Singing the News: Ballads as News Media in Europe and Australia, 1550-1920. This project aims to take advantage of new digitisation projects to reveal how songs in premodern Europe and later in Australia were used for disseminating news to the public. By analysing ballads across four centuries and five languages, the project expects to show how news-songs not only informed the public but also helped to forge national identities by exploiting the emotive and communal nature of song. Expected outc ....Singing the News: Ballads as News Media in Europe and Australia, 1550-1920. This project aims to take advantage of new digitisation projects to reveal how songs in premodern Europe and later in Australia were used for disseminating news to the public. By analysing ballads across four centuries and five languages, the project expects to show how news-songs not only informed the public but also helped to forge national identities by exploiting the emotive and communal nature of song. Expected outcomes include an innovative digital platform offering licensed recordings of ballads, a public exhibition of song treasures in Australian collections, and a re-written history of the news media industry. Benefits may include new insights into how the modern notion of Australian national identity emerged through song.Read moreRead less
The Economics of Birds: Colonial Australia's Relationship to Native Species. This project aims to produce the first comprehensive analysis of native bird species in the cultural, scientific, and economic life of colonial Australia. It expects to generate new knowledge about Australia’s environmental imagination, identity and practices locally, nationally and globally. Anticipated outcomes include new insights into the circulation, cultural meanings and uses of species and species knowledge and t ....The Economics of Birds: Colonial Australia's Relationship to Native Species. This project aims to produce the first comprehensive analysis of native bird species in the cultural, scientific, and economic life of colonial Australia. It expects to generate new knowledge about Australia’s environmental imagination, identity and practices locally, nationally and globally. Anticipated outcomes include new insights into the circulation, cultural meanings and uses of species and species knowledge and the tensions between enchantment and pragmatism in creative, affective and material responses to birdlife. This should significantly benefit understandings of Australia’s past and present by mapping its historical relationships to bird species and producing new insights into the pressing ecological concerns of today. Read moreRead less
Representing, Debating & Protesting the Nation: The Visual Legacy of Sport. Pictures of lifesavers, cricketers, footballers, and so many others have frequently been used to represent Australia to itself and the world, while other sporting images have sparked national debates about racism, and sexism. Yet there has been no broad study of the impact and legacies of Australian sporting iconography. This history will use sporting images to enrich understandings of Australia's past and present, and i ....Representing, Debating & Protesting the Nation: The Visual Legacy of Sport. Pictures of lifesavers, cricketers, footballers, and so many others have frequently been used to represent Australia to itself and the world, while other sporting images have sparked national debates about racism, and sexism. Yet there has been no broad study of the impact and legacies of Australian sporting iconography. This history will use sporting images to enrich understandings of Australia's past and present, and in particular the roles that sport plays in shaping national pride, passions, concerns, and movements for social change. The project will lead to a major exhibition, and will also develop innovative digital education resources that assist the teaching of history to primary and secondary school students throughout Australia.Read moreRead less
Submerged cultural landscapes and the underwater heritage of Sea Country. This project aims to substantially extend our knowledge of the vast but poorly characterised submerged cultural landscapes on the Australian continental shelf, which remains one of the critical gaps in Australian archaeology. Original fieldwork will target locations in Western Australia and the Northern Territory to enrich and contextualise the submerged archaeological record within the broader discourse. The project will ....Submerged cultural landscapes and the underwater heritage of Sea Country. This project aims to substantially extend our knowledge of the vast but poorly characterised submerged cultural landscapes on the Australian continental shelf, which remains one of the critical gaps in Australian archaeology. Original fieldwork will target locations in Western Australia and the Northern Territory to enrich and contextualise the submerged archaeological record within the broader discourse. The project will combine archaeology, marine science and Indigenous knowledge to enhance our understanding of Pleistocene and early Holocene human-environment dynamics. Research will be undertaken in partnership with Traditional Owners and will support a national policy for the protection of Indigenous underwater cultural heritage.Read moreRead less
Dead Heart Beating? Landscape, Climate and People in Desert Australia. This project aims to undertake the first detailed investigation of the archaeology, landscape history and paleoenvironment of dryland lakes in the Simpson, Strzelecki and Stuart Stony Deserts in Central Australia. Using cutting edge methods, the project expects to discover new archaeological sites, provide a new climate record for inland Australia and develop innovative new analytical and field techniques. Expected benefits a ....Dead Heart Beating? Landscape, Climate and People in Desert Australia. This project aims to undertake the first detailed investigation of the archaeology, landscape history and paleoenvironment of dryland lakes in the Simpson, Strzelecki and Stuart Stony Deserts in Central Australia. Using cutting edge methods, the project expects to discover new archaeological sites, provide a new climate record for inland Australia and develop innovative new analytical and field techniques. Expected benefits also include the development of new cutting-edge methodologies for the investigation of Australian desert landscapes, comprehensive baseline data of how this region has evolved prior to European colonization and resolving why no Pleistocene aged archaeological sites have been found in the region.Read moreRead less
Resonant histories of musical encounter in Australia. This project aims to understand Australia’s cultural past by situating histories of musical encounter in the nation's Oceanic location and colonial history. Underpinned by multi-sensory conceptual frameworks, it aims to apply collaborative, intercultural and interdisciplinary approaches drawing on historical, musicological and ethnographic methods to reveal musical encounters as sites for understanding Australian history. Focusing on a format ....Resonant histories of musical encounter in Australia. This project aims to understand Australia’s cultural past by situating histories of musical encounter in the nation's Oceanic location and colonial history. Underpinned by multi-sensory conceptual frameworks, it aims to apply collaborative, intercultural and interdisciplinary approaches drawing on historical, musicological and ethnographic methods to reveal musical encounters as sites for understanding Australian history. Focusing on a formational period, 1888-1988, the project expects to generate new knowledge about Australian musical institutions, sites and intercultural encounters and aims to have benefits for the diversification of curricula, and implications for Australian cultural policy.Read moreRead less
Spare parts: the cultural history of organ transplantation. Organ transplantation is of considerable contemporary concern to Australians. Despite decades of campaigns seeking organ donors, this country has one of the world's lowest donation rates. This study will explore how this situation arose and offer a new understanding of the factors that impinge upon people's perceptions of transplantation.
Divergent pathways to tropical agriculture in Australasia and Wallacea. The project aims to address a major question in world archaeology: why did some people develop agriculture, while others did not? It plans to establish plant macrofossil and microfossil reference collections for three wet tropical regions: highland Papua New Guinea, Moluccas in eastern Indonesia, and western Arnhem Land in Australia. It then plans to use previously excavated archaeobotanical assemblages to establish robust p ....Divergent pathways to tropical agriculture in Australasia and Wallacea. The project aims to address a major question in world archaeology: why did some people develop agriculture, while others did not? It plans to establish plant macrofossil and microfossil reference collections for three wet tropical regions: highland Papua New Guinea, Moluccas in eastern Indonesia, and western Arnhem Land in Australia. It then plans to use previously excavated archaeobotanical assemblages to establish robust plant-use chronologies for these regions. In this way, the project seeks to develop capacity for tropical archaeobotany within Australia and to revolutionise concepts of plant exploitation, domestication and cultivation in tropical Australasia and Wallacea during the Holocene (last c.11 500 years).Read moreRead less
Reform in the antipodes: Quaker humanitarians, imperial journeys and early histories of human rights. This study adds an important new chapter to the history of human rights by examining Quaker humanitarian tours to the antipodean colonies of Australia, Mauritius, and the Cape Colony, which led to major imperial reforms in the treatment of slaves, Indigenous peoples, convicts and indentured labourers in the British Empire.
Resolving fundamental problems in the dating of marine shell in the tropics. This project will model variability in the way carbon is distributed in marine environments and animals in tropical Australasia. Results will provide key enabling tools for accurate dating of marine materials, realising the potential of previous research and forming the basis for accurate reconstructions of cultural, sea-level and climate changed.