New Electronic Archives for Australian Literature. Information capacity in Australian literary studies has been dramatically expanded by national investment in electronic archives, while trends in the discipline increasingly demand empirical support for claims about literary history and literary value. At the same time, research about Australian literature remains primarily theoretical, insufficiently informed by newly available data. This project aims to further enrich the new data sets, and to ....New Electronic Archives for Australian Literature. Information capacity in Australian literary studies has been dramatically expanded by national investment in electronic archives, while trends in the discipline increasingly demand empirical support for claims about literary history and literary value. At the same time, research about Australian literature remains primarily theoretical, insufficiently informed by newly available data. This project aims to further enrich the new data sets, and to use them in an innovative return to the classical issues in Australian literary criticism and history. It will provide demonstration applications of data in new electronic archives.Read moreRead less
Discovery Early Career Researcher Award - Grant ID: DE130101703
Funder
Australian Research Council
Funding Amount
$350,505.00
Summary
Mission archaeology and colonial encounters in Southern Vanuatu. The remains of Christian missions in southern Vanuatu are important heritage sites for local communities, and for their place in world history as part of one of the final frontiers of European colonialism. This project explores these sites to produce a new picture of everyday life that includes the perspectives of missionaries and native people.
Australian Laureate Fellowships - Grant ID: FL140100218
Funder
Australian Research Council
Funding Amount
$2,429,568.00
Summary
The collective biography of archaeology in the Pacific: a hidden history. The collective biography of archaeology in the Pacific: a hidden history. The project aims to establish the history of Pacific archaeology as a new sub-discipline within world archaeology, covering the period from the speculations of early explorers to the present. The often-forgotten role of Australian and New Zealand scholars will be highlighted. Pacific archaeologists, stewards of a third of the World's archaeology, hav ....The collective biography of archaeology in the Pacific: a hidden history. The collective biography of archaeology in the Pacific: a hidden history. The project aims to establish the history of Pacific archaeology as a new sub-discipline within world archaeology, covering the period from the speculations of early explorers to the present. The often-forgotten role of Australian and New Zealand scholars will be highlighted. Pacific archaeologists, stewards of a third of the World's archaeology, have forgotten so much of that history that the discipline is in a serious conceptual crisis, with current theories about the origins of Pacific peoples mired in outmoded and often racialised assumptions. At the same time, our ideas about the Pacific past are becoming internalised among indigenous Pacific Islanders. There is a need for understanding the disciplinary history in order to move theory forward.Read moreRead less
3000 Years of settlement and interaction in southern Vanuatu. This project aims to conduct an archaeological survey of Vanuatu. One of archaeology's most significant contributions is providing models for the emergence of cultural diversity through time. Vanuatu is one of the most diverse regions on Earth. The southern islands were an important hub in early settlement and long-term inter-island interactions of Island Melanesia. Yet little is known about the origins of cultural contacts and divers ....3000 Years of settlement and interaction in southern Vanuatu. This project aims to conduct an archaeological survey of Vanuatu. One of archaeology's most significant contributions is providing models for the emergence of cultural diversity through time. Vanuatu is one of the most diverse regions on Earth. The southern islands were an important hub in early settlement and long-term inter-island interactions of Island Melanesia. Yet little is known about the origins of cultural contacts and diversity in the area. A major archaeological survey of the Polynesian outliers Futuna and Aniwa and neighbouring islands Tanna and Aneityum would greatly improve our knowledge of settlement patterns, long-distance exchange, and cross-cultural interaction in the region, from initial Lapita settlement 3000 years ago through to the arrival of Christian missionaries in the 1860s.Read moreRead less
Discovery Early Career Researcher Award - Grant ID: DE130100046
Funder
Australian Research Council
Funding Amount
$374,575.00
Summary
Foundations of Island Southeast Asian maritime interaction: unravelling cause and consequence for the transformation of past societies. The successful spread of Neolithic innovations across the world was one of the most important transformations in human history. This project combines the geochemical and technological analysis of stone tools to track the evolution of maritime colonisation in Island Southeast Asia, the foundation for the success of agriculture in this region.
The archaeology of ritual architecture on the islands of Malakula, Vanuatu. This project will define the historical trajectory, function and role of ritual architecture across Malakula, Vanuatu, furnishing crucial comparative data and contributing to debates on the dynamics and manifestations of long-term social changed across the Pacific. Contemporary issues such as population growth, land and food security will be addressed.
The Nakanai Caves Cultural Heritage Project. This project aims to document and integrate the natural and cultural values of the Nakanai Caves in East New Britain, Papua New Guinea, in preparation for a cultural landscape World Heritage nomination. The project’s novel methodology incorporates community knowledge with archaeological and anthropological evidence to link natural and cultural values and define the landscape from local perspectives. Local input into the research will be prioritised. B ....The Nakanai Caves Cultural Heritage Project. This project aims to document and integrate the natural and cultural values of the Nakanai Caves in East New Britain, Papua New Guinea, in preparation for a cultural landscape World Heritage nomination. The project’s novel methodology incorporates community knowledge with archaeological and anthropological evidence to link natural and cultural values and define the landscape from local perspectives. Local input into the research will be prioritised. By emphasising local participation and management of World Heritage listing processes the project aims to address an identified gap in World Heritage methodologies. This project allows for a subtle, nuanced definition of cultural landscapes under the World Heritage Convention.Read moreRead less
Climate change in the abandonment of islands: a high-resolution case study from the tropical Pacific. Climate change in the last 1000 years is thought to have had negative environmental and societal consequences in the Pacific, particularly in Palau through the occupation and abandonment of limestone islands. This project uses high-resolution data to establish the palaeoclimate and the cultural mechanisms used to cope with climate events.
Understanding the migrations of prehistoric populations through direct dating and isotopic tracking of their mobility patterns. This project will use newly developed isotopic methods for the systematic analysis of prehistoric human remains. The assessment of their age and origins will give new insights in the timing of human evolution and the mobility of prehistoric humans in Central Europe and the Pacific.
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