Recent Researchers

Angelique is a Doctoral candidate from the Centre for Cross Cultural Research at ANU in Canberra whose research centres on south East Arnhem Land.

She lived in Ngukurr (south east Arnhem) from March 2004, and was based at NARU from November 2004 through to the end of November 2005. In March 2007 she submitted her PhD thesis, which concerns the impact that sedentary life has had on people's relationship to country in the Roper River area.

The Roper River Mission was established in 1908 and Aboriginal people from seven different language groups in the surrounding region sought refuge from pastoralist hunting parties through association with the mission.

Angelique's research concerned the way the built environment was used to re-order and structure people's lives according to the 'civilising' objectives of the mission and the government administration that followed it. Angelique is trained as an architect and thus her interest in the topic is informed by understanding the impact that the sedentary living environment imposed by the colonisers had and continues to have on Aboriginal people in the Roper Region.

• Centre for Cross Cultural Research

Department of Anthropology
Faculty of Arts, Australian National University
PhD Candidate

Pauline lived in Docker River, 800 km south-west of Alice Springs in the Western Desert, where she undertook research for her doctoral thesis, 'Youth Identity and Intergenerational Relations at Docker River'.

Older Aboriginal children, or Aboriginal youth, are conspicuously represented as teenage mothers, dope smokers, petrol sniffers, binge drinkers, criminals and suicide victims. They are commonly equated in popular consciousness with poor levels of literacy, employment and health, and for their increasingly high incidences of substance misuse, violence and incarceration.

Based on anthropological research with young people at Docker River, a community 800km south west of Alice in Pitjantjatjara country, Pauline's research seeks to penetrate beyond such one dimensional representations to look at how identity is constituted and shaped by interactions of youth among themselves, but also with others within their world.

This research seeks to explore the lived experience of Pitjantjatjara youth. It involves a thorough and detailed examination of how youth identity is constituted and shaped by interactions of youth among themselves, but also with others within their world. This includes the consideration of relationships of importance, and the elucidation of forms of behaviour and belief, which appear to shape

Pitjantjatjara youth identity. Whilst this will consist of an emphasis on the experiential domain of youth, this research will seek to explore to what extent the behaviour and consciousness of youth is the recognition of shared articulations of being, flowing from the encompassing rubric of kin relatedness.

Pauline was based at NARU during the first half of 2006. With a new arrival into her family, she has returned to the ACT, where, after a break on Maternity Leave, she will continue writing up her Thesis.

• Anthropology, ANU

PhD Student
Centre for Aboriginal Economic Policy Research(CAEPR)
Australian National University
North Australia Research Unit (NARU) Darwin
Ph (08) 8920 9979

Bill Fogarty is a PhD candidate at the Centre for Aboriginal Economic Policy Research (CAEPR) at the Australian National University. Bill has completed a Masters in Applied Anthropology and Development (ANU) and has most recently been working as a research assistant at CAEPR. He has 9 years experience in Indigenous Education and policy, the bulk of this working with the Kuninjku, Djinang, Burarra, Kune and Rembarrnga peoples in the Homelands surrounding Maningrida in Arnhemland. His research interests include Indigenous education, literature, Indigenous art, customary based land management, CDEP and fisheries.

Bill is currently an APA (I) on the ARC Linkage Project ' Custom-based land and resource management and the educational and social re-engagement of Indigenous youth in the Northern Territory'. This research is being conducted with the Northern Land Council (NLC), Bawinanga Aboriginal Corporation (BAC) and the Northern Territory Department of Education Employment and Training (NT DEET) as industry partners.

• CAEPR

PhD Candidate
Tourism for Healthy Futures
University of Western Sydney

Jasmine is a PhD student with the Tourism for Healthy Futures team at the University of Western Sydney. Jasmine was based at NARU from July 2005 through to the end of January 2006, and has now moved to Canberra to continue working on her research. With an interest in the relationships between people, place and interpretation, she is examining the way meanings and stories about Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park are understood, reflected and created by people who visit the Park. Working with the Park and Anangu, the traditional owners of the Park, the research process more specifically documents and examines a fascinating phenomenon occurring in the Park in which visitors are returning rocks and sand previously taken from the Park. The research is being undertaken jointly with Parks Australia and Anangu in an effort to understand the social and cultural significance of this phenomenon and options for managing and interpreting the phenomenon in the future. Jasmine has a research background in environmental management, sustainable tourism and heritage interpretation. She has also undertaken work on various interpretation and environmental education projects in Tasmania, New South Wales, the Northern Territory and Canada. During the course of her research she is committed to delivering practical outcomes for heritage interpretation and cultural landscape management. She is also eager to challenge and build on current approaches to heritage interpretation theory and practice in Australia.

Ph: (08) 8981 2077 (H)
(08) 8999 5182 (W)

Helen was based at NARU through October and November 2006, whilst writing her honours thesis titled Xanadu in Kakadu.

Her research project looked at two significant rock art sites Balaúru and Djuwarr I in the Deaf Adder Creek area of Kakadu National Park to compare the documentation in relation to these sites by Brandl, Chaloupka, Jones and Lindner from 1970s until 1980s, by Parks Australia North staff during the 1990s, with the documentation taken in 2005 and 2006 as part of her fieldwork. Helen's aim was to evaluate and determine if any visible damage has occurred to the paintings at Balaúru and Djuwarr I over a period of 38 years. The research measured what other factors may have impacted on the sites such as the depopulation of the area, a change in fire regimes and the removal of buffaloes.

During the late 1980s and early 1990s there was a Rock Art Management Program for the sites by the Parks Australia North team, but that program was suspended in late 1990s. Helen’s research has been exploring the consequences for the conservation and management of the rock art of Balaúru and Djuwarr 1 in the unique region of Deaf Adder Creek Valley.

Allan Marett

Professor of Musicology, University of Sydney
Adjunct Professor, School of Australian Indigenous
Knowledge Systems, Charles Darwin University

Linda Barwick

Associate Professor, Sydney Conservatorium of Music,
University of Sydney Director, Pacific and Regional
Archive for Digital Sources in Endangered Cultures
(PARADISEC)

Based at NARU from March to June 2007
Tel: (08) 8920 9976

Allan and Linda are musicologists working on a number of projects on indigenous Australian song, in collaboration with research teams including linguists Michael Walsh, Nicholas Reid, Lysbeth Ford, Joe Blythe, Nicholas Evans, Murray Garde and Isabel Bickerdike.

The ARC-funded Murriny Patha Song project aims to produce authoritative, thorough and archivally sound documentation of one of Australia's most significant indigenous song traditions, the public dance songs performed and owned by Murriny Patha-speaking people at Wadeye (formerly known as Port Keats), a remote Aboriginal community located southwest of Darwin. The principal genres of Murriny Patha song performed at Wadeye today are Djanba, Wurltjirri and Malgarrin. It is at the urging of the senior Murriny Patha elders at Wadeye that we are undertaking this intensive research on their unique repertories of songs (2004-2008).

The Western Arnhem Land Song project, funded from 2006-2009 by the Hans Rausing Endangered Languages Project, based in London focuses on Western Arnhem Land, which has many rich but endangered traditions of public song, especially in the individually composed didjeridu-accompanied kun-borrk genre, whose song-texts are usually in cryptic but comprehensible forms of one or more of the local languages. As well as recording and documenting contemporary performances of kun-borrk and other relevant public song genres of the area, we are locating, repatriating, and documenting archival recordings. It is anticipated that the project will produce a corpus of up to 500 song texts, with linguistic glossing, free translations, musical annotation, and linguistic and musicological analysis. We are also recording and annotating discussions surrounding songs, both during performances, and in the ensuing song documentation sessions.

• Murriny Patha Song project
• Hans Rausing Endangered Languages Project

Based at NARU from November 2005 to the end of April 2006.

PhD Candidate
School of Botany and Zoology
ANU

Golo, a PhD Candidate with the School of Botany and Zoology, was based at NARU from November 2005 to the end of April 2006, and submitted his Thesis in October 2006. His interests are evolutionary and behavioural ecology, and his research focuses on sexual selection theory, the evolution of avian mating systems and the begging behaviour in birds. The subject of Golo's PhD was Ecology and Evolution of sex role reversal in the pheasant coucal( Centropus phasianinus). In his PhD he sought ecological and evolutionary explanations for the extraordinary breeding biology of the pheasant coucal. Pheasant coucals are residents of Australia, New Guinea and Timor and unlike other members of the cuckoo family (Cuculidae) build their own nests and care for their young themselves. They are also unique among birds in having extensive parental care but with sex roles opposite to the usual pattern in birds. In coucals, males incubate the eggs and provide most parental care and females compete with each other to gain access to males. Golo's study identified the ecological conditions that lead to the evolution of these two exceptional behaviours.

• School of Botany and Zoology
• Personal Website

First year at ANU: 1999
BA(Hons) Victoria University of Wellington, 1996

Research Interests: Discourses of development, and the construction of both 'professional' and 'beneficiary' subjects within discursive practices of development professionals in Northern Thailand

Thesis title: Locating Post-Development Subjects: discourses of intervention and identification in the highlands of northern Thailand.

During 2004 Katherine was based at NARU, and in 2005 was awarded her Doctorate.

Charles Darwin University
Darwin NT 0909
Based at NARU from October to December 2006
Tel:08-8920 9975

Kristin’s thesis topic, the Biological Diversity, Recovery from Disturbance and Rehabilitation of Mangroves, Darwin Harbour, NT builds on over 20 years experience in research and scientific studies in mangrove environments in Darwin Harbour commencing with work conducted with Dr John Chappell and Dr Colin Woodroffe during the early 1980’s.

This thesis topic is designed to address a number of major information gaps in our knowledge of these important habitats, inspired by nearly two decades working in mangrove environments of the Darwin regions.

Frances Morphy
Research Fellow
Centre for Aboriginal Economic Policy Research
Australian National University
ACT 0200
BSc.(UCL), MPhil (London) MA (ANU)
02-62530361
02-61254880

Howard Morphy
Director
Centre for Cross-Cultural Research
Australian National University
ACT 0200
BSc (UCL), MPhil (London), PhD (ANU)
02-61253395
02-62530361

Howard and Frances Morphy have been undertaking research in the Yirrkala/Blue Mud Bay area for over thirty years. From July to October 2006, they continued research into the social organisation, language and art of the Yolngu people of northeast Arnhem Land.

Working jointly and separately on a number of projects that continue their previous long-term research in the region, they were based at NARU writing up research.

Frances Morphy's main two projects are the ARC funded linkage grant funded research on the conduct of the 2006 census in Indigenous communities, and the continuation of her research on the governance of Indigenous organisations. The census project arises out of Frances’s work monitoring aspects of the previous census and is designed to produce improved statistical data on Indigenous communities in the more remote regions of Australia. Her governance project is both investigative and action based research, and has already helped facilitate improvements in the structure of one of the main regional community organisations.

Whilst at NARU, Howard Morphy completed his book on Yolngu art and global processes of art creation and finished the research for his biography of Narritjin Maymuru. Howard Morphy's research will be of benefit to northern Australian communities in adding to knowledge of Indigenous art and its relationship to the global art market. Indirectly it is likely to facilitate the global marketing of Aboriginal art by adding to global discourse on the topic and contributing to Aboriginal art history. The biography of Narritjin Maymuru is being produced in close collaboration with his surviving and expanding family and when completed will enable Narritjin’s outstanding achievements to be more widely recognised, and his motivations for engaging in the way he did with Australia and global art-worlds better understood.

PhD Candidate in the Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies
Australian National University.
Phone: 07 5533 2156

Ray is currently Director of the Central Wisconsin Archaeology Centre, University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point and a Researcher with the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies as well as a PhD scholar with the Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies, ANU.

Ray and his wife Laurie undertook a four-year rock-art recording project centred in the Victoria River section of Gregory National Park NT; they are also conducting related archaeological survey work on Bradshaw Station. During 2004 and 2005 they spent time based at NARU.

To date 103 rock art locations have been mapped and comprehensively recorded within Gregory National Park. Significant ethnographic material related to specific motifs and Dreaming locales was provided by Indigenous custodians from Karrangpurru, Nungali/Ngaliwuru and Wardaman language groups. Ongoing analysis and documentation of over 2000 rock art motifs continues.

An annotated appendix along with over 8000 digital images related to rock art locations and Aboriginal custodians has been archived with AIATSIS, Canberra ACT.

Ray will complete his PhD in 2007

Phone: 02 - 6125 0516

Benedict is a PhD Candidate in the Centre for Aboriginal Economic Policy Research at the ANU.

He graduated with a BA in Anthropology and Ethnomusicology from Monash University in 1987, and subsequently completed an honours year in Anthropology at the Charles Darwin University. Benedict worked as an anthropologist at the Northern Land Council in Darwin for approximately eleven years and was involved initially in land claim research under the Aboriginal Land Rights (NT) Act 1976, and later as the coordinator of anthropological research in support of native title claims. Benedict is currently an APA (I) on the ARC Linkage Project 'Indigenous community organisations and miners: Partnering sustainable regional development?' He left NARU in early 2006 to return to Canberra to continue work on this Project.

Centre for Aboriginal and Economic Policy Research (CAEPR),
ANU

Diane Smith is a Fellow with the Centre for Aboriginal Economic Policy Research (CAEPR) at the Australian National University. Up until the middle of 2006 Diane was based full-time at NARU in Darwin. She has now returned to teaching and other activities at the ANU, but will continue to be a regular visitor to the NARU campus. With a professional background in anthropology, Diane has policy-relevant research experience in Indigenous affairs spanning nearly 30 years, including extensive periods of fieldwork with Indigenous communities and organisations in remote, rural and urban locations.

Diane has a long-term research involvement in the Northern Territory, having worked with various communities, organisations and agencies. Some of her recent research has focused on: developing prototype models for community participation agreements and service delivery frameworks (at Mutitjulu); assessing the effectiveness of government welfare reform, service delivery and policy via community-based case studies at Yuendumu (NT) and Kuranda (Qld); analysis of factors influencing the social and economic well-being of Indigenous families and households; and investigation of cultural, socioeconomic, and policy factors involved in developing workable models for Indigenous community and regional governance.

Diane has conducted research for land claims, community royalty disbursements, and resource development agreements in the NT, and has also been a member of the National Native Title Tribunal (1998–2000) where she mediated native title and compensation claims, and participated in conducting test-case Tribunal mining arbitrations under the Native Title Act 1993.

• Indigenous community, corporate and regional governance and capacity development;
• Indigenous representative politics and identity;
• the socioeconomic well-being of Indigenous families and households;
• the cultural, economic and policy parameters of Indigenous engagement with the welfare system;
• community and regional economic development in the context of native title and land rights;
• Indigenous land-use and regional agreements; and
• government program funding and service delivery to Indigenous communities.

• Henderson Poverty Inquiry (1973–74)
• Review of the National Aboriginal Conference (1983–84)
• Review of the Aboriginal Benefits Trust Account, NT (1984)
• Resource Assessment Commission's, Kakadu Conservation Zone Inquiry, NT (1990)
• Resource Assessment Commission's, Coastal Zone Inquiry (1993)
• Review of the Nabarlek Traditional Owners Association, Northern Land Council (1994);
• Review of the Native Title Representative Bodies (1995);

Diane is currently a chief investigator, along with Dr Will Sanders (CAEPR) and Professor Mick Dodson (Institute of Indigenous Studies at ANU) in a major ARC funded linkage research project, partnering with Reconciliation Australia, which will investigate Indigenous community and regional governance.

PhD candidate, School of Economics and Political Science
University of Sydney
Based at NARU from July 2005

Danielle Spruyt is a PhD student with the Department of Economics and Business at the University of Sydney. She has worked as a lecturer in Political Economy of the Environment in the School of Political Economy, and in Resource and Environmental Management, with the School of Geosciences, University of Sydney. Her research experience includes five years employment in the Northern Territory, predominantly as a Research/Project Officer with the Northern Territory Office of Aboriginal Development.

Her current research relates to the changing status of water in the political economy, as emerging water concerns intersect with established trajectories of economic development. As economic expansion confronts limits to water supply, fresh water is being redefined as a scarce, vulnerable and potentially non-renewable resource. The signalled potential for absolute limits to water use, and the increased pressure to determine allocation between competing users, has become increasingly framed by an economic discourse that advocates market based instruments for water management. The focus of this project is on the resolution of contests over water use in the Northern Territory, where emerging economic interests in water compete with pre-existing uses. The emphasis of analysis is on the processes and challenges of establishing ecologically and culturally defined boundaries to water use in a resource based economy, and the potential application of market based instruments to questions of water management.

• Personal Website

Geraldine carried out studies for her PhD at NARU and submitted her thesis titled: 'Investigating Individual and Social Level Risk Adaptation in Human-Natural Systems' in February 2007.

Geraldine is currently a Research Fellow at the Fenner School of Environment and Society and is coordinating an AGO funded project called: 'Integrated Assessment of Climate Change Impacts on Urban Settlements'. The field study sites for this project are Darwin, Canberra, Queanbeyan, Bendigo and Cooma.

Telephone: 0428 5252 61

Kathryn is a undertaking a PhD with the Centre for Aboriginal Economic Policy Research (CAEPR) at the ANU. She is an APA(1) Scholar within the ARC Linkage project 'Indigenous Community Governance'. She has been working with Kurungal Inc Council, an organisation based in the small community of Kupartiya, approximately 120kms east of Fitzroy Crossing in the Kimberley. For the first 6 months of 2005 she also worked with Bunuba Inc based in Fitzroy Crossing. In 2004 and 2005, during breaks from her work in the field, Kathryn was based at NARU. Having completed the fieldwork element of her research she has returned to the ANU to continue work on her thesis.

She is interested in exploring Indigenous ways of going about 'governance' and how these intersect (or collide) with non-Indigenous approaches within the context of small community-based organisations. She is seeking to understand how these 'other ways' represent an important expression of Indigenous agency, and to explore how organisations operating in such an 'intercultural domain' harness these 'other ways', or are harnessed by them. In a much broader sense, she will explore how these organisations represent an avenue for community change (or 'development') which is properly driven by Indigenous people and reflective of their value systems.

• CAEPR

Centre for Resource and Environmental Studies (CRES), ANU

A scholar with CRES at the ANU in Canberra, Emma was awarded her Masters Degree in 2006. Whilst based at NARU Emma’s research focused on :

1. Identifying the key components in agricultural pest control systems and their interactions
2. Assessing the efficacy of pest control strategies and their effects on natural enemy populations
3. Assessing the contribution natural enemies make to controlling/regulating pest populations and their potential contributions under different management interventions
4. Building conceptual and simple simulation models to illustrate these dynamics