Indigenous heritage: working ancient wetlands for social benefit and cultural understanding. This research will answer important theoretical and practical questions about Aboriginal community engagement with Heritage research. It will generate significant archaeological outcomes on the nature of Indigenous occupation in ancient eastern Australian landscapes, and this research will also improve the employability of young Aboriginal people.
A study of Indigenous art in settled Australia. This project will assemble the first comprehensive data on Indigenous artists who operate outside the areas of Central and Northern Australia generally regarded as the heartlands of Indigenous arts. Its findings may have implications for Indigenous arts funding policies but will be primarily concerned with the task of mapping the artistic landscape of the nation. Apart from the benefits for the participants, for Indigenous and Australian art schola ....A study of Indigenous art in settled Australia. This project will assemble the first comprehensive data on Indigenous artists who operate outside the areas of Central and Northern Australia generally regarded as the heartlands of Indigenous arts. Its findings may have implications for Indigenous arts funding policies but will be primarily concerned with the task of mapping the artistic landscape of the nation. Apart from the benefits for the participants, for Indigenous and Australian art scholarship, and for more soundly based Indigenous arts industry research, the project will help dismantle entrenched attitudes in non-Indigenous Australia against Indigenous people in 'non-remote' Australian society.Read moreRead less
A reliable absolute chronology for the Aboriginal rock art in the Kimberley, Western Australia. The Aboriginal rock art in the Kimberley region of Western Australia is an internationally significant record of human occupation and cultural evolution. This project will determine the antiquity of human expression in one of the richest (and possibly the oldest) rock art regions in the world using advanced analytical techniques.
The Politics of Moral Order: How Peripheralised Communities are Made and Masked. The focus of this research is two peripheralised communities, one in Central Australia, and the other Kingston, Jamaica. It will analyse their anomalous economies, the welfare economy in Central Australia and the drug economy in downtown Kingston, in order to demonstrate how cultural difference and disprivilege are masked by a politics of moral order. The project will therefore explore a central feature of modernity ....The Politics of Moral Order: How Peripheralised Communities are Made and Masked. The focus of this research is two peripheralised communities, one in Central Australia, and the other Kingston, Jamaica. It will analyse their anomalous economies, the welfare economy in Central Australia and the drug economy in downtown Kingston, in order to demonstrate how cultural difference and disprivilege are masked by a politics of moral order. The project will therefore explore a central feature of modernity and demonstrate striking structural parallels, both mythic and social, at sites with different histories and cultures.Read moreRead less
A history of Aboriginal Sydney since 1788. This project will illustrate the complex nature and history of Sydney's Indigenous population. Striking benefits will flow from tracing the historical relationships between the non-Indigenous and Indigenous peoples of the region, particularly in mutual understanding. Reconciliation cannot take place without a full understanding of how the first inhabitants and the newcomers have interacted for more than 200 years. Mutual comprehension will help to build ....A history of Aboriginal Sydney since 1788. This project will illustrate the complex nature and history of Sydney's Indigenous population. Striking benefits will flow from tracing the historical relationships between the non-Indigenous and Indigenous peoples of the region, particularly in mutual understanding. Reconciliation cannot take place without a full understanding of how the first inhabitants and the newcomers have interacted for more than 200 years. Mutual comprehension will help to build healthy, productive and fulfilling Aboriginal lives. A comprehending and cohesive Australia will be all the stronger to tackle complex social issues within and outside our national borders.
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The NSW Aborigines Protection/Welfare Board 1883-1969: A History. Between 1883 and 1967 the lives of Aboriginal people in New South Wales (NSW) were in the hands of the NSW Aborigines Protection/Welfare Board. The impact of the Board's systematic control over Aboriginal communities through policies of segregation, assimilation, child removal and wage withholding would endure for decades, and the negative results of those government directives are still being seen today. To date, however, no subs ....The NSW Aborigines Protection/Welfare Board 1883-1969: A History. Between 1883 and 1967 the lives of Aboriginal people in New South Wales (NSW) were in the hands of the NSW Aborigines Protection/Welfare Board. The impact of the Board's systematic control over Aboriginal communities through policies of segregation, assimilation, child removal and wage withholding would endure for decades, and the negative results of those government directives are still being seen today. To date, however, no substantive history of the NSW Aborigines Protection/Welfare Board exists. This project aims to provide such a history, based on extensive archival and oral history research. Holding critical importance to NSW Aboriginal communities, the project expects to encourage the development of Indigenous historians in the process.Read moreRead less
Rethinking the Victim: Gendered Violence in Australian Women's Writing. This project, the first to examine gendered violence in Australian literature, argues that literary texts by Australian women writers offer unique ways of understanding the social problem of gendered violence, bringing this often private and suppressed issue into the public sphere. It draws on the international field of violence studies to investigate how these writers challenge the victim paradigm and figure women's agencie ....Rethinking the Victim: Gendered Violence in Australian Women's Writing. This project, the first to examine gendered violence in Australian literature, argues that literary texts by Australian women writers offer unique ways of understanding the social problem of gendered violence, bringing this often private and suppressed issue into the public sphere. It draws on the international field of violence studies to investigate how these writers challenge the victim paradigm and figure women's agencies. By including white, Indigenous and minority women writers in its case studies, and by interviewing selected writers, it will shed new light on the role of gendered violence in the diverse and interconnected cultural histories of the nation, and will significantly extend the parameters of the Australian literary canon.Read moreRead less
When the Waters Will Be One: Indigenous Performance Traditions at the New Frontier of Inter-Cultural Discourse in Arnhem Land. This project will examine the emerging roles of Indigenous performance traditions from Arnhem Land as fulcra for the strategic development of new discourses between peoples of the region and the international community. The adaptation of music and dance traditions to new media and performance contexts will be considered as will the hereditary intellectual paradigms that ....When the Waters Will Be One: Indigenous Performance Traditions at the New Frontier of Inter-Cultural Discourse in Arnhem Land. This project will examine the emerging roles of Indigenous performance traditions from Arnhem Land as fulcra for the strategic development of new discourses between peoples of the region and the international community. The adaptation of music and dance traditions to new media and performance contexts will be considered as will the hereditary intellectual paradigms that underpin these processes. This project will also investigate historical antecedents to these new developments within the past 50 years, and explore their centrality to current attempts by Indigenous communities in Arnhem Land to achieve cultural and economic sustainability amid a continuing period of radical social change.Read moreRead less
An ecological study of school transition and the early years of school for Aboriginal children in an urban community. Reducing the gap in educational outcomes between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal Australians is critical. Information is lacking on early education experiences of urban Aboriginal children. This research will explore urban Aboriginal children’s early school experiences and provide information on the early life factors that support positive outcomes.
Goolarabooloo Culture of the Western Kimberley. With the prospect of new industries, starting with a major gas plant, the Indigenous population of Broome finds itself under pressure and internally divided. The group to be studied here, Goolarabooloo, is opposed to mining on their Dreaming. Their struggle has had the effect of reviving forms of culture, that take contemporary shape, but are always strongly linked to the traditional culture. With national and international attention focussed on Go ....Goolarabooloo Culture of the Western Kimberley. With the prospect of new industries, starting with a major gas plant, the Indigenous population of Broome finds itself under pressure and internally divided. The group to be studied here, Goolarabooloo, is opposed to mining on their Dreaming. Their struggle has had the effect of reviving forms of culture, that take contemporary shape, but are always strongly linked to the traditional culture. With national and international attention focussed on Goolarabooloo, this study will analyse the transformation of this confederacy of language groups in the context of industrialisation and tourism. The output will be a first in ethnographic documentation of this culture, first recorded by Daisy Bates in 1901.Read moreRead less