“Jimbin Kaboo Yimardoowarra Marninil” – listening to Nyikina women’s voices, from the inside to the outside: an inter-generational journey of cultural actions, economic, and self-determination initiatives on Nyikina country through film

Magali’s doctoral research has come about as a result of her professional involvement as a filmmaker with Aboriginal communities over the past nine years, particularly with Nyikina women in the Kimberley. In her thesis, “Jimbin Kaboo Yimardoowarra Marninil – listening to Nyikina women, from the inside to the outside: an inter-generational journey of cultural actions, economic and self-determination initiatives on Nyikina country through film” she explores Nyikina women’s aspirations for sustainable community development, their engagement with, or disengagement from, the state apparatus, and the strategies of resistance and alternatives they have developed over the years in response to the failure of various government policies, examining the women’s agency in an increasingly neo-colonial context through the cultural actions they have put in place in their communities over the last twenty years. By firmly grounding the women in their cultural landscape with visual story-telling, and carrying out a Foucauldian deconstruction of the historical, anthropological, and development discourses which have influenced their lived experiences, Magali reflects on the women’s strategies of resistance, where film plays a paramount role in reclaiming these discourses and re-affirming their Nyikina identity. The films we make are a performative device connecting people to themselves and others locally, nationally, and internationally. In fact, they are the ultimate performance, encompassing all other cultural actions and acts of resistance into a visual interpretive story which is simultaneously a visual act of inscription, a unique lived experience of Indigenous singularities, renewing old and forming new social alliances with other Indigenous and non-Indigenous people across Australia and the world. In this presentation, through showing excerpts of her latest documentary Three Sisters, and discussing some methodological aspects of her thesis, Magali would like to explore the use of film both as an empowering act of resistance to neo-colonial oppression, and as a decolonizing methodology.How do Aboriginal people choose, and what do their choices reveal about the value of the customary economy and cultural production? By exploring these potentially rival uses of Aboriginal labour from an Aboriginal perspective we can better understand the motivating forces at play in Aboriginal participation in economic development in remote Australia, which could inform labour market and economic development policy

A Hormone Therapy Model for Breast Cancer Using Linear Cancer Networks

Hormone therapy is a viable technique used to treat endocrine receptor positive cancers. Using the recently developed theory of cancer networks, we create a mathematical model describing the growth of an estrogen-receptive cancer governed by a linear cancer network. We then present hormone therapy as a drug that blocks the estrogen receptors of different cells in the network. Depending on the effectiveness of the drug, the model predicts coexistence of healthy and cancerous cells as well as a cure state. In the case of coexistence, the carrying capacities of all cancerous cells are reduced by hormone therapy, increasing effectiveness of other treatments such as surgery

Development and Nyikina Woman’s Agency: The Importance of ‘Booroo’ (Country) in an International, Intercultural Space

Nine years of collaboration between three Yimardoowarra Marninil Nyikina sisters from the Lower Fitzroy River and French-Australian filmmaker and PhD Researcher, Magali McDuffie, has revealed the women’s determination to speak and re-affirm the Nyikina worldview into existence. They envisage all spatio-temporal interactions (social, political, cultural, educational) as being based in Booroo (Country), as a basis for ‘being-in-the-world’ (Heidegger, 1962). In this presentation which uses excerpts from filmed interviews, Magali will examine how the sisters conceived of development through time by referring to the Seaman Enquiry in 1983. Thirty three years later, the Bidan Community represents this vision embodying the family’s aspirations for future development on Nyikina Country through culture-conservation economy on country, self-sufficiency, sustainability and supporting others, particularly young Aboriginal generations, to overcome the social issues resulting from colonising institutional processes. The aspirations of the three sisters will be shown in terms of development based on living and acting in an inter-cultural space (Merlan, 1998). Multiple and collaborative cultural actions, or life projects (Blaser, Feit & McRae, 2004), are bringing two laws, two inter-related worlds, into one connected, non-hierarchical, respectful space. Through extending the spatio-temporal reach of Booroo in such life projects, films have brought the three sisters into the international arena, connecting with like-minded people to argue for every individual’s right to live a life they deem worth living and promoting development as freedom (Sen, 1999)

FULLY FORMED: TO BE BLACK AND JESUIT

This study addresses the collective voices of Black Jesuits in the United States. The purpose of this heuristic inquiry was to unearth the participants’ lived anti-Black experiences within the Society of Jesus. The qualitative study utilized questionnaires with open ended questions, and the responses were coded and categorized into themes to elucidate the complexity of anti-Blackness in a predominately white male religious order

Vertebrates at the University of Southern Mississippi: A Wildlife Survey of the Bear Point Bayou and Surrounding Gulf Park Campus

This project originated through interest in pursuing a field-based research project involving vertebrates. After conducting literature reviews, it was found that the Bear Point Bayou running through the University of Southern Mississippi Gulf Park Campus has never been thoroughly surveyed for species richness (Mohrman et al. 2016). Four sites on the Gulf Park Campus were chosen and vertebrate species were documented and identified through observations, camera trapping, and vocalization recordings. These data, along with species previously recorded on campus, were combined, and compared to data from the Gulf Coast Phenology Trail of which the Gulf Park Campus was recently added as a partner site. A total of 82 vertebrate species were catalogued on this campus with species richness being greatest at the Bear Point Bayou observation site. Recommendations for future GCPT involvement as well as the promotion of field-based studies for students on the Gulf Park Campus with emphasis on those majoring in the Biological Sciences are proposed