Category Archives: Upcoming events

The CNTA concept of a community of practitioners was actioned when Research Managers met in Brisbane in late August to discuss issues associated with native title research. Attached is the program. We invited external speakers and welcomed presentations by Emily Sexton, Richard Martin and Sarah Holcombe.

The importance of managers meeting regularly cannot be under-estimated as this is the only formal opportunity they have to meet with peers and speak frankly about issues of concern in the management of an extensive range of claim and post-determination matters.

We also welcomed involvement by the Capability Manager (Michelle Mc Cann) at QSNTS in conversation with one of their senior anthropologists (Andrew Rayner) about the effectiveness of working in multi-disciplinary teams for holistic claim advancement and system-wide knowledge of claim management.

A joint session was held with the First Nations participants, and all parties enjoyed an evening meal together.

Centre for Native Title Anthropology

Managers Meeting
Brisbane
29-30 August 2023
Venue: UQ 308 Queen Street Brisbane

Day 1

8.30-9.00 Coffee: Meet and Greet
9.00-9.30 Julie Finlayson (CNTA) The road ahead: CNTA’s overview
9.30- 10.30 Panel session. Amy Usher (YMAC), Rebecca Koser (CLC), Wendy Asche (NLC)
Staff recruitment and retention: what are the options for resolution?
Morning tea 10.30-11.00
11.00-12.30 Managers to join First Nations Native Title staff at 240 Queens Street. Christie’s Spaces.
12.30-1.30 Lunch with Indigenous researchers at 240 Queens Street
2.00-3.00 Open discussion:
3.00-3.30 Afternoon tea
3.30-4.15 2 presentations
(a) David Martin (Anthropos): Apical ancestors and PBC membership and NT holders- disputes and solutions.
(b) Callista Barrett (KLC): Determination Guides for PBC boards

End of Day 1

Dinner: Pancake Manor (former church)
18 Charlotte Street

Day 2

9.00-9.30 Open space discussion from Day 1
9.30-10.15 Sarah Holcombe UQ: Cultural heritage in the resource industry (Centre for Social Responsibility in Mining, University of Qld)
Abstract: Cultural heritage, the resources sector and critical minerals
When it comes to managing and protecting Indigenous cultural heritage the mining industry is by far the most routine client than any other industry sector for NTRBs and PBCs. This is only going to intensify as Australia transforms from a fossil-fuel-based economy into a decarbonised economy. The rhetoric is that “we will need more mining, not less” to meet the demand for clean energy technologies, such as wind and solar farms, as well as batteries. So, while the mining footprint is likely to expand, so too will the footprint of renewables. And this comes with its own issues, including companies without ESG standards and a future act regime that does not cater well for the impacts of this relatively new sector. In this presentation I’ll provide a snapshot of the intensity of this emerging issue by providing some national perspective.
I will also consider some of the ways in which the “just transitions” concept can apply to the critical minerals sector on the Indigenous estate by drawing on the work the First Nations Heritage Protection Alliance and other Indigenous groups. I’ll also discuss an ideal best practice approach to cultural heritage protection, for discussion.
10.15-10.45 morning tea
10.45- 11.30 Emily Sexton. Progressing workplace health & safety in native title contexts. (See attachment- sent to you by email)
11.30-12.30 Panel discussions. Mick O’Kane (FNLRS), Kevin Murphy (CYLC) Emma King (NQLC): Claim strategies- what are the landscape challenges- including state-based factors- and what are our options.
12.30- 1.30 Lunch

1.30-2.30 Trinity Handley (GLC) – Native title research: change and transformations in law and custom (followed by small group discussions focused on Examples, of anthropological approaches to modelling changes in Indigenous social and country relations over time).
• Requirements of the NTA (re normative system and continuous connection to the land)
• Considering laws and customs and rights and interests with a particular focus on the Northern Goldfields and Desert fringe: (sources of the system – now and then.
• Traditional laws, and customs in relation to land tenure.
• Observing contemporary norms and behaviours.
• Pondering the impact of Christian religion and mobility.
Trinity Handley is Research Manager at the Native Title Services Goldfields

2.30- 3.00 Richard Martin (UQ)– How do we approach cultural loss?
This presentation reviews the concept of cultural loss in anthropology. I specifically discuss how the concept of ‘loss’ relates to ‘change’, when ‘loss’ occurs and to whom, and how the experience of ‘loss’ changes over time in who it affects and the kinds of feelings associated with it. I conclude by reflecting on some of the ambiguities of evaluating loss, particularly the challenge of distinguishing between normative statements about ‘culture’ from those feelings about ‘loss’ which will form the basis of its eventual valuation.

Richard Martin is a Senior Lecturer at the University of Queensland. He has authored numerous native title reports and given expert evidence in the Federal Court on multiple occasions. He is the author of The Gulf Country: The story of people and place in outback Queensland (Allen & Unwin, 2019).

3.00-3.30 Afternoon tea

3.30 – 4.30 Michelle McCann and Andrew Rayner (QSNTS)– What does it mean to work smarter – and how do we capture impact?
An interview with Michelle (Chief Capability Officer QSNTS and Andrew Rayner (Senior Anthropologist QSNTS)
4.30-4.45 Evaluation.

End of Day

In early August this year (2023)CNTA collaborated with the Anthropological Society of Western Australia (ASWA) to run a one day workshop at St Catherine’s College titled

Creating the Archive, Reading the Archive, Reproducing the Archive: A symposium on documents, their production and their use in Heritage, Native Title, and Community Development.

This was the first post-covid event and was well attended with 32 ASWA and non-ASWA people attending, plus presenters. Collaborations are key to us offering relevant and stimulating material for our members, enabling us to grow our memberships.

The attendance of two CNTA directors helped to give the event further gravitas, given we are all so far from the east coast with the rising costs of travel limiting our involvement in east coast events..

Themes discussed included:

• Methodological issues in qualitative heritage surveys.
• Cultural change and customary traditions in heritage assessments.
• Use of documents in the context of orally inherited traditional knowledge.
• Practitioners’ circumstances dealing with Indigenous politics among groups and individuals.
• The need to deal with Archives, including the Aboriginal Cultural Heritage Inquiry System as a socially produced artefact with similar strengths and weaknesses as other archives. The contents of the ACHIS needs to be critically assessed.

These themes allowed for thought provoking presentations and discussion around heritage, native title and broader research issues (including Aboriginal stolen wages). From ASWA’s perspective, those attending appeared to really enjoy the collegial and warm atmosphere. Since anthropologists often spend time on our own, it was great to see everyone share their experiences and work.

ASWA-CNTA Symposium:

Creating the Archive, Reading the Archive, Reproducing the Archive: A symposium on documents, their production and their use in Heritage, Native Title, and Community Development.

Documents have been part of the human story since the invention of writing and are ubiquitous in modern societies in hard copy and/or digital form often encompassing the minutiae of people’s lives and their encounters with social agencies. This is particularly true of indigenous peoples whose lives in the past have been tightly controlled. Official documents are regularly used in social research, though as Garfinkel (1965) and other researchers highlight, are not without inherent problems. Anthropologists, folklorists and others have historically documented oral traditions from societies without written records and currently engage with changes and adaptations in those societies that arise in part through engagement with archival resources. Ethnographers regularly produce fieldnotes and other “texts of the field”, which in turn are essential sources for other researchers, particularly in native title settings.

However, reading fieldnotes and other “texts of the field”, is problematic as they always have a liminal multi-vocal quality while at the same time, as ethnographers such as Sanjek (1990) point out, are always fragmentary, incomplete, inconsistent and contradictory. Indigenous peoples are increasingly turning to State, ethnographic and other archives which often are the source of both revelatory information and emotional distress. Archives can potentially facilitate connection with ancestral lives and create healing narratives to redress traumatic pasts. Archives may also be weaponised in intra- and inter-community conflict. There is now an ongoing process to repatriate archives to indigenous communities.

In this symposium we seek to critically evaluate the creation of archives and their use in heritage, native title and other social research, as well as their use by indigenous and other people in connecting with the past and creating narratives for the present.

CNTA’s 2022 Annual Conference had the theme Protecting and managing the Indigenous Estate, and was held from 9-11 February. It was the first virtual annual conference. Originally, it had been intended that sessions would be conducted simultaneously in venues in Cairns, Darwin, Perth and potentially Canberra, while being available at all sites and beyond them through Zoom. However, in light of recent Omicron events CNTA has decided to proceed with a zoom-only conference instead of a hybrid one.

Information on this very succesful conference, in particular videocasts of all presentations, can be found on the Annual Conferences tab of this website.