Nov
16

Annual ASWA Wilson-Locke Lecture 2022

Ageing, Migration and Digital Care Labour: delivering social science perspectives to aged care

The Anthropological Society of Western Australia is honoured to welcome Professor Loretta Baldassar, Vice Chancellor Professorial Research Fellow, School of Arts and Humanities, Edith Cowan University, for the 2022 Wilson-Locke Lecture.

Members: $10
General Admission: $15
Light supper included with ticket.
Book online

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Abstract

“In this talk I consider the contemporary global issues of Ageing, Migration and Technology, and the value of anthropological perspectives in exploring their intersections, particularly in the critical area of aged care. The recent Royal Commission into Aged Care Quality and Standards reports that, “the state of aged care in Australia diminishes us as a nation”. Among its many recommendations, two are especially relevant to the social sciences: the development of a social supports category and the advancement of technological innovation. However, the National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC), Australia’s primary funding body for health research and innovation, does not list any social science or humanities disciplines in its drop down menu on grant applications – the closest are social psychology and public health. There are also no clearly relevant FOR or SEC codes, reflecting the challenge of delivering social science perspectives within the powerful dominant medical model. 

This presentation examines what we can learn from the anthropology of migrant / transnational families and the potential role of new technologies in aged care to improve social support and wellbeing. Any discussion of ageing is quintessentially a migration issue. An increasing amount of formal paid care labour, both in our private homes and in our public institutions, is supplied by migrants. The resultant global care economy has given rise to the dramatic feminisation of labour migration in the form of domestic care workers. Much has been written about the resultant global care chains and the transnational political economy of care. Relatedly, but less visibly, an increasing amount of informal unpaid care labour is provided by temporary visiting family members, and a need to develop a transnational ethics of informal care. This care mobility gives rise to transnational families who inhabit social fields that are constituted and co-created through their reciprocal though uneven care exchanges, which play out over emails, SMS text messages, and social media platforms. So, when we discuss Aged Care policy and practice, we need to discuss migration policy practice, and technology policy and practice as well.

Drawing on the methodological and conceptual frameworks developed in the ARC project: Ageing and New Media, I explore the role of distant and virtual support networks in aging in place, including during pandemic lockdowns. I examine the way today’s polymedia environments have created the conditions for synchronous, continuous, multisensory co-presence across distance that challenge the normative and ontological privileging of proximity in care and kinship relationships. Such conditions require us to consider the importance of human relations to the material world, in particular of forms of digital care labour. Raelene Wilding and I propose the notions of ‘digital kinning’ and ‘digital homeing‘ as ways to theorise the resultant human-technology interactions, and to explore how the rapidly changing polymedia environment is transforming how we communicate, imagine ourselves, and organise our everyday lives, including across distance. For older people in particular, these digital kinning practices often require facilitation by others, emphasising their social relational, intergenerational and performative character. It is in the creative and diverse practices at the intersections of mobilities and materialities that we see how technologies can transform the experience of caring, in and across place.”

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Professor Loretta Baldassar is Vice Chancellor Professorial Research Fellow, School of Arts and Humanities, Edith Cowan University. Baldassar is one of Australia’s leading Social Scientists and Internationally recognised leaders in migration studies. In 2020 and 2021 she was named Australian Research Field Leader in Migration Studies (Social Sciences) and in 2021 she was also named Research Field Leader in Ethnic and Cultural Studies (Humanities, Arts and Literature) (The Australian, 8 12 2021). Topping the list in both these fields is an outstanding achievement and constitutes public and academic recognition of her important research.

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Aug
3

The demographic and intellectual challenges facing anthropologists working in native title and beyond

ASWA invites you to a timely presentation regarding the future of anthropology in the native title sector and beyond by Dr Julie Finlayson of the Centre for Native Title Anthropology.

There is considerable demand for anthropologists in the native title arena. Research managers suggest that claim work and post-determination expertise requires the services of at least 20 anthropologists, via employment in land councils, Indigenous representative organisations, government and industry. There is a similar demand in cultural heritage. Yet universities are cutting anthropology courses - dissolving anthropology majors and associated staffing of Departments and Schools, based partly on claims of low student numbers, while ignoring industry employment opportunities as has happened here in WA.

The politics of anthropology as a highly sought after body of professional expertise feeds into academic and related debates about Indigenous Studies and the future of education and training in the discipline. How does anthropological expertise sit in the context of asserted Indigenous control of Indigenous Studies?

In the mix of push and pull factors, what roles can we see for anthropologists and the Centre for Native Title Anthropology? Does its presence or absence matter? What are the challenges we face?

 In response to these questions Julie will give a contextualised overview (see below) of how CNTA operates in the native title sector, before addressing present and future challenges for applied anthropology.:

  • Genesis and structure of CNTA and its activities

  • Delivery modes in the operating environment

While the focus of this talk will be on native title, the content will be of interest to anthropologists and allied professionals in the cultural heritage sector. In particular, we welcome engagement with Traditional Owners on these important matters.

ASWA would like to acknowledge the Whadjuk Noongar people, the Traditional Owners of the land on which this event is taking place, and to pay respects to Elders past, present and emerging.

Date: Wednesday 3rd of August 2022
Start Time: 6pm
Where: The Left Bank, 15 Riverside Rd, East Fremantle WA 6158

Entry Fees (includes pizzas):
ASWA/AACAI Member (must have current paid membership): $10
Student (must have valid student email address): $10
General: $15

Tickets

SPEAKER BIO: 

Dr Julie Finlayson has been the Research Fellow at CNTA over the past 6  years. Her interest in professional development for anthropologists has its genesis in workshops for anthropologists run by her while an academic at CAEPR in the period immediately after the introduction of the native title  Act. She has papers on native title research published from such workshops in edited volumes by CAEPR.

Julie was seconded to the NNTT for 6 months in what was the Victoria Registry. She has undertaken a number of native title roles such as assisting with native title claim management at Miriambiak (the NTRB in Victoria) during a change management period, running the first mentoring program for native title anthropologists sponsored by the NNTT, and taught native title summer courses at the University of Adelaide.

She was engaged as a consultant anthropologist on the Ministerial team to assess NTRBs for re-recognition in 1998 and toured nationally as part of a multi-disciplinary team to appraise organisational performance of native title representative roles in accordance with the requirements of the NTA.

Julie left consulting in 2004 to join the Australian Public Service (APS).  She held a position in the Native Title Branch of ATSIC to whom she had previously consulted. During this period she sat on interdepartmental native title forums in the APS, including stakeholder engagement meetings, and was appointed to roles in change management and governance strategies with NTRBs and NTSPs.

Dr Julie Finlayson is a past president of AAS.

 

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Cultural Landscapes & Systemic Landscape Planning: Towards sustainable and resilient communities from a world cultural heritage perspective
Jun
22

Cultural Landscapes & Systemic Landscape Planning: Towards sustainable and resilient communities from a world cultural heritage perspective

The Australian Association of Consulting Archaeologists Inc. (AACAI) WA Chapter and the Anthropological Society of WA (ASWA) are excited to present a sundowner talk by architect and urban planner Raquel Tardin-Coelho at the Camelot Arts Theatre in Mosman Park. Raquel’s talk will be on 'Cultural Landscapes and Systemic Landscape Planning' and will include a screening of her documentary with Paolo Maia, transFORMING the LANDSCAPE, winner of the Best Short Film Award at the Australia Film Festival 2022.

Date: Wednesday 22 June 2022
Start Time: 6pm
Where: Camelot Arts Theatre, 16 Lochee Street, Mosman Park
(directions here: https://g.page/camelot_mosarts?share)

Entry Fees:
ASWA/AACAI Member (must have current paid membership): $15
Student (must have valid student email address): $15
General: $20

Spaces will be limited and no doubt, this will be a well-attended event. So, please book in early - please do so at this online link:

https://www.trybooking.com/BZMZH


Pizzas will be provided as part of the entry fee and a bar will be available at the venue.

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AACAI WA & ASWA present "How the West Was Lost"
May
11

AACAI WA & ASWA present "How the West Was Lost"

The Australian Association of Consulting Archaeologists Inc. (AACAI) WA Chapter and the Anthropological Society of WA (ASWA), in collaboration with the ‘Remembering the 1946 Pilbara Strike’ working group, are pleased to host a screening of the 1987 documentary by David Noakes, How the West Was Lost, followed by a Panel Discussion on the film's theme, the 1946 Aboriginal Pastoral Workers' Strike in the Pilbara. 

Event details as follows:
Date: Wednesday 11 May 2022
Start Time: 6pm
Estimated Finish Time: 8.30pm
Where: The Left Bank, 15 Riverside Road, East Fremantle - upstairs at The River Bar*

Entry Fees (includes pizzas):
ASWA/AACAI Member: $10
Student: $10
General: $15
Ticket link

*Proof of double vaccination or medical exemption is required to enter The Left Bank

More info on the Pilbara Pastoral Strike here:

https://www.facebook.com/PilbaraStrike75years 

pilbarastrike.org 

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Mar
8

ASWA Annual General Meeting

This year there will be a number of vacancies on the ASWA Committee. Please consider becoming a Committee member. Please send your expression of interest via email to aswa.secretary@anthropologywa.org.

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Annual ASWA Wilson-Locke Lecture 2021
Nov
10

Annual ASWA Wilson-Locke Lecture 2021

ASWA is extremely pleased to announce that the Annual Wilson-Locke Lecture will be given by Associate Professor Crystal Abidin, Principal Research Fellow & ARC DECRA Fellow, Internet Studies and Programme Lead of Social Media Pop Cultures, Centre for Culture and Technology, Curtin University.

This Lecture promises to be thought provoking and absolutely current. Find out more about the work of Professor Abidin.

Lecture Title: Internet celebrity, Refracted publics, and the Frontiers of social justice cultures

Abstract: Reflecting on a decade of research on internet celebrity and social media pop cultures in Singapore, the Asia Pacific, and beyond, this talk considers the potential of 'below the radar' studies for understanding the fast evolving and growing potentials of subversive, risky, and hidden practices on social media, especially in the realm of social justice pursuits. The talk offers the framework of 'refracted publics' to consider how influencers and internet celebrities on various platforms are involved in circuits of (mis)information ecologies, and their innovative strategies of communication, amplification, and suppression of youth movements. Refracted publics are vernacular cultures of circumvention strategies on social media in response to both analogue and algorithmic vision and access. They have been mobilized to avoid detection, promote deflection, and facilitate the dissemination of specific messages away from or toward target audiences. They are a product of the landscape of platform data leaks, political protests, fake news, and (most recently) COVID-19, and are creative vernacular strategies to accommodate for perpetual content saturation, hyper-competitive attention economies, gamified and datafied metric cultures, and information distrust. The key conditions (transience, discoverability, decodability, and silosociality) and dynamics (impactful audiences, weaponized contexts, and alternating publics and privates) of refracted publics allow cultures, communities, and contents to avoid being registered on a radar, register in misplaced pockets while appearing on the radar, or register on the radar but parsed as something else altogether.

Date: Wednesday 10 November 2021
Time: 6.30pm
Where: The Left Bank, 15 Riverside Road, East Fremantle - upstairs at The River Bar
Cost: $10 members, $15 non-members - book tickets via the Register Now link below. A selection of food from the Left Bank menu will be provided. You can buy drinks from the bar.

Book Online: https://www.registernow.com.au/secure/Register.aspx?E=45101

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Sundowner Talk
Sep
21

Sundowner Talk

Never Again?’ How the Northern Territory’s best practice heritage protection legislation could have prevented the destruction of Juukan Gorge in Western Australia

The Australian Association of Consulting Archaeologists Inc. (AACAI) WA Chapter and the Anthropological Society of WA (ASWA) are pleased to present a sundowner talk by anthropologists Gareth Lewis and Naomi Howells, who will discuss the heritage legislative regime in the Northern Territory. Details as follows and in the Event flyer:

Date: Tuesday 21 September 2021
Time: 6pm
Where: The Left Bank, 15 Riverside Road, East Fremantle - upstairs at The River Bar

Entry Fees (includes food):

  • ASWA / AACAI Member: Free

  • Student: $5

  • General: $10

Book on-line at Registration Link

Abstract: The State-sanctioned destruction of the Juukan Gorge site by Rio Tinto in May 2020 has highlighted the failings of WA’s antiquated 1972 Aboriginal Heritage Act (AHA). Yet the McGowan Government’s current Aboriginal Cultural Heritage Bill (ACHB) is facing an uphill battle in the teeth of opposition from professional bodies and Aboriginal groups. Anthropologists Gareth Lewis and Naomi Howells are veterans of the Northern Territory’s Aboriginal Areas Protection Authority (AAPA), responsible for administering the NT Aboriginal Sacred Sites Act 1979. By affording Aboriginal custodians the right of free, prior and informed consent to determine whether works may occur on or within the vicinity of sacred sites, they argue that Northern Territory legislation provides a far superior model for Aboriginal sacred site protection than WA’s proposed ACHB and they will highlight the fundamental contrasts between both. They also argue that the AAPA Authority Certificate system actually provides far greater clarity and certainty for industry than either the current AHA or the clunky approvals mechanism outlined in the proposed ACHB.
Why, ask Lewis and Howells, is the McGowan Government offering Aboriginal people in WA a heritage regime which falls so far short of the system which has so long operated successfully in the Northern Territory?

Biographies:
Gareth Lewis is an NT-based anthropological consultant who has worked on heritage protection, land rights and native title issues as a consultant and staff anthropologist for the AAPA, Northern Land Council and Central Land Council since 1991. He has provided expert anthropological reports for the successful Pine Creek native title consent determination, as well as for the Kakadu Repeat, Peron Islands and Cobourg land claims. Gareth gave evidence in AAPA’s successful 2013 prosecution of OM Manganese for site desecration and has worked on other site damage investigations and on AAPA’s current prosecution of the Commonwealth Government for site damage in Kakadu National Park. He was recently awarded a guided writing placement at the ANU’s Centre for Native Title Anthropology.

Naomi Howells worked as a staff anthropologist for AAPA from 1993-1998 and then as a native title anthropologist in Central and Northern Queensland. Working most recently under the WA cultural heritage regime, she is currently campaigning for improved cultural heritage protection under the proposed Aboriginal Cultural Heritage Bill.


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Forum
Sep
16
to 17 Sep

Forum

Women in Native Title Anthropology

About WiNTA: Women in Native Title Anthropology (WiNTA) is a project designed to target issues related to the retention of women in the sector, led by Dr. Cameo Dalley with Diana Romano of the Alfred Deakin Institute for Citizenship and Globalisation, Deakin University. Throughout 2020-21 we conducted qualitative interviews focusing on the experiences of women anthropologists who have worked in native title in Australia. The findings and recommendations are in the process of being compiled in a report, to be complimented with presentations and professional development opportunities targeting key areas of concern. The focus on women and skill development aims to benefit women anthropologists, employers (including Native Title Representative Bodies (NTRBs) and Native Title Service Providers (NTSPs)), and the sector as a whole by promoting gender equity and more inclusive workplace practices. WiNTA is funded by the Attorney-General’s Department Native Title Anthropologists’ Grant Scheme.

The WiNTA Forum: We welcome women anthropologists working in native title to attend our first forum to discuss issues relating to gender in the workplace, held over two days in September 2021. Hosted in person in Melbourne and online via Zoom, the forum aims to promote a collegial and supportive environment for sharing experience, networking, and for professional development, and is free to attend. The forum will blend informative content with practical skills and techniques that women can use in their work as anthropologists. Sessions will blend a generalised approach to women in Australian workplaces with presentation of the WiNTA research findings, include panels featuring consultant and NTRB/NTSP anthropologists, and sessions highlighting practical skills, such as addressing workplace discrimination, sexual harassment, negotiating salary and contracts, and establishing a consultancy business.

Details:
Where & How: In person in Melbourne, and online via Zoom (details provided upon registration)
When: Thursday 16th & Friday 17th September 2021, Sessions run from 10:00am - 3:30pm AEST
Attendance is free but places are limited.
Please register using this link.

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ASWA Seminar Series 2021: Social Surroundings 2 - Aesthetic Values
Jul
21

ASWA Seminar Series 2021: Social Surroundings 2 - Aesthetic Values

Due to a number of ASWA members not being able to attend the first Social Surroundings Presentation, Robin Stevens has agreed to a second presentation on this topic, to a restricted audience, aimed at the professional development of ASWA members.

When: Wednesday 21st July - Further details about venue and time soon
Title: Social Surroundings 2 - Aesthetic Values

Abstract:The definition of ‘social surroundings’ in the Environmental Protection Act (1986) includes “aesthetic, cultural, economic and social surroundings”. Though the term ’aesthetics’ is commonly associated with notions of beauty and the arts, it refers more broadly to one’s sensory experiences and knowledge of the world. Meyer (2006) suggests that there are ‘grammars of sensing’ and that aesthetics modulate the body and tune the senses in a particular way. Atkinson (2015) argues that all societies have an ‘aesthetic order’, and that ‘patterns of culture’ are in part predicated on local definitions and assumptions about aesthetic values. As White (2003) notes in respect of Yolngu aesthetic perspectives on country: “the problem of cross-cultural communication extends to aesthetics, especially with respect to natural phenomena, and associated issues of the importance of ‘place’”.

Drawing on sensory anthropology (e.g., Pink 2009 and Howes & Classen 2014) we will workshop how one might capture and evaluate Aboriginal aesthetics in the context of a ‘social surroundings’ assessment. Further reference material is in the Social Surroundings 2 - Aesthetic Values Abstract.

Cost: ASWA/AACAI Member or student: $10, Non-member: $15. On-line bookings available soon.

Entry fee covers food after the presentation
Please contact ASWA's event organiser Tania Philips if you require any further information.

See you all there.

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Awards and Prizes

Each year at its Annual Dinner, ASWA awards prizes to recognise achievements and excellence in anthropology. The principal prizes awarded are the Berndt Memorial Prizes.

Other prizes are awarded by Professional Members of ASWA as contributions from these professional consultancies to recognise outstanding work in the field of anthropology over the past year. ASWA invites Members to make financial contributions to the awarding of prizes, either as a contribution to the Berndt Memorial Prize or a prize of their own nomination.

Professional and other Members who wish to make contributions can do so by emailing aswasecretary@anthropologywa.org.