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Seeking the state: Incorporating the state on the Cocos (Keeling) Islands. This study will provide significant theoretical insight into the functioning of the state both regionally and internationally by providing a local perspective on how Cocos Malays bring the state into their daily lives. Because they lie between Indonesia and Northwest Australia, the Cocos Islands play an important role in Australia's defence, security, and quarantine interests. The Malays residing there constitute an impor ....Seeking the state: Incorporating the state on the Cocos (Keeling) Islands. This study will provide significant theoretical insight into the functioning of the state both regionally and internationally by providing a local perspective on how Cocos Malays bring the state into their daily lives. Because they lie between Indonesia and Northwest Australia, the Cocos Islands play an important role in Australia's defence, security, and quarantine interests. The Malays residing there constitute an important minority and one of Australia's oldest Islamic communities. This project is a fieldwork-based analysis of the way community members negotiate their identity as Australian citizens and Malay Muslims in relation to the state.Read moreRead less
Outside-Domestication: towards an anthropology of the spaces of negotiated being. All institutions today encourage innovation. Yet the word is not mentioned anywhere in the world when it comes to ethnic relations policy. This project looks at spaces of social relations that fall outside state rule. Rather than seeing them as a threat we examine if they offer material for a much-needed innovative inter-cultural politics.
Engendering climate change, reframing futures in Oceania. This project aims, through ethnography, textual and visual analysis to research the interaction between indigenous and introduced knowledge and experience of climate change. The project will highlight indigenous knowledge, agency and future visions in everyday lives and politics.
Business-Local State Relationships in China. This project will ethnographically examine the evolving institutions of Chinese capitalism through a focus on business-government interactions in three mid-sized factories. At each site, approval has been obtained for in-depth research access. The project will lead to a book and a series of articles about the evolving policy environment in which local governments interact with entrepreneurs and the counter-strategies entrepreneurs adopt. Debates about ....Business-Local State Relationships in China. This project will ethnographically examine the evolving institutions of Chinese capitalism through a focus on business-government interactions in three mid-sized factories. At each site, approval has been obtained for in-depth research access. The project will lead to a book and a series of articles about the evolving policy environment in which local governments interact with entrepreneurs and the counter-strategies entrepreneurs adopt. Debates about the emergence of the rule of law in China will be addressed.Read moreRead less
Discovery Early Career Researcher Award - Grant ID: DE210100496
Funder
Australian Research Council
Funding Amount
$446,291.00
Summary
Standardising Halal: interpreting the tension between global and local. This project aims to advance understanding of how halal standardisation has been reimagined in the context of global Muslim cultural diversity. It investigates the halal cultural economy—finance, food, travel, fashion, media, and cosmetics—in Malaysia and Indonesia. Using innovative interdisciplinary approaches, in particular anthropology and Islamic textual analysis, this project expects to generate a new level of understan ....Standardising Halal: interpreting the tension between global and local. This project aims to advance understanding of how halal standardisation has been reimagined in the context of global Muslim cultural diversity. It investigates the halal cultural economy—finance, food, travel, fashion, media, and cosmetics—in Malaysia and Indonesia. Using innovative interdisciplinary approaches, in particular anthropology and Islamic textual analysis, this project expects to generate a new level of understanding of halal industries. Expected outcomes include identifying major players and unpacking local cultural responses to the global move to homogenise halal practices. Australia is the world’s second-largest halal food exporter: this research should benefit its businesses’ expansion into contemporary halal industries.Read moreRead less
Cultural values, birth and parenting: Reproductive health and Lao socialism. This project aims to provide an anthropology of procreation and parenting through ethnography of the Government of Laos’ Reproductive, Maternal, Newborn, and Child Health rollout as well as everyday reproduction in rural and remote Laos. It expects to generate new knowledge of core values in Laos, including those underpinning official treatment of children as human capital, difference as deprivation, and mother-and-chil ....Cultural values, birth and parenting: Reproductive health and Lao socialism. This project aims to provide an anthropology of procreation and parenting through ethnography of the Government of Laos’ Reproductive, Maternal, Newborn, and Child Health rollout as well as everyday reproduction in rural and remote Laos. It expects to generate new knowledge of core values in Laos, including those underpinning official treatment of children as human capital, difference as deprivation, and mother-and-child biomedical care as universal, as well as the (counter-)values lived in rural and remote practices, knowledge and sentiments. Anticipated benefits include advanced understandings of Lao culture and society, socialism as it articulates with international health and economic agendas, and the anthropology of human flourishing.Read moreRead less
Barriers and pathways to development of Indigenous traditional medicines. This project aims to explore how Australian regulatory systems can better support Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Traditional Knowledge (TK) holders to commercialise their traditional medicines. Focusing on the mudjala plant and working with the Kimberley’s Nyikina people, the project should generate new anthropological methods for documenting TK related to traditional medicine, new models for regulating traditional ....Barriers and pathways to development of Indigenous traditional medicines. This project aims to explore how Australian regulatory systems can better support Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Traditional Knowledge (TK) holders to commercialise their traditional medicines. Focusing on the mudjala plant and working with the Kimberley’s Nyikina people, the project should generate new anthropological methods for documenting TK related to traditional medicine, new models for regulating traditional medicinal products, and pharmacological insights into traditional methods of activating the plant. Additional expected outcomes include unlocking the significant, untapped potential for Indigenous Australians to benefit from the development of traditional medicine products regulated by the Therapeutic Goods Administration.Read moreRead less
The application and consequences of e-governance for India’s fight against urban poverty. This project studies the deployment of biometric registration and social data bases for the delivery of welfare in India. It examines how social processes, local cultures and survival strategies shape these initiatives. What can be learned from the implementation phase of these path-finding social security schemes in third world conditions?
Discovery Early Career Researcher Award - Grant ID: DE180100622
Funder
Australian Research Council
Funding Amount
$360,756.00
Summary
Welfare entrepreneurs and paradoxes of social control in rural China. This project aims to examine how non-state welfare systems run by local private entrepreneurs affect power relationships in contemporary rural China. Combining humanistic and social science approaches, the project expects to generate new knowledge about how welfare policies and practices interact with or develop alongside institutions of social control. Expected research outcomes include new empirical data on informal politica ....Welfare entrepreneurs and paradoxes of social control in rural China. This project aims to examine how non-state welfare systems run by local private entrepreneurs affect power relationships in contemporary rural China. Combining humanistic and social science approaches, the project expects to generate new knowledge about how welfare policies and practices interact with or develop alongside institutions of social control. Expected research outcomes include new empirical data on informal political processes and institutional development in post-Socialist economies. This will enhance the basis for scholarly theory and provide commercial and governmental organisations with the information and conceptual tools to accurately assess the priorities of their Chinese partners, competitors, or counterparts.Read moreRead less
Pintupi Dialogues: reconstructing memories of art, land and community through the visual record. The issue of Indigenous access to and control of material relating to their life and culture in museums and archives is alive and contentious. Indigenous people are increasingly seeking repatriation of such materials and/or to draw on them to create community histories and to assist in meeting the challenges modernisation poses for cultural reproduction. This project contributes directly to empower ....Pintupi Dialogues: reconstructing memories of art, land and community through the visual record. The issue of Indigenous access to and control of material relating to their life and culture in museums and archives is alive and contentious. Indigenous people are increasingly seeking repatriation of such materials and/or to draw on them to create community histories and to assist in meeting the challenges modernisation poses for cultural reproduction. This project contributes directly to empowering Indigenous people in relation to the archive and in so doing contributing to the consolidation of positive relations between them and such institutions. This is a contribution to reconciliation. Archives are created for national benefit and this project will also value add to it through content enrichment.Read moreRead less