order to rethink our migrant and settler history. It asks what difference language makes in the ways people engage with, and ultimately think of themselves as ‘Australian’ or not. For the first time, a rich multilingual archive will be used to examine Australia’s history from non-English perspectives. Outcomes include a framework outlining the role of language diversity in shaping Australian identity which will equip scholars, policymakers and the public to confront the challenge of cultural pluralism today. Read moreRead less
Discovery Early Career Researcher Award - Grant ID: DE220100795
Funder
Australian Research Council
Funding Amount
$412,606.00
Summary
Message sticks: Long-distance communication in Indigenous Australia. Message sticks are marked wooden objects that were once used throughout Indigenous Australia to convey important information between communities. The intended outcome of this project is to answer a central question: What role did message sticks play in Indigenous long-distance communication? Drawing on archival evidence and original fieldwork in the Top End, the project aims to be the first empirically grounded study of message ....Message sticks: Long-distance communication in Indigenous Australia. Message sticks are marked wooden objects that were once used throughout Indigenous Australia to convey important information between communities. The intended outcome of this project is to answer a central question: What role did message sticks play in Indigenous long-distance communication? Drawing on archival evidence and original fieldwork in the Top End, the project aims to be the first empirically grounded study of message sticks as a practice. The project expects to define message sticks as a class of material culture, explain their communicative dynamics, generate new cross-cultural insights, and strengthen collaborations between research institutions, museums and Indigenous cultural organisations. Read moreRead less
Enriching digital history: new approaches to content development and delivery using the Dictionary of Sydney. The project will maximise the value of public investment in digital history resources by developing new methods of sharing and re-using content between systems and inviting and managing community participation. It will develop methods of preserving the community's investment in history exhibitions after they are taken down, and promote engagement with Sydney's history through delivery of ....Enriching digital history: new approaches to content development and delivery using the Dictionary of Sydney. The project will maximise the value of public investment in digital history resources by developing new methods of sharing and re-using content between systems and inviting and managing community participation. It will develop methods of preserving the community's investment in history exhibitions after they are taken down, and promote engagement with Sydney's history through delivery of historical information on “smartphones” in situ within the city. It will generate new content for, and reduce content development costs for a major public resource, the Dictionary of Sydney, and showcase Australian Humanities eResearch by delivering new approaches to content creation and delivery which will be of value to the international research community.Read moreRead less
Reconstructing Australia’s linguistic past: Are all Australian languages related to one another? This project addresses a central question about Australia’s past. Are all the languages of Australia related, deriving from a common source language: Proto-Australian. The project will examine the implications of a ‘yes’ or a ‘no’ answer for analyses of Australian prehistory, and for general analyses of human prehistory. The project involves extensive documentation of an endangered language Yanyuwa, ....Reconstructing Australia’s linguistic past: Are all Australian languages related to one another? This project addresses a central question about Australia’s past. Are all the languages of Australia related, deriving from a common source language: Proto-Australian. The project will examine the implications of a ‘yes’ or a ‘no’ answer for analyses of Australian prehistory, and for general analyses of human prehistory. The project involves extensive documentation of an endangered language Yanyuwa, because of the significance of Yanyuwa data in deciding between a ‘yes’ or a ‘no’ answer. The project will provide a descriptive grammar of Yanyuwa, a book evaluating the Proto-Australian hypothesis, and articles discussing the significance of the success or failure of the hypothesis for theories of the general human past.Read moreRead less
Regency Romanticism: Ireland, Britain and Australia, 1788-1848. This project aims to produce an interdisciplinary and transnational history of Regency culture, focusing on how Regency culture connected Ireland, Britain and Australia. It seeks to explore the relationship between the Regency and Romanticism in ways that advance the innovative approach for which Australian Romantic studies is internationally renowned. Exploring intersections between people, print media, sociable practices, architec ....Regency Romanticism: Ireland, Britain and Australia, 1788-1848. This project aims to produce an interdisciplinary and transnational history of Regency culture, focusing on how Regency culture connected Ireland, Britain and Australia. It seeks to explore the relationship between the Regency and Romanticism in ways that advance the innovative approach for which Australian Romantic studies is internationally renowned. Exploring intersections between people, print media, sociable practices, architecture and visual representations, the project aims to provide a revisionary account of Regency Romanticism as a movement of contradictory energies and innovations, and as an initiatory model of global modernity that anticipates features of the mediatised culture of fashion, sociality and spectatorship of today.Read moreRead less