Unit convenor and teaching staff |
Unit convenor and teaching staff
Unit Convenor
Eve Vincent
Contact via eve.vincent@mq.edu.au
W6A, 611
Tuesday 1-3pm
|
---|---|
Credit points |
Credit points
4
|
Prerequisites |
Prerequisites
Admission to MAppAnth or PGDipAppAnth or MDevCult or PGDipDevCult or PGCertDevCult or MPP or PGDipPP or MPASR or PGDipPASR or PGCertPASR or MSocEntre or PGCertSocEntre or 4cp in ANTH units at 800 level
|
Corequisites |
Corequisites
|
Co-badged status |
Co-badged status
ANTH721
|
Unit description |
Unit description
This unit examines policies and practices in relation to Aboriginal community development in both remote and urban areas. Current federal and state policies in relation to welfare, health, land and legal issues will be discussed. Aboriginal viewpoints and the interaction of Aboriginal organisations with bureaucracies and welfare agencies will be examined.
|
Information about important academic dates including deadlines for withdrawing from units are available at https://www.mq.edu.au/study/calendar-of-dates
On successful completion of this unit, you will be able to:
Name | Weighting | Due |
---|---|---|
Seminar Participation | 15% | Weekly |
Report on Discussion | 20% | One week after discussion |
Essay Question | 10% | Tuesday September 16 |
Research Essay | 55% | Monday November 17 |
Due: Weekly
Weighting: 15%
Seminar attendance and participation are mandatory. Active engagement in our discussions is vital: please come to class well prepared, willing to contribute your ideas, and ready to listen to others' contributions.
Due: One week after discussion
Weighting: 20%
Each student will be responsible for facilitating one seminar discussion over the course of the session. You should prepare for the discussion by: carefully reading the week's required and extended readings; identifying central arguments and areas of potential confusion; generating starting points for class discussion. Your team will assume responsibility for introducing and guiding a respectful, well-informed discussion of the weekly topic. Creativity is encouraged.
One week after the discussion you will submit a 1500-1800 word report on the weekly discussion topic. The report should incorporate both your preparation for the discussion and any insights on the topic that came out of the discussion. Your final mark for this assessment task will incorporate both a mark for the facilitation and a mark for the written report.
Due: Tuesday September 16
Weighting: 10%
Each student will be designing their own essay question in this course. In Week 7 you will submit a draft of the question you wish to work on as well as a bibliography.
Due: Monday November 17
Weighting: 55%
Students will submit a 3,500-4,000 word essay in response to the essay question they have designed in consultation with Eve.
All required readings for this unit are available via iLearn. Extended readings have been placed on reserve in the library.
iLearn login is via: https://ilearn.mq.edu.au/ Students are required to have regular access to a computer and the internet. Mobile devices alone are not sufficient. For technical support go to: http://mq.edu.au/about_us/offices_and_units/informatics/help For student quick guides on the use of iLearn go to: http://mq.edu.au/iLearn/student_info/guides.htm
Week 1: August 5. Indigenous identities
This class will provide an introduction to the unit, its scope and aims, and an explanation of requirements and assessment tasks. We will then turn our attention to critical issues surrounding Indigenous identities, representation and definitions of Indigeneity. We will discuss the 'three part' definition of Indigeneity that has prevailed in Australia since the 1980s, and which replaced definitions based on 'race'. Anthropology's role in these questions will be considered.
Background Readings
Week 2: August 12. Foundations 1: The human presence in Australia
In this week we embark on the first of three weeks dealing with foundational concepts in the anthropology of Indigenous Australia. We will discuss the history of human inhabitation of the continent, and of mobile hunter gatherer resource use. We will consider the usefulness of terms such as 'nomadic' and 'hunter gatherer'.
Required Readings
Extended Reading
Week 3: August 19. Foundations 2: Land-based cosmology
Having established the economic basis of hunter-gatherer life in the previous week, we now turn towards the Aboriginal world-view or cosmology, and its embodiment and objectification in ritual and social relations. As Aboriginal people strongly assert, and anthropologists have long identified, the living land created by ancestral beings is the cornerstone of their self-understanding. Anthropologists speak of a totemic system or the Dreaming. What exactly is meant by the terms ‘totemism’, 'country’ and ‘Dreaming’? How do these concepts help us to understand different understandings of emplacement, belonging, and social relations?
Required Readings
Extended Reading
Week 4: August 26. Foundations 3: Kinship
This week we shift the focus from people-land relations to people’s relationships to each other. We will learn that social relations can be understood, using Myers, when we consider people’s rights and relationships to ‘objects’, including land. Further, we will explore the way kinship concepts are activated in urban and regional settings today as we ask: What does it mean to be ‘family’?
Required Readings
Further Readings
Week 5: September 2. Conducting Research with Indigenous people
This week we turn our attention to the practical, ethical and political dimensions of conducting research with Indigenous people. We will be looking at examples of innovative research practice as researchers strive to find new ways to work with and write with/about Indigenous communities.
Required Reading:
Extended reading:
Week 6: September 9. Native Title 1: Introduction and critical perspectives
From the early 1970s until the early 1990s, Aboriginal efforts to secure recognition of their prior occupation and status as land owners made strides at state, territory, and national levels, most prominently in light of the Land Rights Act, NT (1976). This week we discuss the Mabo ruling that led to Native Title legislation. The readings introduce critical perspectives on the politics of recognition, the notion of cultural difference, and what it has come to stand for. Why are land rights and sacred sites legislation so important to Aboriginal people? Do you think that Mabo fostered Settler understanding of Aboriginal land tenure? What are some ways we might think of the unintended consequences of native title legislation for Indigenous identities and senses of belonging?
Required reading:
Extended Reading:
Week 7: September 16. Native Title 2: Practical perspectives
This week we are joined by an experienced native title anthropologist, Belinda Burbidge, to discuss applied anthropological work and south-eastern claims. Readings TBA.
University Break. September 22nd - October 3rd.
Week 8: October 7. Indigeneity and conservation issues
Mining, nuclear waste, industrial development: these issues concern conservationists and Aboriginal communities alike. In recent years a heated public debate has raged about the naturalised affinity of Indigenous and environmentalists' interests. This week we will look at critical anthropological perspectives on the instability of the so-called 'green-black' alliances.
Required Readings
Extended Reading
Week 9: October 14. State interventions and Indigenous life
In 2007 then prime minister John Howard declared a national emergency in the Northern Territory. A dramatic state intervention into the lives of Aboriginal people in the Northern Territory was launched. This week we consider some of the crucial questions surrounding the role of the interventionary state in Aboriginal people's lives. Did the Intervention mark a past with more liberal policies aimed at remedial interventions? How does neoliberalism configure Aboriginal difference as a problem? What role have anthropologist played in debates about social distress, disadvantage, cultural difference and remote living conditions?
Required Reading:
Altman, Jon. 2007 In the Name of the Market? Coercive Reconcilation: Stabilise, Normalise, Exit Aboriginal Australia. North Carlton, Vic.: Arena Publications, 307-321.
Lattas, Andrew and Morris, Barry. 2010 The Politics of Suffering and the Politics of Anthropology. In Altman, Jon and M. Hinkson, eds. Culture Crisis: Anthropology and Politics in Aboriginal Australia. Sydney: UNSW Press, 61-87.
Musharbash, Yasmine. 2010 'Only whitefella take that road': Culture seen through the Intervention at Yuendumu. In. Altman, Jon and M. Hinkson, eds. Culture Crisis: Anthropology and Politics in Aboriginal Australia. Sydney: UNSW Press, 212-225
Extended Reading
Week 10: October 21. 'Aboriginal art' and the market
Catherine Massola (the Australian National University) will join us this week to talk about working in remote Aboriginal art centres.
Required Readings:
Caruana, Wally. 1992 ‘Introduction’ Aboriginal Art, London: Thames and Hudson, 1993, 7-20
Kjellgren, Eric. 2002 'Painting for Corroboree, Painting for Kartiya: Contemporary Aboriginal Art in the East Kimberley, Western Australia’, Herle, Anita [et al.], Pacific Art: Persistence, Change, and Meaning, Adelaide, Crawford House Press, 353-369
Morphy, Howard 2001 ‘Seeing Aboriginal art in the Gallery’, Humanities Research, vol. 8, no.1, 37-50.
Extended Reading:
Week 11: Research Week (work on individual research projects - no class)
Week 12: November 4. Policing, incarceration and Indigenous communities
We often hear media stories that tell of Indigenous rates of imprisonment. In Western Australia, for example, the rate of incarceration for Indigenous Australians is 20 times higher than for non-Indigenous. From the Australian Bureau of Statistics we can learn that rates of incarceration continuing to rise markedly between 2002 and 2012. How do anthropological analyses help us make sense of this statistical picture? What historical, political and cultural frames shed light on the relationship between Indigenous people, the criminal justice system and correctional institutions?
Required Reading
Extended Reading
Week 13: November 11. Shared Worlds: Indigenous-Settler entanglements
Required Reading:
Macquarie University policies and procedures are accessible from Policy Central. Students should be aware of the following policies in particular with regard to Learning and Teaching:
Academic Honesty Policy http://mq.edu.au/policy/docs/academic_honesty/policy.html
Assessment Policy http://mq.edu.au/policy/docs/assessment/policy.html
Grading Policy http://mq.edu.au/policy/docs/grading/policy.html
Grade Appeal Policy http://mq.edu.au/policy/docs/gradeappeal/policy.html
Grievance Management Policy http://mq.edu.au/policy/docs/grievance_management/policy.html
Disruption to Studies Policy http://www.mq.edu.au/policy/docs/disruption_studies/policy.html The Disruption to Studies Policy is effective from March 3 2014 and replaces the Special Consideration Policy.
In addition, a number of other policies can be found in the Learning and Teaching Category of Policy Central.
Macquarie University students have a responsibility to be familiar with the Student Code of Conduct: https://students.mq.edu.au/support/student_conduct/
Macquarie University provides a range of support services for students. For details, visit http://students.mq.edu.au/support/
Learning Skills (mq.edu.au/learningskills) provides academic writing resources and study strategies to improve your marks and take control of your study.
Students with a disability are encouraged to contact the Disability Service who can provide appropriate help with any issues that arise during their studies.
For all student enquiries, visit Student Connect at ask.mq.edu.au
For help with University computer systems and technology, visit http://informatics.mq.edu.au/help/.
When using the University's IT, you must adhere to the Acceptable Use Policy. The policy applies to all who connect to the MQ network including students.
Our postgraduates will be able to demonstrate a significantly enhanced depth and breadth of knowledge, scholarly understanding, and specific subject content knowledge in their chosen fields.
This graduate capability is supported by:
Our postgraduates will be capable of utilising and reflecting on prior knowledge and experience, of applying higher level critical thinking skills, and of integrating and synthesising learning and knowledge from a range of sources and environments. A characteristic of this form of thinking is the generation of new, professionally oriented knowledge through personal or group-based critique of practice and theory.
This graduate capability is supported by:
Our postgraduates will be capable of systematic enquiry; able to use research skills to create new knowledge that can be applied to real world issues, or contribute to a field of study or practice to enhance society. They will be capable of creative questioning, problem finding and problem solving.
This graduate capability is supported by:
Our postgraduates will be able to communicate effectively and convey their views to different social, cultural, and professional audiences. They will be able to use a variety of technologically supported media to communicate with empathy using a range of written, spoken or visual formats.
This graduate capability is supported by:
Our postgraduates will be ethically aware and capable of confident transformative action in relation to their professional responsibilities and the wider community. They will have a sense of connectedness with others and country and have a sense of mutual obligation. They will be able to appreciate the impact of their professional roles for social justice and inclusion related to national and global issues
This graduate capability is supported by:
Our postgraduates will demonstrate a high standard of discernment and common sense in their professional and personal judgment. They will have the ability to make informed choices and decisions that reflect both the nature of their professional work and their personal perspectives.
This graduate capability is supported by: