[ANU Pacific.Institute] Thesis Proposal Review - Jenny Homerang

[Nicholas Mortimer]

School of Culture, History and Language
ANU College of Asia and the Pacific
 
Department of Pacific and Asian History
2014 Seminar Series 

Monday, 11 August, 3:00pm - 4:30pm

Seminar Room B, Coombs Building (9), Fellows Road, ANU
 
Behind the Masks: the future of mortuary ceremonies in managing ancestral land for Nalik people 

Thesis Proposal Review
 
Jenny Homerang
School of Culture, History and Language, 
College of Asia & the Pacific, the Australian National University
 
Behind the celebrated malagan masks displayed in Nalik mortuary ceremonies, members of clan lineages perform relational activities critical for the well-being of their communities. These ceremonies, which are shared with approximately 40,000 people in ten linguistic groups across the northern region of New Ireland in Papua New Guinea, provide the principal vehicle for these communities to manage various processes including the maintenance and transfer of ancestral land. These land processes require members of a clan lineage who have been gifted land by the clan lineage hosting the mortuary ceremony to publicly acknowledge and reconcile their 'debt to the land'.  The Nalik people, of whom I am a member, continue to practice ancestral land management through three of their main mortuary ceremonies. My proposed research aims to present a historical account of Nalik conceptions of the management of ancestral land in their mortuary ceremonies. Within an Indigenous research framework, my research will explore how Nalik people relate to their ancestral land; how they manage land through mortuary ceremonies; and how their practice of managing land has changed in the past and present, and into the future. A central motivation for this research is to tell Nalik stories of ancestral land and mortuary ceremonies that are grounded in a Nalik worldview.
 
All welcome. You are invited to join the speaker for drinks after the seminar at Fellows Bar, University House 


Enquiries: 
Danton Leary <danton.leary at anu.edu.au>
 
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Nicholas Mortimer | ARC Laureate administrator | College of Asia & the Pacific | HC Coombs Building #9 | Australian National University | Canberra ACT 0200 | T +61 2 61253148 | M 0416625145

 

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