Location: Hancock Library, room 2.24

The Centre for Native Title Anthropology will be holding a pre-conference Assembly.

10.00 -10.30 Women in Native Title Anthropology
Cameo Dalley, Deakin University
cameo.dalley(at)deakin.edu.au

10.30-11.00 Archival Returns: Central Australia and Beyond
Presentation by Petronella Vaarzon-Morel
pvmorel(at)bigpond.com

11.30 - 12.00 Returning Native Title and Land Rights Materials
Belinda Burbidge, Toni Bauman and Christiane Keller

12.00-13.30 Lunch break

13.30- 14.15 Tamara Cole: Compensation - Reflections on the Timber Creek compensation claim
Tamara is a lawyer with the NLC and involved in the Timber Creek compensation claim.

Location: Jan Anderson (E101A), R.N Robertson

10:00-11:00: Welcome & Workshop (Amita Baviskar unable to attend)
11:00-12:00: Workshop on Presentation Skills with Bronwyn Hall – How to present ethnography at academic conferences; how to present with confidence
12:00-13:00: Lunch
13:00-14:30: Roundtable discussion ‘Applied Anthropology’ with a number of applied anthropologists – Everything you want to know about how to transfer from being a student to being a professional and/or alternative pathways to an academic career or how to combine the two; listen and ask away!

The Ngunnawal, Ngunawal and Ngambri peoples are the traditional custodians of the land on which ANU now stands. ANU's anthropology department invites all AAS attendees to join Wally Bell, a Ngunawal elder, for an official Welcome to Country and a guided walk through sites that demonstrate the Ngunawal people's cultural and historical connections to the land.

We will meet at the amphitheatre where University Ave crosses the creek into Kambri at 17:30 for 17:45 start. (alternate plans to be made in case it rains).

BRING A BOTTLE OF WATER

The guided tour will end up at the Conference Reception

Location: Jan Anderson (E101A), R.N Robertson Building

Speakers: Susanna Trnka, Monique Skidmore, Andrea Whittaker, Kylie Message and John White.
Facilitator: Catherine Smith

This special session honours the life and work of Samuel Taylor-Alexander, an ANU graduate and medical anthropologist who achieved much in his impressive career. Although Sam's life and career was cut far too short by his early death in August 2019, Sam was a prolific writer whose research forged new directions in medical anthropology and science and technology studies. This special session brings together a number of invited speakers who worked closely with Sam to reflect on his approach to anthropology, his contributions to research and their memories of him as a student and a valued colleague. Audience members are welcome to be active participants in the special session, and will have the opportunity to share reflections on their memories of Sam and his contributions to research and academic life.

All are welcome.

Location: Coombs Lecture Theatre

Robert Borofsky, Professor of Anthropology, Hawaii Pacific University

Would you concur that, perhaps, all is not well today with cultural/social anthropology? On the one hand, there is considerable pressure for accountability from those beyond the field who fund its research. They want to know how their money is being spent. Given most anthropology publications are hard for laymen to understand and administrators are unsure how to measure public benefit, administrators lean, perhaps by default, toward metrics for framing accountability – the more publications the better. On the other hand, the field has certain problematic dynamics. With its focus on individual, independent fieldwork and specialization, it is unclear whether the field’s constant research and publications are producing more knowledge – defined in terms of trustworthy information one can rely on above and beyond individual knowledge claims of veracity. Moreover, few talk across their specialized niches to address broader problems – within the field or within the broader society.

By repeatedly publishing material of limited value to those beyond the field, anthropologists may be perpetuating their own marginalization. In protecting their intellectual purity from others (in Mary Douglas’ terms), anthropologists are making themselves more vulnerable to the demands of those outside the field. Anthropology is losing its ability to chart its own fate.

Is there a way out? Perhaps. But it involves changing the way anthropologists operate – moving beyond the appearance of benefiting others to being able to offer something more substantive that will raise the field’s public value and thereby reduce the drumbeat for publications that few non-anthropologists read and value. That is what this talk is about: ensuring anthropology matters to others.

Location: Gumnut (S204), R.N Robertson Building

The Society for Applied Anthropology appliedanthro.org is the worldwide organisation of anthropologists committed to making a positive impact on the quality of life in the world. Our over 2000 members apply the principles, theories, methods and approaches of anthropology to the interdisciplinary identification and solution of human problems. This session, facilitated by SfAA board member Professor Robyn Eversole, will provide a brief overview of the resources and support available through the international Society and explore the potential to grow networks among applied anthropologists here in Australia.

Location: STB 2, Science Teaching Building

In 2019 the AAS Executive voted to establish a group dedicated to supporting arts-media research initiatives in Australian anthropology, including within the annual conference. Join us for the first meeting of the AAS Curatorium where we will discuss the institutional opportunities and challenges for those pursuing creative research methods and NTROs; possible international alliances and events; the mentoring of junior scholars (and, potentially, their supervisors) interested in these non-traditional modes of social engagement and analysis; and forward planning for AAS 2020.

Organisors: Jennifer Deger and Lisa Stefanoff

Location: 2nd floor terrace opposite Gumnut in Robertson Building

Berghahn Books, 2020

Sustaining Indigenous Songs is an ethnography of the ceremonial singing traditions of Warlpiri people who live in the Central Australian desert settlement of Yuendumu. Set against a discussion of the contemporary status of Aboriginal musical traditions in Australia and embedded in the historical background of this region, this book lays out the features of Warlpiri songs and ceremonies and presents a focal case study of Kurdiji – a ceremony for ‘making young men’. Through detail-focused ethnography, this book illustrates the vitality of ceremonial singing in passing on valued aspects of Warlpiri cultural heritage despite contemporary social contexts of extreme fragility.

Contact: georgia.e.k.curran(at)gmail.com

Location: RN Robertson Theatre

Directed by Behrouz Boochani and Arash Kamali Sarvestani, 88 mins

Using footage shot secretly on mobile phone, Boochani and Sarvestani communicated between Manus Island detention centre and the Netherlands using WhatsApp to collaboratively craft this shocking testimony to Australia’s treatment of asylum seekers. The film is named for the Chauka bird whose calls are heard constantly in the background and used by Manusians to tell that time. Chauka is also the name of the detention centre’s solitary confinement prison.

“The movie is a record of Australian history. I hope that the next generations will know what Australia did in Manus and Nauru." Behrouz Boochani.

“This is a different story of jail than filmmakers in Hollywood would make. But jail is not interesting, jail is the most boring place in the world.” Arash Kamali Sarvestani.

Location: RN Robertson Theatre

In My Blood it Runs
85 minutes
A rare insight into the world of 10-year old Dujuan, an Arrernte/Garrwa boy living in Alice Springs who is a child-healer, speaks three languages yet is 'failing' in school. As he faces increasing scrutiny from welfare and police, his family battle to keep him safe, grounded in language, culture and identity – the only solution they know works.

Introduced by Natasha Fijn and Lisa Stefanoff

Natasha Fijn is an ethnographic researcher and observational filmmaker based at the ANU Mongolia Institute. Her ongoing interest is in cross-cultural perceptions and attitudes towards other animals; as well as the use of the visual, particularly observational filmmaking, as an integral part of her research.

Lisa Stefanoff is an ethnographer and curator based at that National Institute for Experimental Arts, UNSW Art & Design. Based in Alice Springs, she works collaboratively with desert Indigenous artists across a variety of media, exploring uses of new technologies and exhibition forms to address community aspirations. Her current work is broadly concerned with the impacts of extractivist histories on contemporary practices of cultural survival. Lisa has programmed screen, media and art at the AAS conference since 2009. She has had a close relationship with the family featured in ‘In My Blood It Runs’ since working with them on the award-winning CAAMA Productions film ‘Beyond Sorry' (2002).

Location: Coombs Lecture Theatre

Amita Baviskar, Institute of Economic Growth, Delhi

Attitude! Doing Anthropology in a Utilitarian World
“But what use is it?” ask my engineer and banker cousins. “It’s all very interesting…” trails off the voice of my economist colleague. “I hope you will write a report that we can send to the press,” says my activist friend. What do others expect of anthropologists and what do we expect of ourselves? How are these expectations met, repudiated and negotiated? I shall reflect on these questions from my position as an India-based practitioner who must contend with the legacies of colonial epistemologies and postcolonial imperatives in an increasingly neoliberal academy and Hindu-supremacist nation-state. I shall argue that the value of critical humanism that is central to anthropology is more vital than ever; the challenge is to uphold it in ways that include and reach beyond the academy.

Location: Gumnut (S204), R.N Robertson Building

Agenda:
1. Welcome
2. Attendance Register / Apologies
3. 2019 President’s Report
4. Future directions for ANSA?
5. Any other business
6. Elections for President, Secretary, Media Officer, and University Representatives

Location: Jan Anderson (E101A), R.N Robertson

In response to a member’s call relating to Australia’s treatment of refugees, the AAS is establishing a working group tasked with supporting public anthropology in Australia. The purpose of this meeting is to:
1. Establish a network of AAS members interested in and supportive of public outreach anthropology and a critical anthropology of Australian society;
2. Invite input from members regarding anthropology in relation to critical issues in Australian society. How can anthropologists best contribute to public life in Australia? What issues are most appropriate and important for anthropologists to address? What are the main constraints on such engagement, and how could these be mitigated?

If you are interested in supporting and/or contributing to this initiative, please come to this brainstorming and networking event.

Jennifer Deger, Ute Eickelkamp and Holly High

Location: 2nd floor terrace opposite Gumnut in Robertson Building

Monster Anthropology: Ethnographic Explorations of Transforming Social Worlds through Monsters
Yasmine Musharbash & Geir Henning Presterudstuen (eds.)
Bloomsbury Academic

In this book, the human-monster relationship is explored in a variety of contexts. When technological innovation brings forth new monsters, or when extinction becomes ever more monstrous as even monsters themselves perish, then, the contributors argue, a focus on monsters opens up pressing new perspectives on change and social transformation. Each chapter in the book presents an ethnographically grounded analysis of monsters as they emerge or vanish in the context of social change.

Topics examined include the evil skulking the roads in ancient Greece, the terror in post-socialist Laos territorial cults, the most fanciful flights of the colonial imagination, the monsters prowling through neo-colonial central Australia and on to the ghosts lingering in Pacific villages in the aftermath of environmental disasters. The monsters captured here herald, drive, experience, enjoy and suffer the transformations of the worlds they beleaguer. The contributors take seriously the premise that monsters and the humans they haunt and harass are intricately and intimately entangled, so that they show us how we perceive the world and our place within it.

Contact: Yasmine.Musharbash(at)anu.edu.au

Location: RN Robertson Theatre

The AAS will present the Behrouz Boochani Award to its inaugural recipient, and namesake, Behrouz Boochani who will join us via video link from Port Moresby. Gillian Cowlishaw will speak on behalf of the AAS Membership.

This occasional award has been established to recognise exceptional work that contributes to public and critical understandings of Australian society in the spirit of the discipline of anthropology. The AAS is proud to honour Behrouz Boochani by way of initiating this new award in his name.

Location: RN Robertson Theatre

Please join us for the 2019 Annual General Meeting of the Australian Anthropological Society. This is an opportunity to hear from our members and make decisions about the direction of the Society for the coming year.

Do you have ideas about how the AAS should respond to important current events? Want to hear more about the Society’s support for member-proposed public anthropology projects? Would you like to see more events like Anthropology Day? Does the future direction of TAJA and the wider landscape of academic publishing interest you? These are some of the exciting topics that we will discuss at the AGM -- and we want to hear from you!

Any queries about the Annual General Meeting of the AAS should be directed to the Secretary, Caroline Schuster (caroline.schuster(at)anu.edu.au)

Location: Ursula Hall, 50 Daley Rd, Acton ACT 2601

The conference dinner and party will take place at Ursula Hall, 50 Daley Rd, Acton ACT 2601. The dinner is ticketed (see registration page for details), but everyone is invited to join the party afterwards.

Arrival to dinner after 18:30, pre-dinner snacks are served from 18:45, mains from 19:15 (see the attached menu).

From 20:30 the party will move to the junior common room /canteen for drinks and dancing (with a wine cash bar).

Location: RN Robertson Theatre

Directed by Behrouz Boochani and Arash Kamali Sarvestani, 88 mins

Using footage shot secretly on mobile phone, Boochani and Sarvestani communicated between Manus Island detention centre and the Netherlands using WhatsApp to collaboratively craft this shocking testimony to Australia’s treatment of asylum seekers. The film is named for the Chauka bird whose calls are heard constantly in the background and used by Manusians to tell that time. Chauka is also the name of the detention centre’s solitary confinement prison.

“The movie is a record of Australian history. I hope that the next generations will know what Australia did in Manus and Nauru." Behrouz Boochani.

“This is a different story of jail than filmmakers in Hollywood would make. But jail is not interesting, jail is the most boring place in the world.” Arash Kamali Sarvestani.

Location: Jan Anderson (E101A), R.N Robertson

Wiley Digital Archives presentation - the digitisation of the Royal Anthropological Institute archive
Hear about Wiley's newest product, Wiley Digital Archives, which includes a fully searchable digitisation of the Royal Anthropological Institute (RAI) archive.

See how Wiley Digital Archives can be used as a research and teaching tool and take a look how at this new resource provides access and discoverability to the RAI collection.