This multi-disciplinary project will provide a systematic history of ethnographic collecting in the Wet Tropics of North Queensland. Covering the period from the 1870s to the present, it will explore the diverse ways in which Aboriginal people, collectors and museums have expressed their interests and property rights in the collected artefacts. It will also analyse the ways in which Aboriginal people of the Wet Tropics have vested these artefacts with their regional and other identities. By doing so, it will shed new light on current debates about the ownership and value of Indigenous artefacts and contribute to the development of innovative ways of presenting Indigenous peoples’ connections with their material cultural heritage.
Expectations:
The successful applicant will have an academic background (Honours degree or higher) in one or more of the disciplines of anthropology, archaeology or history. She or he will join the multi-disciplinary research team listed above, and will be enrolled as a PhD candidate at
James Cook University, based at either the Townsville or Cairns campus. He or she is expected to participate in research team meetings and contribute to the success of the overarching research project.
The applicant will define his or her own PhD topic within the parameters of the project as a whole. Potential PhD topics include, but are not limited to: histories of local indigenous museums in the Wet Tropics; histories of property claims as they relate to transactions in indigenous artefacts from the Wet Tropics; analyses of specific collections or categories of artefacts deriving from the Wet Tropics. Interdisciplinary topics are particularly encouraged but single-discipline topics are also welcome.
Value: A stipend of $22,500 per annum (tax free) for three years plus $7000 project support.

Scholarship Application Deadline:14 February 2011

Further Scholarship Information and Application