Reflections on a native title anthropology field school

Anthropologists play a significant role in the native title system in Australia, especially in undertaking connection research to demonstrate the evidentiary basis of claims. In 2010, recognising the lack of sufficiently qualified anthropologists working in native title, the Australian Government introduced a grants program to attract and retain practitioners. This paper describes a field school in the Northern Territory that was funded through the Native Title Anthropologist Grants Program. Through dialogue and interaction with the Aboriginal community, the organisers aimed to expose and interpret ideas, practices, memories, mythologies, relationships and other aspects of society and culture in the terms required for the demonstration of native title. Both novel and successful, the field school points the way for future training initiatives in native title anthropology. Related identifier: ISBN 9781922102317 (paperback) | ISBN 9781922102300 (ebook : pdf) | Dewey Number 346.940432

Reflections on a native title anthropology field school

Anthropologists have a significant role in the functioning of the native title system in Australia, especially, although not exclusively, in undertaking connection research to demonstrate the evidentiary basis of claims. The Australian Government has recognised a lack of sufficiently qualified anthropologists to satisfy the requirements of the native title system in this regard and, to address the shortfall, has provided competitive grant funding for activities related to recruitment and training. In 2010 the Australian National University (ANU) attracted funding from the Attorney- General's Department's Native Title Anthropologist Grants Program (NTAG Program) to support a native title anthropological field school and complementary on-campus workshop intensive. The field school was an experimental form of training designed to give anthropology graduates and early-career anthropologists a clearer understanding of work in the native title field. It was both novel and effective, primarily because its experiential approach provided multi-sensory and responsive solutions to diverse student needs. It allowed for concepts and theories in native title to be connected to daily realities and the pragmatics of research and interaction with Aboriginal people. This article focuses primarily on the field school component of the program as the novel form of training for native title anthropology but includes a brief discussion of the on-campus intensive.This report was commisioned by Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studie

Challenges for Australian native title anthropology: practice beyond the proof of connection

  This Discussion Paper arises from a concern that the current contributions of anthropology in the Australian native title arena are often unnecessarily confined to the production of expert reports and other materials, in accordance with legal briefs and criteria established under native title law. It argues for a broadening of the focus of anthropological work in the native title arena from roles as independent experts, to include a ‘mirror image’ of that concerned with the proof of native title. In addition to constructing legally-driven expert accounts of the present in terms of the traditions of the past as is required to prove native title, this ‘mirror image’ anthropology would be explicitly concerned with contemporary processes such as Aboriginal engagement with the wider society, development, and transformation as well as with cultural continuities. The paper provides conceptual tools for this broader anthropological focus, including the practical significance of the concept of the ‘intercultural’ in challenging essentialised constructions of Aboriginal traditions, laws, and customs in the native title arena. This broader practice would challenge anthropologists’ own constructions of the nature of their contributions in the native title arena, and the representations and expectations of them by others. It would involve anthropologists working in multidisciplinary teams; in collaboration with Aboriginal people, developing institutions and strategies to transform Aboriginal people’s social, economic and political circumstances. The paper addresses two contexts of such a native title anthropology—the development of native title agreements, and the management of native title related decision-making and dispute management among Aboriginal people