Unit convenor and teaching staff |
Unit convenor and teaching staff
Unit Convenor
Eve Vincent
Contact via eve.vincent@mq.edu.au
W6A, 611
Monday 5-6pm
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Credit points |
Credit points
4
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Prerequisites |
Prerequisites
Admission to MGlobalHlthDevStud or GradCertGlobalHlthDevStud or MAppAnth or PGDipAppAnth or MDevCult or PGDipDevCult or PGCertDevCult or PGDipPP or MPASR or PGDipPASR or PGCertPASR or MSocEntre or PGCertSocEntre or GradDipPASR or GradDipPP or MPPP or MDevStudGlobalHlth or 4cp in ANTH units at 800 level
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Corequisites |
Corequisites
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Co-badged status |
Co-badged status
ANTH721
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Unit description |
Unit description
This unit examines the relationship between policies, governmental and organisational practices and everyday life in Aboriginal Australia. Selected policies in relation to welfare, health, the criminal justice system and land-based issues will be discussed. Aboriginal viewpoints and self-imaginings will be central to the course. Further, students will be introduced to new critical work that deals with the co-constitution of Indigenous and non-Indigenous identities in overlapping realms. The unit also raises questions to do with collaborative community-based research methods and non-traditional research outcomes.
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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 |
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Seminar Participation | 20% | Weekly |
Book Review | 20% | Friday September 16 |
Essay Question | 10% | Monday October 10 |
Research Essay | 50% | Monday November 14 |
Due: Weekly
Weighting: 20%
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. Students (in small groups) will also 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.
Due: Friday September 16
Weighting: 20%
You will be required to write a 1,500 word review of a whole work. A list of suggested titles and detailed description of this assessment task will be released in Week 2.
Due: Monday October 10
Weighting: 10%
Each student will be designing their own essay question in this course. In Week 9 you will submit a draft of the question you wish to work on as well as a bibliography listing at least ten items. This assessment task is due at 5pm on Monday October 10, before class. Please print a copy of your draft question for class: we will workshop the questions together.
Due: Monday November 14
Weighting: 50%
Students will submit a 3,000-3,500 word essay in response to the essay question they have designed in consultation with Eve.
All required readings for this unit are available via the library site for this unit or via iLearn. The Week 2 reading, Nguly Gu Yahoo Mai (Our Good Food), will be available for purchase in Week 1 for $15; all proceeds go to the booklet's authors.
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: Monday August 1. 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.
Required Reading
Extended Reading
Week 2: Monday August 8. 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 Reading
Extended Reading
Week 3: Monday August 15. 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 Reading
Extended Reading
Week 4: Monday August 22. Foundations 3: Being kin
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 Reading
Extended Reading
Week 5: Monday August 29. Early colonial contact; early anthropological concerns
For the next two weeks we will learn some vital historical context, beginning with the moment of invasion, and moving to the earliest anthropological endeavours. We will discuss Patrick Wolfe's characterisation of settler colonialism.
Required Reading
Week 6: Monday September 5 From the bark petition to native title
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 Aboriginal Land Rights Act, NT (1976). This week we the 1963 bark petition, the ALRA, and 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 Australian 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: Monday September 12 Indigeneity and Environmentalism
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 Reading
Extended Reading
Mid-semester break: Monday September 19-Sunday October 2
Week 8: Monday October 3 (PUBLIC HOLIDAY--NO CLASS)
Week 9: Monday October 10 Koori Sydney
Required Reading
Week 10: Monday October 17 Institutionality and State Effects
Guest lecturer: Drew Anderson
This week we consider some of the crucial questions surrounding the role of the interventionist and bureaucratic state in Aboriginal people's lives.
Required Reading
Extended Reading
Additional readings regarding the 2007 Northern Territory 'Intervention':
Week 11: Monday October 24 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 12: Monday October 31 Warlpiri art-making today
The Art Gallery of NSW is currently showing 'Yuendemu', which features some of the grand collaborative canvases painted in the community in 1995 and 1997 (see http://www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au/exhibitions/yuendumu/). This is a free exhibition: we will meet at the gallery on Sunday October 30 to view these works, and will discuss them on Monday evening in addition to the Melinda Hinkson reading.
Required Reading
Extended Reading
Week 13: Monday November 7 Conducting Research with Indigenous people
As we conclude we will 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
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
New Assessment Policy in effect from Session 2 2016 http://mq.edu.au/policy/docs/assessment/policy_2016.html. For more information visit http://students.mq.edu.au/events/2016/07/19/new_assessment_policy_in_place_from_session_2/
Assessment Policy prior to Session 2 2016 http://mq.edu.au/policy/docs/assessment/policy.html
Grading Policy prior to Session 2 2016 http://mq.edu.au/policy/docs/grading/policy.html
Grade Appeal Policy http://mq.edu.au/policy/docs/gradeappeal/policy.html
Complaint Management Procedure for Students and Members of the Public http://www.mq.edu.au/policy/docs/complaint_management/procedure.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/
Results shown in iLearn, or released directly by your Unit Convenor, are not confirmed as they are subject to final approval by the University. Once approved, final results will be sent to your student email address and will be made available in eStudent. For more information visit ask.mq.edu.au.
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://www.mq.edu.au/about_us/offices_and_units/information_technology/help/.
When using the University's IT, you must adhere to the Acceptable Use of IT Resources Policy. The policy applies to all who connect to the MQ network including students.
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