[Aqualist] Outcomes announced for ARC Special Research Initiative for Australian Society, History and Culture - funding commencing in 2020

[Simon Haberle]

Dear colleagues,

The ARC have just released the outcomes for the Special Research Initiative for Australian Society, History and Culture - funding commencing in 2020. Congratulations to all successful candidates.

See https://www.arc.gov.au/grants/grant-outcomes/selection-outcome-reports/selection-report-special-research-initiative-australian-society-history-and-culture-funding

I have listed all funded projects that are related to archaeology and Quaternary research (historic climate change, fire and ecosystem change, hydrology).

Regards, Simon


The Australian National University

Prof Susan O'Connor; Prof Jane Balme; Dr Ursula Frederick; Mrs Melissa Marshall (SR200200473, $283,678)
Archives in Bark: Carved and inscribed Kimberley boab trees.
This project seeks to record and contextualise Indigenous and non-Indigenous carvings and inscriptions on ancient Australian boab trees (Adansonia gregorii) growing in the Kimberley region of Western Australia. It will document a hitherto poorly recorded form of traditional Indigenous cultural and artistic practice, as well as information about the lives of Indigenous and non-Indigenous people living on missions and pastoral properties prior to and immediately following European Contact. The significance of the project lies in its ability to record information about the lives of people not captured in other types of historical documents. The project should provide ecological information about the condition of these Kimberley heritage trees.

Prof Matthew Spriggs; Prof Lynette Russell (SR200200155, $277,158)
Aboriginal Involvement in the Early Development of Australian Archaeology.
This project aims to interrogate the importance of Aboriginal knowledge in the development of Australian archaeology. Through a close study of archival and published archaeological literature, the project anticipates generating new knowledge and innovative interpretations of archaeology's history. Expected outcomes include a radical rewriting of a significant chapter of the nation’s history and enhancing the reinterpretation of museum displays and tourism presentation of heritage sites. This reclaiming of the contribution of the First Australians in the development of the current knowledge of 65,000 years of our history, seeks to benefit Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians, and to contribute to ongoing reconciliation.


University of Wollongong

Prof Fiona Probyn-Rapsey; Prof Lynette Russell (SR200200383, $230,277)
The cultural impacts of introduced animals in Australia.
The presence of pastoral and feral animal populations has brought into sharp relief highly divergent views of settler and Indigenous Australians about the status of animals and their management. In response to recent calls for greater recognition of Indigenous ecological knowledge, this project will generate new knowledge about the cultural impacts of conflict over introduced animals. Three case studies will show how Indigenous and settler Australian thinking about animals emerged in the colonial period and continues to shape modern Australia. Significant benefits emerge from deepening our understanding of the cultural impacts of ecological harms, addressing conflicts as well as successful collaborations.


La Trobe University

Prof Susan Lawrence; Dr Jillian Garvey; A/Prof Nicola Stern; Prof Richard Cosgrove; Dr Anita Smith; Dr Julie Andrews; Dr Peter Davies; Dr Rebekah Kurpiel (SR200200357, $261,172)
Fire, Flood and Food: People and Landscape Change in Northern Victoria.
The project aims to explore how access to water and the use of fire have shaped land use from ancient times to the recent past using the case study of the Loddon River basin, Victoria. By linking Aboriginal and historical archaeology and Aboriginal Studies the project seeks to develop an innovative integrated data set that spans the entirety of human history in Australia. Anticipated outcomes include new knowledge about how people have responded to environmental and social change and increased capacity for Aboriginal people to achieve their educational and land management goals. This should provide significant benefits that inform contemporary responses to climate change, water security, fire management, and sustainable food production.


The University of Melbourne

Dr Martin Tomko; Dr Juliana Prpic; Dr Kourosh Khoshelham; Dr Agathe Lisé-Pronovost; Professor Marcia Langton (SR200200227, $277,000)
Indigenous Engineering: interpreting engineering foundations of Budj Bim.
The Budj Bim World Heritage Cultural Landscape is internationally recognised for preserving the world’s oldest aquaculture system, which provided an economic and social base for the Gunditjmara people of South-western Victoria for more than six millennia. This project aims to elucidate the engineering processes that enabled the Gunditjmara to site, plan, construct, operate and maintain this aquaculture complex, to show how it may have evolved over time, and how it responded to changing social and environmental circumstances. This project will develop geospatial methods to uncover and document the technological foundations of the aquaculture complex, and contribute to the understanding of the Gunditjmara technological knowledge and history.


Griffith University

Prof Sue Jackson; Prof Katie Holmes; Prof Lesley Head; Dr Ruth Morgan (SR200200322, $281,446)
Understanding the water cultures of the Murray-Darling Basin.
The project aims to generate new knowledge of the formation and evolution of cultural values and practices relating to water in the Murray-Darling Basin. By applying innovative approaches from the environmental humanities, it will investigate the development of cultures of water and their role in long-standing water-sharing conflicts. The expected outcome is a greater understanding of influential ideas about the value of water and rivers and a Water Cultures Network to facilitate collaboration between humanities and social science scholars, environmental scientists, and water managers. The public will benefit from knowing how water use behaviours evolved in the Basin and how they might be reframed to adapt to a hotter, drier future.

A/Prof Lynley Wallis; Prof Heather Burke; Dr Billy Griffiths (SR200200157, $263,414)
Fugitive Traces: Reconstructing Yulluna experiences of the frontier. Focussing on oral histories held by a prominent Aboriginal family whose history is deeply enmeshed with the Qld Native Mounted Police, this project aims to consider family history in the broader context of colonial settlement and the complexities of frontier conflict. Through a collaboration of Indigenous peoples, archaeologists, historians, anthropologists, museum curators and educators, the expected outcome will be the first sustained history of a hitherto elusive Aboriginal experience of the frontier. In doing so it will provide fresh insights into a contentious period in Australia’s past. Its chief benefit will be to contribute in a practical way to reconciliation.

Dr Sally May; Professor Paul Tacon; Associate Professor Liam Brady; Dr Daryl Wesley; Dr Laura Rademaker; Dr Andrea Jalandoni (SR200200062, $273,828)
Art at a crossroads: Aboriginal responses to contact in northern Australia.
This project aims to investigate historical Aboriginal responses to ‘contact’ with newcomers to their land. It will generate new knowledge using systematic recordings of rock art and bark paintings created during the last 400 years in western Arnhem Land. The analysis of these key visual first-hand records of Australia’s history, together with documentation from digital archives and other media, will lead to new ways of understanding Aboriginal history. Drawing on multiple forms of media, we will examine how Aboriginal people used graphic systems to navigate threats and opportunities in northern Australia, with the main benefit to Australia being a more comprehensive and inclusive written history.


University of Western Australia

A/Prof  Andrea Gaynor (SR200201032, $241,704)
Histories of recovery and adaptation in the Australian Anthropocene.
This project seeks to understand how vulnerable communities cope and adapt when faced with multiple environmental challenges in the Anthropocene. Its aim is to help prepare for future environmental change by producing a major new study of historical and contemporary experiences in remote, rural, and coastal communities grappling with freshwater renewal, vegetation regeneration, and pollution legacies. The expected outcomes include critical insights into cultural and social capacity for thriving in uncertain ecological futures. The project will build capacity in Australian environmental history and humanities, and make a significant contribution to a growing area of international research activity.


Prof Simon Haberle
Director, School of Culture, History & Language
Professor of Natural History

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