Professor Nicolas Peterson

Professor of Anthropology

Email: nicolas.peterson@anu.edu.au
Phone: + 61 2 6125 4727

Honours

Fellow of the Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia.
Awarded the Lucy Mair Medal for Applied Anthropology from the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland in 1999.

Major Research Projects

Anthropological and Aboriginal; perspectives on the Donald Thomson Collection material culture, collecting and identity (ARC Linkage grant 2003-2006). In conjunction with Museum Victoria, Dr Louise Hamby, post doctoral fellow, and I, from the School of Archaeology and Anthropology at the Australian National University, and Ms Lindy Allen, Senior Curator, from Museum Victoria have been working on the Donald Thomson Arnhem Land Collection made between 1935-43. His Arnhem Land Collection of photographs, objects and notes together form the most comprehensive record of any fully functioning, self-suporting Aboriginal society we shall every have. The project has involved, among other things, digital modes of repatriation, extensive field based documentation of the many hundreds of images, exploration of material culture and ethnotechnology and research on Donald Thomson’s place in Australian anthropology. Many Indigenous knowledge holders have been brought down to work at the Museum with the more than 4,500 objects and over 2000 photographs as well. Work related to this project will continue well into the future.

Warlpiri songlines: anthropological, linguistic and Indigenous perspectives (ARC Linkage grant 2005-2007). In conjunction with the Warlpiri Janganpa Association, and the Central Land Council, the School of English at the University of Queensland and the Schools of Music and Archaeology and Anthropology at the Australian National University have a three year research project into Warlpiri songlines. The project combines anthropologists, linguists, musicologists, Indigenous knowledge holders and Indigenous bicultural linguists to record, transcribe and translate many of the cycles of songs that are no longer frequently performed, and, therefore, not being passed on to the younger generations. Warlpiri songs link ancestral power with the landscape, emotions and aesthetics and are central to Warlpiri religious life. The project is creating a cultural archive at Yuendumu informed by indigenous exegesis that is also integrating appropriate aspects into the world of scholarship and eventually providing materials for Warlpiri school curricula. This project includes a postgraduate research student, Georgia Curran, who is working with Warlpiri collaborations over a fifteen month period at Yuendumu, Dr Mary Laughren, Dr Stephen Wild and Ms Anna Meltzer. Key Warlpiri collaborators are Mr Thomas Rice Jangala and Ms Jeannie Egan Nungarrayi.

Other Current Research

Economy and culture: I am interested in the relationship of Indigenous Australian forms of sociality, organisation and economic practices with those of the encompassing nation-state. Currently I am investigating the modernising of the Indigenous domestic moral economy (see 1991, 1993, 2005 and Peterson and Taylor 2003).

Early twentieth century photography of Aboriginal people: In this project I am examining the ways in which Aboriginal people were represented in popular imagery (eg see 2006).

Recent and Main Publications

1976.  (ed).  Tribes and boundaries in Australia.  Canberra: AIAS. (250p)

1981. (ed).  Aboriginal land rights:  a handbook.  Canberra:  AIAS. (297p)

1983. (compiled and introduced).  Donald Thomson in Arnhem Land. Melbourne: Currey O'Neil.  (146p)

1983. (eds) N. Peterson and M. Langton. Aborigines, land and land rights.  Canberra: AIAS. (468p)

1986.  N. Peterson (in collaboration with J. Long).  Aboriginal territorial organization:  a band perspective.  Sydney:  Oceania Monograph No. 30.  (171p)

1990. "Studying man and man's nature":  the history of the institutionalisation of Aboriginal anthropology.  Australian Aboriginal Studies 2:3-19.

1991.  (eds). N. Peterson and T. Matsuyama.  Cash, commoditisation and changing foragers.  Osaka:  Senri Ethnological Studies No 30. (296p)

1991.  Cash, commoditisation and authenticity:  when do Aboriginal people stop being hunter-gatherers? In Cash, commoditisation and changing foragers (eds) N. Peterson and T. Matsuyama.  Osaka: Senri Ethnological Studies.  pp 67-90.

1993.  Demand-sharing: reciprocity and the pressure for generosity among foragers.  American Anthropologist 95(4):860-874.

1994.  Traditional marine tenure and government policy:  an Australian perspective.  In Traditional marine tenure and sustainable management of marine resources in Asia and the Pacific (eds) R. South, D. Goulet, S. Tuqiri and M. Church.  Suva:  University of the South Pacific. pp 183-194.

1997. Peterson, N. and Devitt, J.   A report in support of an application for recognition of native title in the sea by the Mangalarra, Mandilarri-Ildugij, Murran, Gadura, Mayarram, Minaga and Ngaynjaharr of the Croker Island Region.  Darwin:  Northern Land Council.  Pp 1-72 with  maps, site register and  genealogies.

1998. (eds) N. Peterson and B. Rigsby.  Customary marine tenure in Australia.  Sydney:  Oceania Monograph No 48.

1998.  (eds) N. Peterson and W. Sanders.  Citizenship and indigenous Australians: changing conceptions and possibilities.  Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

1998.  Welfare colonialism and citizenship:  politics, economics and agency.  In Citizenship and indigenous Australians (eds) N. Peterson and W. Sanders.  Cambridge : CUP.  Pp.101-117.

1998. N. Peterson and J. Taylor.  Demographic transition in a hunter-gatherer   population:  the Tiwi case, 1929-1996.  Australian Aboriginal Studies 1:11-27.

1999. Hunter-gatherers in first world nation states: bringing anthropology home. Bulletin of the National Museum of Ethnology 23(4): 847-861.

2002. N. Peterson and J. Taylor. Aboriginal intermarriage and economic status in western New South Wales. People and Place 10(4):11-16.

2003. C. Pinney and N. Peterson (eds). Photography's other histories. Durham: Duke University Press. (287p)

2003. The changing photographic contract: Aborigines and image ethics. In Photography's other histories (eds) C. Pinney and N. Peterson. Durham: Duke University Press. Pp. 119-145.

2003.(compiled and introduced). Donald Thomson in Arnhem Land. Melbourne: Miegunyah Press. (2nd edition completely revised as a visual ethnography).

2004. Myth of the 'walkabout': movement in the Aboriginal domain. In Population mobility and Indigenous peoples in Australia and North America (eds) J. Taylor and M. Bell. London: Routledge. Pp.223-238.

2005. On the visibility of Indigenous Australian systems of marine tenure. In Indigenous use and management of marine resources (eds0 N. Kishigami and J. Savelle. Osaka: Senri Ethnological Studies 67:427-444.

2005. B. Rigsby and N. Peterson (eds). Donald Thomson: the man and scholar. Canberra: Academy of the social sciences in Australia.

2006. Early 20th century photography of Australian Aboriginal families: illustration or evidence? Visual Anthropology Review 21(1&2):11-26.

2006. Visual knowledge: Spencer and Gillen's use of photography in The native tribes of central Australia. Australian Aboriginal Studies 1:12-22.

2008. N. Peterson, L. Allen, L. Hamby (eds). The Makers and making of Indigenous Australian museum collections. Melbourne: MUP. (596 pages)

2008. N. Peterson, L. Allen and L. Hamby. Introduction. In The Makers and making of Indigenous Australian museum collections, (eds) N. Peterson, L.
Allen, L. Hamby (eds).. Melbourne: MUP. Pp:1-26.

2008. Just humming: the consequences of the decline of learning contexts among the Warlpiri. In Cultural styles of knowledge transmission: essays in honour of Ad Borsboom (eds) J. Kommers and E. Venbrux. Amsterdam: Askant.
Pp.114-118

Conference Papers

2002. N. Peterson. From mode of production to moral economy: kinship and sharing in Fourth world social orders Paper given at Ninth International Conference on Hunting and Gathering Societies 9th - 13th September, 2002 Edinburgh.

Courses Currently Taught

ANTH2005/ANTH6005 Indigenous Australian Societies and Cultures
ANTH2017/ANTH6017 Indigenous Australians and Australian Society today
ANTH8041 Photography in Social Context (Master of Visual Culture Research)