Category Archives: Upcoming events

Day 1 – Anthropology and the native title workforce

9.00-9.15: Welcome from CNTA Directors

Housekeeping Julie Finlayson Research Fellow CNTA

Session Facilitator: Petronella Vaarzon-Morel

9.15-9.50: Keynote speaker: Lee Sackett: As the ad says: “JUST DO IT”

Lee Sackett lectured in the Anthropology of Aboriginal Australia at Adelaide University for 20 years. Following this, he for three years was Manager of Land Tenure at the Central Land Council. There, in addition to heading up the organization’s team of anthropologists, he researched and reported on three Aboriginal Land Claims. Then, for 25 years he worked as a Consultant Anthropologist, specialising in Native Title Claim research. In this capacity, he worked on Native Title Claims in the Pilbara, the Western Desert, Central Australia, Northwest Victoria, the Gulf Country, the Mount Isa Region, northwest New South Wales and Southeast Queensland.

Lee reviewed claim materials for several Representative Bodies, for the states of Western Australia, South Australia, Queensland and New South Wales, and for the Federal Court. He appeared as an expert witness in numerous contested claims. He retired last year (2023) but continues to keep an eye on happenings in the Native Title arena.

9.50-10.30: David Trigger (outgoing Director) CNTA: Native title professional practice in the context of national trends in anthropology teaching and research.

David Trigger’s research interests encompass the different meanings attributed to land and nature across diverse sectors of society. His work on Australian society has included projects focused on a comparison of pro-development, environmentalist and Aboriginal perspectives on land and nature, in both remote and urban settings.

Of particular interest are the issues of ‘nativeness’ and ‘invasiveness’ as understood in both nature and society, with implications for issues of land, cultural identity and environmental management. In Australian Aboriginal Studies, Professor Trigger has carried out more than 40 years of anthropological study on Indigenous systems of land tenure, including applied research on resource development negotiations, land claims and native title.

10.30-11.00: Morning Tea

Session Facilitator: Richard Martin

11.00-11.30: Nicola Colbran Experts and the Federal Court

This presentation will provide an overview of, and discuss, the processes of experts conferences and concurrent evidence (or ‘hot tubbing’) in the Federal Court.  It will also raise for consideration possible alternative ways of preparing and presenting expert material in the Federal Court.  Finally, it will provide an overview of some professional development sessions the Court intends to conduct which are designed with young lawyers in mind, including in relation to their work with anthropologists.

Nicola Colbran is the National Judicial Registrar for Native Title at the Federal Court and in this capacity manages the Court’s native title team nationally.  She also works on native title matters in the Northern Territory, and previously in South Australia and Queensland.  In her capacity as Registrar, she has reviewed and analysed expert reports and conducted multiple conferences of experts.

11.30-12.30: Your workplace/workforce- what remedial steps can you take to “grow your own” (small group discussions)

12.30-1.30: Lunch

Session Facilitator: Michelle McCann

1.30-2.30: Panel session with 2 managers describing what we have been doing to ‘grow our own’ workforce.

Amy Usher, Research, Country and Culture Services Manager Yamatji Marlpa Aboriginal Corporation (YMAC).

Emma King is the Manager, Anthropology Unit, North Queensland Land Council NTRB Aboriginal Corporation.

Session Facilitator: Kim McCaul

2.30-3.00: Corey Herman: Operating in the PBC space

Corey Herrmann is a Senior Anthropologist at Yamatji Marlpa Aboriginal Corporation, the Native Title Representative Body for the Yamatji and Pilbara regions of Western Australia. He holds bachelor’s degrees in Anthropology and Archaeology (received with honours from the University of Queensland) and Creative Industries (from the Queensland University of Technology).

Corey has spent the last ten years working primarily in the Pilbara, undertaking native title research, as well as working with Traditional Owners on environmental and cultural heritage management projects and social impact assessments.

He has experience providing advice to Prescribed Bodies Corporate on matters that impact Country and native title. Corey is a member of the Australian Anthropological Society.

3.00-3.30: Afternoon tea

Session Facilitator: Dirima Cuthbert

3.30-4.00: Kevin Murphy, Sarah Bell, Kim McCaul. Transitioning to consultancy.

Kevin Murphy After completing a BA(Hons) in Anthropology at Adelaide University in 1995, Kevin Murphy was employed as a research assistant for six months on the Commonwealth Hindmarsh Island Inquiry led by Justice Jane Mathews.

From 1996 until 2001 he was employed as a staff anthropologist, first at the Central Land Council in Alice Springs, then at the Torres Strait Regional Authority – Native Title Office (TSRA-NTO) on Thursday Island. He enrolled in the PhD program at ANU in 2002. Following completion of his doctoral fieldwork in PNG in 2005 he was approached by the TSRA-NTO to provide evidence in the Torres Strait Regional Seas native title claim as a consultant. He continued working as a consultant anthropologist, mainly but not exclusively on native title claims until 2020, when he was the manager of Anthropology and Research at Cape York Land Council. In 2024 he returned to working as a consultant.

Sarah Bell has worked as a consultant anthropologist since 2018. Prior to this she had a 20- year career working mainly for Land Councils and Native Title Representative Bodies/Service Providers. Sarah worked as a staff Anthropology in the Northern Territory for the Central Land Council, and in WA for Ngaanyatjarra Council Native Title Unit, and its successor Central Desert Native Title Services (CDNTS), the Southwest Aboriginal Land and Sea Council (SWALSC) and Yamatji Marlpa Aboriginal Corporation (YMAC).

Since commencing work as a consultant Sarah has undertaken a range of native title projects across WA, the NT and Queensland, and Aboriginal heritage work in WA and the NT.

Kim McCaul provides anthropological and linguistic expertise to native title and heritage matters across Australia. His work includes connection reports, desktop assessments, peer reviews, responsive reports for matters in litigation and assessments for negotiation purposes.

His post-determination work includes assessment of cultural loss for compensation issues and supporting PBCs with their membership processes. Kim also has a long-standing interest in cross-cultural mediation and relationship building and conducts community consultations and meeting facilitation.

4.00-4.30: Julie Finlayson (Research Fellow CNTA) – From whence we came to where we go: anthropology in the native title era.

The CNTA survey 2022, including reports from the Federal Court, suggest the anthropological workforce in native title is facing pipeline challenges in sustainability and reproduction. What exactly do research managers in our sector know about this, and what solutions are they exploring.

Julie Finlayson has worked in several Federal Government agencies focused on Indigenous programs, has been an academic and a consultant in applied anthropological work. Over the past 9 and a half years she has had the pleasure of advancing the interests and engagement of native title anthropologists through the Centre for Native title Anthropology based at the ANU.

4.30: End of day.

7.00pm: Dinner (venue TBC)

Day 2 – Diversifying the anthropological contributions to post-determination work

Session facilitator: Diane Smith

9.00-9.30: Kevin Smith: Preservation of Cultural Knowledge (Abstract to come)

Kevin Smith is the inaugural First Nations President of the National Native Title Tribunal (NNTT). Kevin has over 28 years of experience in First Nations and native title law, and has held senior positions in several organizations, including Queensland South Native Title Services.

9.30-10.00: Michael Lucas: Native title corporations: insights and learnings from the public data

The focus in this presentation is on what public data insights tell us about native title corporations. He also has expertise and knowledge in Indigenous nation building practices and American Indian tribal governments. His doctoral research investigated the economic, development, and governance aspects of native title corporations using public datasets.

Michael Lucas is an anthropologist and engineer working in his early years as a consultant. Michael recently returned to Australia after completing his PhD at the University of Arizona. Whilst in the U.S. as a Fulbright Scholar, Michael was also a Visiting Fellow at Harvard University’s Ash Centre for Democratic Governance and Innovation, which houses the Harvard Project on Indigenous Governance and Development. Prior to moving to the U.S., Michael worked for the Central Land Council as the work area clearance anthropologist, and as a project manager for the Indjalandji-Dhidhanu peoples on their spinifex grass commercialisation projects.

Session Facilitator: Tegan Scott

10.00-10.30: Carmen Cooms-Delaney and Diane Smith: Bridging Knowledge: Empowering Native Title Governance through Collaborative Facilitation and Evaluation of the PPP Program.

Carmen Cooms-Delaney, a proud Quandamooka woman from Minjerribah (North Stradbroke Island), has been a vital member of the Queensland South Native Title Services (QSNTS) team for over nine years, working out of the Mount Isa office. In her roles as a First Nations Engagement Advisor and Development Facilitator, Carmen has an unwavering dedication and passion for her work.

A 2020 graduate of the University of Southern Queensland with a Bachelor of Human Services, majoring in Indigenous Studies, Carmen seamlessly integrates her academic knowledge with her lived experience as a Traditional Owner. Her deep connection to her heritage drives her commitment to guiding and empowering clients through every step of their native title journey, ensuring they receive the support they need to achieve their goals.

Diane Smith is an Anthropologist and Senior Research Fellow at the Centre for Indigenous Policy, Polis, College of Arts and Social Science, Australian National University, Canberra. She is currently undertaking a 2-year collaborative evaluation of QSNTS’s People, Place and Partnership Program.

10.30-11.00: Morning tea

11.00-12.30: Workshop Options

Please sign up for a workshop of your choice by emailing Julie Finlayson (Julie.Finlayson@anu.edu.au)

Workshop No.1 – Eddie McDonald/Dirima Cuthbert – Cultural heritage in WA: Foregrounding the cultural heritage landscape – opportunities and constraints in the sector

In this workshop we identify the critical pressures in this sector- such as that from mining companies, pay scales and finding staff. We also discuss the seemingly endless work opportunities, legislation, methodological possibilities and limitations which bring their own issues.

Dirima Cuthbert is Principal Anthropologist at Dortch Cuthbert Heritage Futures, having worked with First Peoples and proponents in the state’s South-West, Goldfields and Pilbara regions for almost three decades. Dirima also has training and experience in Environmental Design, which brings a greater understanding of cultural landscapes to her anthropological work. Together, the two disciplines help her to embed cultural heritage in projects in innovative and meaningful ways. She is Adjunct Research Fellow at the University of Western Australia, Vice President of the Anthropological Society of Western Australia, and a Member of the Australian Anthropological Society.

Eddie McDonald is the principal of Ethnosciences (2003-present) and formerly Managing Director and principal anthropologist of McDonald, Hales and Associates (1986-2003). He has 47 years’ experience in applied anthropology, undertaking research and evaluation in a range of settings, including Aboriginal and youth homelessness/housing, welfare delivery, juvenile justice, foster care, day care, community relations, and work organisation in heavy industry. Since 1988 Edward has worked in Aboriginal heritage and native title in Western Australia.

Workshop No. 2 – Scarlett Cheeseman and Lionel Buzzacott (PBC Project Officer) – Central Land Council. (PBC mob) – Developing a mobile phone app & resource booklets to make native title information accessible to First Nations people in Central Australia.

The Central Land Council (CLC) region covers the southern half of the Northern Territory, a region of almost 777,000 square kilometres that has 15 language groups. Members and directors of the 35 prescribed bodies corporate’s (PBCs) in the CLC region are often fluent in multiple Central Australian Aboriginal languages and speak English as a fourth or fifth (or more) language.

Since 2018, CLC has been producing easy-English booklets that introduces native title and PBCs for native title holders.

However, in 2023 CLC launched the multilingual mobile app PBCmob for native title holders, members and directors of PBCs in the CLC region.

PBCmob is an engaging, visual app that is simple and easy to navigate with audio translations of CLCs Native Title Story and Native Title on Cattle Country booklets in six Central Australian languages (Arrernte, Alyawarr, Kaytetye, Pitjantjatjara, Warlpiri and Warumungu). PBCmob gives native title holders access to resources produced by CLC, information from the government and service providers, and key public documents available on the ORIC website without needing proficient English and digital literacy skills.

Lionel Buzzacott is an Arrernte man from Alice Springs, he has worked at Central Land Council in the PBC Support Unit since 2022. Lionel speaks four central Australian languages, Eastern Central Arrernte, Western Arranta, Alyawarr and Anmatyerr and understands Pintupi-Luritja and Pitjantjatjara. Lionel is the Western Arranta translator on the PBCmob app.

Scarlett Cheesman is from Sydney, she moved to Alice Springs to work at Central Land Council in 2022 in the PBC Support Unit. Scarlett is currently the coordinator of the PBC Support Unit coordinating a team of six people to provide services to 33 PBCs and 4 corporations pre-determination in the southern region of the Northern Territory.

Workshop No.3 – Tony Eales – 3 ways in which AIATSIS can assist you as a researcher

Mr Tony Eales, an Assistant Director of AIATSIS’s Indigenous Country and Governance Unit (ICG) will speak about some of the work of the ICG relevant to native title researchers including:

* The nature and extent of the AIATSIS collection and how it can be accessed.

* An overview of AIATSIS’s Return of Native Title Material Guide developed with YMAC

* AIATSIS’s work with preservation of research material and the ALRA Transfer of Land Claims Material Guide.

Tony Eales has worked for a decade as consultant archaeologist in Qld and NSW and then as a native title anthropologist with QSNTS for 14 years before moving to AIATSIS in 2023

Workshop No. 4 – Conor Harrington- Diverse Contributions: Anthropology in a Gulf Country PBC

In this workshop participants will hear about the particularities of the Waanyi Native Title Aboriginal Corporation RNTBC, prescribed body corporate for the Waanyi people in Queensland’s lower gulf country. Learn the history behind the corporation’s first anthropologist role created through a historic funding agreement for the joint management of Boodjamulla National Park and gain insights into the diverse contributions this role has made to date. Participants will engage in discussion about the opportunities and challenges facing a small native title corporation in a unique post-determination setting.

Conor Harrington is an applied anthropologist with experience working in Queensland and the Northern Territory. He has previously held positions in the Queensland Government and the Northern Territory Aboriginal Areas Protection Authority (AAPA). In 2023, he transitioned to the native title sector where he continues to work for the Waanyi Native Title Aboriginal Corporation RNTBC in Queensland’s lower gulf country.

12.30-1.30: Lunch

1.30- 3.00: Workshop options

Please sign up for a workshop of your choice and email Julie Finlayson (Julie.Finlayson@anu.edu.au)

Workshop No.1 – Sarah Holcombe- Cultural heritage, the resources sector and critical minerals

Sarah Holcombe spent her formative years as a regional anthropologist for the two major Northern Territory Land Councils where she gained a grounding in social justice issues. Sarah was also a research-intensive academic at the Australian National University (ANU) for over a decade. In broad terms, Sarah’s engaged research interests focus on Indigenous human rights, the governance of difference and the on-going impacts of colonisation. Between 2012 and 2016 Sarah was the recipient of an Australian Research Council (ARC) Future Fellowship, an outcome of which was the book Remote Freedoms: Politics, Personhood and Human Rights in central Australia (Stanford University Press).

She has published widely and is currently applying her critical applied social science lens to the anthropology of the extractive industries and the political economy of mining at the University of Queensland.

Workshop No.2 – Kim De Rijke – Unconventional gas and other contested resource developments onthe Indigenous estate.

Across Australia, a range of contested resource developments present challenges for anthropological enquiry. These developments include controversial unconventional gas extraction in various parts of northern Australia, as well as other highly politicised offshore developments. Anthropologists may be asked to address matters related to rights and interests, heritage or social impact in the context of consultation, objections and/or agreement-making.

What kind of challenges are anthropologists commonly confronted with in such fraught circumstances, and what are the possibilities for, as well as limitations to, productive anthropological enquiry?

Kim de Rijke is a Senior Lecturer in Anthropology at the University of Queensland (UQ). He has worked on native title and related matters for more than 20 years. He currently teaches social impact assessment, environmental anthropology and ethnographic fieldwork at UQ.
Alongside applied work, including expert evidence in the Federal Court, his academic work has focused on water, emplacement and unconventional gas developments in Australia since 2012.

Workshop No.3 – Jamie Lowe – National cultural heritage legislation and policy reform.

Jamie Lowe (CEO National Native Title Council) Jamie is a proud Gundjitmara Djabwurrung man who first joined the NNTC as Chair in 2017. He has been CEO since 2019. Prior to joining NNTC Jamie was CEO of the Eastern Maar Aboriginal Corporation in South Western Victoria, awarded Native Title in 2011and 2023 over the Great Ocean Road.

He was also an inaugural member of the historic First Peoples’ Assembly of Victoria, the representative elected body tasked with negotiating a Treaty with the Victoria Government.

Internationally, Jamie is the NNTC representative on the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues (UNPFII) – a high-level advisory body to the New York based UN Economic and Social Council.

Session Facilitator: Ian Sweeney

3.00- 3.30: Petronella Vaarzon-Morel (Outgoing director CNTA):

From native title claims to the post-determination space: using anthropological expertise in environmental, cultural mapping and heritage landscapes.

Petronella Vaarzon-Morel is a consultant anthropologist based in Alice Springs.

3.30-4.00: Afternoon tea

4.00-4.30: Evaluation: Menti-meter How did we do?

Two groups: 9.30am and 11.00am. Meet the group in the Science Centre courtyard. Entry to the building is via a swipe card. So please gather first.

Day 1

This is our first CNTA annual conference since 2021. Unexpected shifts occurring in the native title landscape, the most critical of which are threats to workforce sustainability. This conference will focus on this, as well as other unpredicted factors at play impacting, in combination, on our practice and the advancement of native title outcomes.

8.30-9.00: Meet and Greet
9.00-9.15: Introduction to the conference by CNTA Directors
9.15-10.00: Keynote Address: Kevin Smith President NNTT. The Native Title Workforce landscape
10.00-10.30: Julie Finlayson (CNTA) What does the CNTA employment survey show?

10.30-11.00: Morning Tea

11.00-11.45: Rethinking the workforce landscape –
Amy Usher YMAC Research, Country, and Culture Services Manager (workforce integration)
Wendy Asche Research Manager NLC (internal professional development)
Emma King Research Manager NQLC (change management)

11.45-12.30: Break out- what can you do? (small group discussion and strategizing)

12.30-1.30: Lunch

1.30-3.00: Three workshop options: please choose 1 of the three options below.

Dayne O’Meara (NLC staff genealogist) Creating effective genealogies: What comes after identification of apical ancestors in native title research? Flowchart traditional ownership vs ongoing ethnographic engagement
In this workshop I focus on practical skills and advice in relation to unexpected challenges that often arise in the collection, management, and use of genealogical data by anthropologists working under native title or land rights legislation in Australia.
I reflect on the 50 years of primary genealogical data held by the Northern Land Council (NLC) for the top end of the Northern Territory, but balance this with group activities in genealogy drawing/interpretation, including discussion with workshop attendees, to share cross-jurisdictional experiences.
Discussion topics may include:
• expanding group membership over time
• different perspectives on adoption and succession
• reconciling diverse oral and documentary sources
• record-keeping practices; and issues raised by attendees.

Emily Sexton (PBC consultant) Conflict in corporate translation: A case study of native title corporations, authority, family, and workplace safety.
This workshop poses a case study of the intersection between native title corporations, and conflicts of inherent and imposed authority structures. It explores the implications for corporate function while practically addressing the challenges this poses to individuals and workplace safety.

Belinda Liebelt (SANTS Research Manager) and Craig Elliot (Consultant Anthropologist).
‘Native title compensation research: fieldwork and reporting practicalities’
Anthropologists working in the compensation space are operating at the frontier of native title anthropological practice as they navigate the complexities and challenges of an emerging practice. Compensation research involves a combination of sensitivities, confidentiality / legal privilege requirements. This workshop is a space to work through some of the practicalities involved in native title compensation work in a South Australian context, but which we believe are also applicable nationally.

• Research – understanding the brief, what are compensable acts and compensable parcels, understanding dates of extinguishment, relationship between continuity of connection and loss, land use changes over time and linking these to compensable acts, using historic maps and records.

• Fieldwork – exploring loss due to specific compensable acts vs loss as a result of broader (non-compensable) colonial processes, types of loss to consider (i.e. loss of access/privacy/resources/control, what are the correlations between changes to land forms and waterscapes and destruction of cultural heritage, denied cultural and religious responsibilities, impacts on cultural transmission of beliefs and practices and duty to look after country, sites, Dreamings and resources), documenting statements and metaphors of ‘emotional distress and suffering’ during fieldwork, acute loss events and particulars vs slow and cumulative generational loss, duty of care for experts and claimants when documenting inter-generational loss with native title claimants

• Reporting – structuring reports, assessing the diminution of rights and interests vs describing cultural losses, are we equipped to ‘measure’ loss, distress and anxiety? Duty of care when reporting findings back to claimants.

3.00-3.30: Afternoon tea

3.30-4.30: Panel session. New and Emerging challenges-

Yvette Bradley (Senior Policy Officer, Robe River Kuruma Aboriginal Corporation): Community Aspirations and Policy Challenges
This discussion focuses on the challenge of connecting the aspirations of the community and the community’s engagement with Government policy and legislation. Prescribed Body Corporates (PBCs) cannot rely on State and Commonwealth legislation and their mechanisms to look after Country and Culture. This is evident from recent events such as the destruction of Juukan Gorge and the repeal of WA’s Aboriginal Cultural Heritage Act (2021). Neither is agreement-making the answer.

How do PBC’s pursue community projects in the face of challenges that interrupt this path? My focus is on strategies for solutions – despite these challenges.

Kevin Murphy (Research manager CYLC) The discourse of First Nations Sovereignty and the practice of Native Title Anthropology.
The legal doctrine that the Crown has sovereign power, including radical title over the entire continent of Australia, underpins the native title regime. Justice Brennan’s Mabo judgement briefly considers the question of whether the acquisition of sovereignty by the British Crown was legitimate, but states that the Court did not have the power to state a view on the matter.
The leading judgement in the High Court’s Yorta Yorta decision makes extensive reference to the date of acquisition of sovereignty in its consideration of the meaning of “traditional” in the Native Title Act, and since that time references to “pre- and post-sovereignty” have become commonplace in native title anthropological reports.

The question of whether sovereignty was legitimately acquired in accordance with international law has been questioned by some legal scholars, and a “Blak Sovereign Movement” has emerged that asserts that it was not. At the same time, recognition that “sovereignty was never ceded” is a commonly used phrase in assertions of indigenous identity, as the term “First Nations People” has become preferred by many over references to Aboriginal / Torres Strait Islander / Indigenous Australian.

In this presentation I consider the implications of these developments for the practice of anthropologists working in Native Title. We cannot avoid the fact that we are participating in a legal process that depends for its legitimacy on the doctrine that sovereignty was legally acquired by the British Crown, however I suggest that this should be recognised only in a pragmatic sense, and that we should take the various critiques seriously.

This becomes problematic when the discourse is affected by the international Sovereign Citizen super-conspiracy, as described and analysed by Taplin et al. I look to the anthropological literature on Melanesian millenarian movements, and suggest that there are lessons to be learned there that are relevant to the particular issue of sovereign citizens.

Catherine Wohlan (consultant anthropologist): Let’s talk! Unexpected challenges in the native title landscape: performative behaviour in disputation
A senior Aboriginal man gave me a good telling off in a carpark after a native title meeting, saying, ‘you’ve got your degree, I’ve got my law, what have these young people got? They’ve got nothing’. His rage sprang from conflict in a meeting and the expectation that native title should deliver outcomes to the next generation.

Anthropologists are generally required at meetings, where disagreement, personal attacks, argument and even violence can occur. The reasons behind angry exchanges and challenging behaviour are complex.
Coping in circumstances when meetings become dysfunctional and personal abuse may rely on understanding the cause for various behaviours. One understanding is that behaviour stems from performative actions which serve to assert ownership, efforts to control interaction and the issues in question. In this talk, I give examples before discussing how disputation might be successfully negotiated.

7.00pm: Conference Dinner: A booking for 7.00pm and 35 people has been made at the following venue:
The British Hotel
58 Finniss Street, North Adelaide, SA 5006

Day 2

Day 2 Practice Issues

9.00-9.45: Erica Taylor (Director, Learning & Development ExpertsDirect): Being an expert in Court; who decides the rights and interests?

Respondents David Martin (consultant anthropologist) and Andrew Collett (Barrister)

9.45-10.30: Richard Martin (Senior Lecturer Anthropology, School of Social Sciences, University of Queensland): Anthropological concepts of loss in compensation

The issue of compensation for ‘cultural loss’ is increasingly prominent in Australian society given the High Court’s landmark decision in Northern Territory v Griffiths [2019], and other developments such as Treaty negotiations. This presentation considers the challenges which these legal and political developments pose for the practice of anthropology in Australia, where a generation of scholarship has avoided addressing loss. I briefly review the anthropological literature relating to cultural loss to discuss what distinguishes ‘loss’ from ‘change’, and how these concepts are entangled. I note that different people perceive the relationships between ‘loss’ and ‘change’ differently, and discuss the evidentiary challenges this poses for anthropologists seeking to substantiate Indigenous claimants’ assertions about various forms of loss.

10.30-11.00: Morning tea

11.00-11.45: Francesca Merlan (Professor Emeritus ANU): Let’s Talk! About disputes, Expected and Unexpected:
Native title can be a new arena for disputes and animosities of long-standing, sharpening and altering their terms, and often persisting post-determination.
What kinds of approaches can we as anthropologists take when we know of their existence and persistence?
What have we learned in this regard? Examples and discussion.

11.45-12.30:Emma Kowal (Professor of Anthropology and Deputy Director of the Alfred Deakin Institute): New Identifiers

Estimates of Australia’s Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander population have grown rapidly in the past four decades. Between 2016 to 2021, the Indigenous population is estimated to have risen by 23.2% to just short of one million (984,000); much higher than the 5.5% growth for the non-Indigenous population over the same period. While some of the growth is due to births outstripping deaths and changes in statistical procedures, the bulk of the increase is due to ‘New Identifiers’: the term used by ABS to denote those identifying as Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander who previously did not do so. Ninety six percent of new identifiers are in non-remote parts of Australia and the rate of identification change is highest in those under 10 years of age and those aged over 50 years.

In the media, new identification is often associated with the highly sensitive and sensationalised issue of false identification (that is, speculation or proof that an individual’s Indigenous identity is false) related to people with a public profile. This focus has obscured attention to the far more wide-reaching phenomenon whereby tens of thousands of Australians begin to identify as Indigenous in each census (and presumably in other contexts) at a historical moment when Indigenous identification is ever more politically and socially salient.

As South Australia, Victoria and other states and territories move towards Treaties, legal and administrative methods are being developed to establish who is eligible to participate in Treaty-related process. These processes will interact with existing practices of Indigenous community organisations such as Confirmations of Aboriginality. This presentation will outline what is known about new identifiers and what research should be done to better understand the social and policy implications.

Bio:
Alfred Deakin Professor Emma Kowal is Professor of Anthropology and Deputy Director of the Alfred Deakin Institute for Citizenship and Globalisation at Deakin University. Her research interests lie at the intersection of anthropology, science and technology studies (STS), and Indigenous studies. She is the author of Trapped in the Gap: Doing Good in Indigenous Australia and the collection Cryopolitics: Frozen Life in a Melting World. Her latest book is Haunting Biology: Science and Indigeneity in Australia (Duke UP 2023).

12.30-1.30: Lunch

1.30-2.15: Ian Sweeney (Manager, Community Development Unit Central Land Council); The highs and lows of collaboration
Managing the patchwork dynamics of collaboration in community development. An overview of the positives and negatives behind collaboration with government where differing approaches can determine the impact of the community’s work.

2.15-3.00: Tahnee Innes (Anthropologist CYLC) and Petronella Vaarzon-Morel (CNTA Director):
First Nations staff – how can we address their professional development in native title?
Review of CNTA’s initial workshop with First Nations native title staff and further thinking.

3.00-3.30: Afternoon Tea

3.30- 4.30: Facilitator:Courtney Boag (FNLRS Victoria) Small Group Discussion and Review
Your view of the critical unexpected challenges ahead – including reflections on the CNTA workforce survey trends plus issues raised over past the 2 days.