Remembering dispossession: interpreting Aboriginal historical narratives. Since the arrival of the British, Aboriginal people have sought to make sense of their experiences of colonisation through telling powerful and memorable stories. This study not only reveals the richness of Aboriginal historical stories, but also models ways of using them in the telling of new Australian histories.
Indigenising the Semantic Web: Ontologies for Indigenous knowledge and heritage resources on a machine-readable Web. This project will put Australia at the forefront of international efforts to realise a functioning Semantic Web in which all data transactions are handled by machines talking to machines. It addresses the government's call for the creation of infrastructure and e-research tools that enable high-speed distributed access to Indigenous knowledge and culture resources, and its outcome ....Indigenising the Semantic Web: Ontologies for Indigenous knowledge and heritage resources on a machine-readable Web. This project will put Australia at the forefront of international efforts to realise a functioning Semantic Web in which all data transactions are handled by machines talking to machines. It addresses the government's call for the creation of infrastructure and e-research tools that enable high-speed distributed access to Indigenous knowledge and culture resources, and its outcomes will revolutionise the way that these resources are managed, accessed and understood by users everywhere. Indigenous communities will benefit from increased protections for knowledge and heritage resources, and ability to access these in instantaneously customisable ways that promote wellbeing.Read moreRead less
Graphic Encounters: Colonial Prints and the Inscription of Aboriginality. This project plans to collate the archive of prints depicting Indigenous Australians, from national and international collections, to ask how people's place in this newly encroached territory was inscribed by colonial prints. Before the 1890s, prints (engravings, etchings and lithographs) were the principal means of reproducing images. Prints disseminated imagery of Indigenous people and determined how they were 'put in th ....Graphic Encounters: Colonial Prints and the Inscription of Aboriginality. This project plans to collate the archive of prints depicting Indigenous Australians, from national and international collections, to ask how people's place in this newly encroached territory was inscribed by colonial prints. Before the 1890s, prints (engravings, etchings and lithographs) were the principal means of reproducing images. Prints disseminated imagery of Indigenous people and determined how they were 'put in the picture' of settlement. Our colonial-era cultural heritage includes many prints (engravings, etchings, lithographs, etcetera) of Aborigines, yet they have been overlooked and the story of their production, dissemination and consumption is untold. This project aims to collate and trace this visual archive of Indigenous Australians and present its imagery to all Australians, including descendants, in an exhibition and conference, catalogue, monograph and online database.Read moreRead less
Global Indigenous rights and local effect in Central Australia: tracing relations of power and locating potentialities. This ethnographic study investigates the practice of Indigenous rights in central Australia by exploring the apparently entrenched disjunctures between the declaration of rights and social fact. Working with Aboriginal people, government and non-government organisations will reveal how rights are understood and negotiated, thus locating new pathways for change.
Colonialism, Violence and Resistance in the Interwar Pacific: Australia, New Zealand, New Guinea, Samoa and Beyond. Colonialism, violence and resistance in the interwar Pacific unveil fresh perspectives on how Australian and New Zealand settler violence was situated within the global dynamics of the 1920s and 1930s. This project illuminates unresolved tensions about the League of Nations mandate system and re-examines events that continue to cast a long and contested shadow over the present. It ....Colonialism, Violence and Resistance in the Interwar Pacific: Australia, New Zealand, New Guinea, Samoa and Beyond. Colonialism, violence and resistance in the interwar Pacific unveil fresh perspectives on how Australian and New Zealand settler violence was situated within the global dynamics of the 1920s and 1930s. This project illuminates unresolved tensions about the League of Nations mandate system and re-examines events that continue to cast a long and contested shadow over the present. It places these Pacific colonial histories, forged in the First World War, within the longer histories of violence and resistance with Australian Aboriginal People and Maori, highlighting critically important connections between these deputised British colonial powers and their colonies as well as overlooked Indigenous historical figures and methods of resistance.Read moreRead less
Nothing works? Re-appraising research on Indigenous-focused crime and justice programs. Research on Indigenous-focused crime and justice programs often finds little or no impact on outcomes such as reductions in re-offending. This project aims to determine whether such findings are an accurate reflection of program ineffectiveness or are a consequence of how the research was carried out. With an analysis of three case studies of crime and justice programs, this project aims to show why findings ....Nothing works? Re-appraising research on Indigenous-focused crime and justice programs. Research on Indigenous-focused crime and justice programs often finds little or no impact on outcomes such as reductions in re-offending. This project aims to determine whether such findings are an accurate reflection of program ineffectiveness or are a consequence of how the research was carried out. With an analysis of three case studies of crime and justice programs, this project aims to show why findings that show no difference in re-offending outcomes may occur, and offer a more Indigenous-centric methodology to assess program effectiveness. Comparisons will be made with indigenous methodologies used in New Zealand and Canada.Read moreRead less
Reading at the interface: literatures, cultures, technologies. This project intends to use massively expanded digital evidence of reception to investigate a central insight of cultural criticism - that meaning is produced through interactions between texts, contexts and readers. The project expects to generate new knowledge of literary culture and digital approaches to research in the humanities. The project will employ new digital evidence and methods to explore general and professional readi ....Reading at the interface: literatures, cultures, technologies. This project intends to use massively expanded digital evidence of reception to investigate a central insight of cultural criticism - that meaning is produced through interactions between texts, contexts and readers. The project expects to generate new knowledge of literary culture and digital approaches to research in the humanities. The project will employ new digital evidence and methods to explore general and professional reading in concert. Mapping the impact of new media on reception of Australian literature should provide significant social and disciplinary benefits in fostering literary research capable of engaging diverse publics and responding effectively to policy demands to demonstrate impact.Read moreRead less
Expedition to Arnhem Land: Intercultural inquiry in a trans-national context. In terms of National Research Priorities, the project will encourage cultural health and cohesiveness in Arnhem Land by providing access to cultural property held until now in remote archives. It will enhance understanding of our region and the world by studying cross-cultural interactions within Australia. Furthermore, it will illuminate how Aboriginal territory and knowledge were used to shore up the Australia-US rel ....Expedition to Arnhem Land: Intercultural inquiry in a trans-national context. In terms of National Research Priorities, the project will encourage cultural health and cohesiveness in Arnhem Land by providing access to cultural property held until now in remote archives. It will enhance understanding of our region and the world by studying cross-cultural interactions within Australia. Furthermore, it will illuminate how Aboriginal territory and knowledge were used to shore up the Australia-US relationship at a formative historical moment.Read moreRead less
Cultural heritage and the mediation of identity, memory and historical narratives. Anxiety pervades many Western countries about the direction, nature and expression of social debate regarding community identities, and the social and cultural values underpinning them. In developing our understanding of heritage, and how it is used to construct and legitimatise certain social values and identities in certain national, cultural and social contexts, the research will inform the development of museu ....Cultural heritage and the mediation of identity, memory and historical narratives. Anxiety pervades many Western countries about the direction, nature and expression of social debate regarding community identities, and the social and cultural values underpinning them. In developing our understanding of heritage, and how it is used to construct and legitimatise certain social values and identities in certain national, cultural and social contexts, the research will inform the development of museum and heritage exhibition/interpretation policies. In examining the agency of heritage audiences, the research will inform and facilitate the abilities of museum and heritage professionals to effectively convey messages about contentious issues or make more informed interventions into social debates.Read moreRead less
Rock Art of the Western Desert and Great Basin: long term social responses to environmental change. Rock art was integral to modern humans colonising Australia (earth's most arid continent) as well as the deserts of the USA. Major environmental changes have occurred since that initial arrival. This project will explore how rock art production changed in response to changing environment and assess whether or not lessons learnt here can be applied to arid zones globally.