Tracing change in family and social organisation in Indigenous Australia, using evidence from language. This project provides new approaches to knowing the ancient heritage of Australia and its first people through the distinctive ways in which they managed and talked about their family and social relationships. These relationships are the key to how they have survived, winning a livelihood from a difficult environment. The project has practical application in Native Title and land management, a ....Tracing change in family and social organisation in Indigenous Australia, using evidence from language. This project provides new approaches to knowing the ancient heritage of Australia and its first people through the distinctive ways in which they managed and talked about their family and social relationships. These relationships are the key to how they have survived, winning a livelihood from a difficult environment. The project has practical application in Native Title and land management, and in understanding the changes in Indigenous family structures which impact on their health and well-being. For the mainstream population too, confronted by influences destabilising the family, this study will also help us understand how and why family organization changes.Read moreRead less
The Long-term Dynamics of Higher Order social Organisation in Aboriginal Australia. The two principal aims of the project are to show: that the Holocene prehistory of Australia was dynamic, involving significant expansion and migration of language groups; and, that in such expansion, migration, and resistance to them, higher-order social groupings were formed: the ‘nations’ reported by earlier anthropology and the ‘cultural blocs’ of recent anthropology. Evidence will come from comparative lingu ....The Long-term Dynamics of Higher Order social Organisation in Aboriginal Australia. The two principal aims of the project are to show: that the Holocene prehistory of Australia was dynamic, involving significant expansion and migration of language groups; and, that in such expansion, migration, and resistance to them, higher-order social groupings were formed: the ‘nations’ reported by earlier anthropology and the ‘cultural blocs’ of recent anthropology. Evidence will come from comparative linguistics, anthropology, and the role of geography in the distribution of social groupings, principally in subtropical Eastern Australia but also in the Victoria River district and Tanami Desert, Northern Territory. This project challenges the dominant view of static Indigenous Australia pre-colonially, and will benefit Native Title anthropology.Read moreRead less
Howitt & Fison’s anthropology. Howitt & Fison’s anthropology. This project will systematically analyse nineteenth century anthropologists Lorimer Fison and A.W. Howitt’s accounts of Indigenous kinship, social organisation, and local languages, and historical encounters between settlers and Indigenous people. This project will assemble Fison and Howitt’s meticulous records into best-practice digital formats, with widely accessible interactive data presentation, and bring these extraordinary recor ....Howitt & Fison’s anthropology. Howitt & Fison’s anthropology. This project will systematically analyse nineteenth century anthropologists Lorimer Fison and A.W. Howitt’s accounts of Indigenous kinship, social organisation, and local languages, and historical encounters between settlers and Indigenous people. This project will assemble Fison and Howitt’s meticulous records into best-practice digital formats, with widely accessible interactive data presentation, and bring these extraordinary records to the broadest possible community. This research, which integrates anthropology, history and linguistics, is expected to open up new dimensions in Australian history, anthropological theory, and Australian linguistics.Read moreRead less
Inside Alice Springs: a new view of difference, division and diversity. This study of Alice Springs will shed new light on social divisions by moving beyond a black/white view of Indigenous/non-Indigenous dynamics, to understand how people also form positions and relations based on class, gender and ethnicity. It aims to create new knowledge of the forces at work in racially troubled and multi-ethnic places.
Violence, Religion and Well-being in Contemporary Burma (Myanmar): A Medical Anthropological Study of Everyday Life Under Dictatorship. For 40 years, Burma has been controlled by a military dictatorship with human rights abuses occurring daily. Terror and political violence are used as tools of repression. An in-depth ethnographic study will be conducted into the relationship between emotional/psychological distress and the violence and fear that pervades everyday Burmese life. The project will ....Violence, Religion and Well-being in Contemporary Burma (Myanmar): A Medical Anthropological Study of Everyday Life Under Dictatorship. For 40 years, Burma has been controlled by a military dictatorship with human rights abuses occurring daily. Terror and political violence are used as tools of repression. An in-depth ethnographic study will be conducted into the relationship between emotional/psychological distress and the violence and fear that pervades everyday Burmese life. The project will test the hypothesis that religion plays an important role in mediating responses to fear. No other study has been conducted of everday life under this dictatorship, or of survival strategies created to alleviate fear. Outcomes will include refereed articles, a major monograph on the subject and the development of a new methodology appropriate for aiding victims of terror and torture.Read moreRead less
Social engagement in Spiritualism. This project aims to investigate the sociological, anthropological and historical dimensions of Spiritualism in Australia, a small but highly influential religious movement. 19th century Spiritualist ideas about the afterlife have shaped many citizens’ beliefs that individual personality survives death in a family-centred spirit realm. Combining both sociological and anthropological approaches, the project will map the production and effect of belief on family, ....Social engagement in Spiritualism. This project aims to investigate the sociological, anthropological and historical dimensions of Spiritualism in Australia, a small but highly influential religious movement. 19th century Spiritualist ideas about the afterlife have shaped many citizens’ beliefs that individual personality survives death in a family-centred spirit realm. Combining both sociological and anthropological approaches, the project will map the production and effect of belief on family, civic participation and ethics. This project aims to give scholars a fuller, more accurate view of religious dynamics in Australia.Read moreRead less
Aboriginal outcomes from land claims, transfers and purchases in central Cape York Peninsula. Description and analysis of current land-ownership and land-use outcomes amongst Aboriginal people on Cape York Peninsula, moving away from a common emphasis on traditional land-ownership to focus on emergent forms of use and interest resulting from the articulation of Aboriginal and 'mainstream' land tenure and property rights. The project aims to review the outcomes of land claims, transfers and purch ....Aboriginal outcomes from land claims, transfers and purchases in central Cape York Peninsula. Description and analysis of current land-ownership and land-use outcomes amongst Aboriginal people on Cape York Peninsula, moving away from a common emphasis on traditional land-ownership to focus on emergent forms of use and interest resulting from the articulation of Aboriginal and 'mainstream' land tenure and property rights. The project aims to review the outcomes of land claims, transfers and purchases for Aboriginal groups, particularly the current and likely future outcomes for the development of local Aboriginal society and economy, and the ways in which land ownership and land use outcomes meet or fail Aboriginal aspirations.Read moreRead less
What is safe about “safe migration”? Migration management in the Mekong. The project seeks to examine the claims that new policy models make about assuring the safety of labour migrants. What is safe about safe migration? Regulation of labour migrants is a central policy concern in Asia, Australia and elsewhere. In an attempt to address anti-trafficking, several donors, United Nations agencies, nongovernment organisations and Governments have launched ‘safe migration’ programs which, rather than ....What is safe about “safe migration”? Migration management in the Mekong. The project seeks to examine the claims that new policy models make about assuring the safety of labour migrants. What is safe about safe migration? Regulation of labour migrants is a central policy concern in Asia, Australia and elsewhere. In an attempt to address anti-trafficking, several donors, United Nations agencies, nongovernment organisations and Governments have launched ‘safe migration’ programs which, rather than focusing solely on the legal status of migrants, seek to develop mechanisms (eg hotline numbers) to assure their safety. This research examines the claims of safety that this shift from anti-trafficking to safe migration has engendered, and whether and in what terms labour migrants might be consequently safer’. Project results may inform aid programs and government policies.Read moreRead less
Intercommunal and Translocal Space in Fairfield: Tracking Indochinese Australian Lives. While providing important socio-cultural information about Lao, Cambodian and Vietnamese communities in western Sydney, this project takes an innovative approach to the study of 'minority' communities in multicultural societies. By locating itself at the points of contact between communities, the proposed research recognises that subjects are often members of multiple social groups, and that they shift back a ....Intercommunal and Translocal Space in Fairfield: Tracking Indochinese Australian Lives. While providing important socio-cultural information about Lao, Cambodian and Vietnamese communities in western Sydney, this project takes an innovative approach to the study of 'minority' communities in multicultural societies. By locating itself at the points of contact between communities, the proposed research recognises that subjects are often members of multiple social groups, and that they shift back and forth across their boundaries. Such a perspective enables one to avoid the fallacy of locating 'the multicultural' in minority subjects/cultures, and thus 'multicultural problems' within particular 'problem communities'. Rather, it situates the multicultural in the interstices between 'mainstream' and 'minority' AustraliaRead 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.