Oceania

09/07/2024

Those in Sydney may be interested in attending -- https://www.sydneysymphony.com/concerts/paul-grabowsky-wata
Featuring Daniel Wilfred, author with Sam Curkpatrick of a recent article 'The Wind is Always Blowing...' in Oceania journal -
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/ocea.5392

In one of the most innovative and energising works for 2024, composer and pianist Paul Grabowsky brings the Sydney Symphony Orchestra and Yolŋu songmen…

17/06/2024

Ryan Schram reviews ‘Anarchy and the Art of Listening’, a book suitable for linguistic anthropologists and scholars of Melanesian societies, and anyone interested in possibilities for egalitarian politics beyond the limits of the liberal imagination:

Click on the article title to read more.

10/06/2024

‘Moro and the Weather Coast’ underscores the importance of understanding the Moro Movement in relation to the negligence exhibited by government of the British Solomon Islands Protectorate and the churches. Read Jaap Timmer’s review here:

Click on the article title to read more.

03/06/2024

‘Sensing Disaster’ is an ethnographic exploration of traditional environmental knowledge, disaster management and indigenous attachment to place. It is grounded in fieldwork on Simbo (Solomon Islands) immediately after the 2007 tsunami. More here:

Click on the article title to read more.

29/05/2024

Water is increasingly at the centre of scientific and public debates about climate change. Sally Babidge reviews this volume, that at its core asks: how can we shift our understanding and realign what water means to us? More here:

Click on the article title to read more.

27/05/2024

‘Forty Years in the South Seas’ honours Professor Glenn Summerhayes and his archaeological career in Papua New Guinea. This edited volume provides both unique personal reflections and academic studies by contributors who live and/or work in the region, offering a range of complementary perspectives on the human past.

Available now doi.org/10.22459/TA57.2024

26/05/2024

Fiona McCormack highlights the radical potential of kinship as a cross‐cutting theme in Australia’s water futures, to collectively reveal how kin relatedness works to disrupt the categorical framing of ‘modern water’ as an extractive resource:

This special issue of Oceania interrogates the material and cultural factors underpinning water socio-economies in Australia; a critical project given the wet and dry crises now unfolding in the Anth...

23/05/2024

Three themes inform this Special Issue on Water Future in Australia: materialities, imaginaries and temporalities. Each animates a diverse array of ethnographic inquiry into transformative water futures. Read the afterword here: https://buff.ly/3WMwaD9

22/05/2024

Water Futures in Australia interrogates the material and cultural factors underpinning water socio‐economies in Australia, a critical project given the wet and dry crises now unfolding in the Anthropocene. More:

This special issue of Oceania interrogates the material and cultural factors underpinning water socio-economies in Australia; a critical project given the wet and dry crises now unfolding in the Anth...

21/05/2024

This articles focusses on the Mardoowarra (Fitzroy River) in Western Australia and Aboriginal people’s deep and enduring cultural, environmental and emotional interconnections and responsibilities with such a major water source:

Via a three-person dialogue, we engage with an inquiry posed for this special issue: ‘What questions are ethnographers asking about water in Australia?’ Canvassing such an inquiry led us to being bot...

20/05/2024

‘What questions are ethnographers asking about water in Australia?’ This article presents provocation as heuristic tool and inquires into water-based questions relating to ethnographers, ethnography and Australian Indigenous people:

Via a three-person dialogue, we engage with an inquiry posed for this special issue: ‘What questions are ethnographers asking about water in Australia?’ Canvassing such an inquiry led us to being bot...

18/05/2024

This article considers how synbio approaches to water may engage with the hydro-history and fluid future of Torres Strait Islander identities, and cross-cultural socio-environmental responsibilities. More

Synthetic biology (synbio) scientists have identified islands as potential environments in which to trial the release of approved gene drives in the future for conservation and biosecurity purposes. ...

18/05/2024

How is a changing climate and rising sea levels impacting identities in the Torres Strait and relationships in the region? Read the full article for free with Open Access:

Synthetic biology (synbio) scientists have identified islands as potential environments in which to trial the release of approved gene drives in the future for conservation and biosecurity purposes. ...

16/05/2024

Bronwyn Bailey-Charteris relates fog-based artists’ pieces to ‘Occult Meteorology’ and ‘Weather as Medium’ to propose misting as a hydro-artistic method in the Hydrocene. Read the full article free with Open Access here:

The Hydrocene is the watery, disruptive, conceptual epoch that I name for the tide of art going into the blue in response to the climate crisis. In this short watery provocation and essay, I share th...

15/05/2024

Bronwyn Bailey-Charteris’s essay is a provocation that shares the potential significance of ‘misting’ as a hydro-artistic method of reorientation from within fog, where fog becomes a portal towards embodied encounters in art practices. More:

The Hydrocene is the watery, disruptive, conceptual epoch that I name for the tide of art going into the blue in response to the climate crisis. In this short watery provocation and essay, I share th...

12/05/2024

Ute Eickelkamp introduces perspectives on water and time that Australian Indigenous thinkers have shared during her ethnographic research:

I explore by way of a thought experiment the temporality of waterways in the context of restorative art interventions. As a substance that moves and gives form, and as a medium that retains and disch...

10/05/2024

Ute Eickelkamp proposes that thinking with water ethically and recognizing its temporal diversity opens up perspectives on the deindustrialisation of rivers and other bodies of water:

I explore by way of a thought experiment the temporality of waterways in the context of restorative art interventions. As a substance that moves and gives form, and as a medium that retains and disch...

09/05/2024

Ute Eickelkamp explores the temporality of waterways through a thought experiment in the context of restorative art interventions. Read the article free with Open Access here:

I explore by way of a thought experiment the temporality of waterways in the context of restorative art interventions. As a substance that moves and gives form, and as a medium that retains and disch...

08/05/2024

As a substance that moves and gives form, and as a medium that retains and discharges, connects and divides, water that flows can make tangible the experiential flow of return and anticipation. Read more in Ute Eickelkamp’s article:

I explore by way of a thought experiment the temporality of waterways in the context of restorative art interventions. As a substance that moves and gives form, and as a medium that retains and disch...

07/05/2024

The University of Canberra's Centre for Environmental Governance (CEG) together with the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research (ACIAR) Social Systems program are offering four scholarships for Oceania-based researchers and practitioners. Deadline is May 15th.

06/05/2024

In memoriam of Lyndall Ryan, a leading scholar on frontier violence and massacres. Lyndall's work led to the massacre maps. Read more about Lyndall and her work here:

Ryan’s rigorous, public-facing study of frontier violence and massacres led to the massacre map, which continues to attract international attention. She was also a cherished friend

05/05/2024

‘The Wind Is Always Blowing’ by Samuel Curkpatrick and Daniel Wilfred explores collaborative practices and approaches to writing ethnography that respond to a core quality of wind as a medium that connects. Read this and more in our latest issue:

Click on the title to browse this issue

02/05/2024

The University of Canberra's Centre for Environmental Governance (CEG) together with the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research (ACIAR) Social Systems program are offering four scholarships for Oceania-based researchers and practitioners. See attached for more.

02/05/2024

Book work extends the Wägilak raki’, directly shaping the writer and reader within the formative connections of Wägilak rom – book work that sings. For more:

Live conversations and writing play an important role in ethnographic research that seeks to develop understanding across cultural differences. Both forms of communication need not remain distinct: w...