Warawara Research
Research Interests of Warawara Staff Members:
Associate Professor Susan Page (BA, MHPEd, University of New South Wales)
Professional Interests
My research focuses on Indigenous people’s experience of learning and academic work in tertiary education. Collaborative research, with Dr Kristie Daniel Digregorio and Ms Sally Farrington in the area of Indigenous student success examined the experiences of Indigenous students studying in both block-mode and ‘mainstream’ tertiary programs. Findings from this research were translated into practical solutions to curriculum and programming issues in our courses.
More recent research into the experiences of Indigenous academic staff in Australian universities is beginning to illuminate some vital issues for Indigenous staff in higher education. The AIATSIS funded ‘Indigenous Academic Voices: Stories from the tertiary education frontline’ project, with Dr Christine Asmar, investigated the multiple roles performed by Indigenous academics in Australian universities; how individuals experienced the demands of those roles; and the extent of institutional recognition and support. The project has led to an international collaboration with Dr Ocean Mercier at Te Kawa a Māui (Māori Studies), Victoria University, Wellington, examining similar issues in the New Zealand context .
As the research team currently expresses it: "In comparing Indigenous academic experiences in Australia and in Aotearoa/New Zealand we draw on some evolving concepts, including the notion of a set of issues or influences we describe as ‘Indemic’. Such issues, we suggest, are experienced by the academics in our study in ways that are intrinsically linked to their own Indigeneity, but are also endemic to their institutions - hence, ‘Indemic’."
2008 AIATSIS Research Grant
Susan Page, with her University of Sydney colleague
Dr Christine Asmar, has been successful in obtaining a $19,000 research
grant from the Australian Institute of Aboriginal & Torres Strait
Islander Studies
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Dr Kristina Everett PhD (Anthropology) Macquarie.
Professional Interests:
Kristina’s research focus centres on expressions of (re)emergent traditional Indigenous cultural practices in urban contexts. Her primary research has been conducted in the western suburbs of Sydney, Australia, but she has also engaged in comparative studies in New Zealand/Aotearoa and North America.
Kristina is also interested in the global development of Indigenous Studies and its contribution to post-modern theory.
Megan Cooper BSc (Hons) DipEd, Macquarie University
Professional Interests:
Megan's research interest is in looking at the relationships between dominant discourses of Australian Indigenous people and ideas and practice of educators, concerning Indigenous. Megan is also interested in the idea of 'Inclusive Curricula' and in questions such as what we might mean by this idea and what might such a curriculum 'look like'?
Sam Altman BA Monash, Dip Ed. Sydney MPASR, Macquarie
Professional Interests:
Sam is the long-term Course Coordinator of the Bachelor in Community Management at Macquarie. He has taught in communication studies, management theories and practices and research development. His research interests are all geared to making Indigenous higher education more effective across the board for Indigenous students, staff and the institutions involved. To this end he has examined a range of features including School to University pathways, successful student support processes and resources online collaborative teaching systems, professional development initiatives, and research ethics protocol development.
Trudy Ambler B.Ed (Hons) Winchester University, M.Ed Newcastle-Upon-Tyne University
Professional Interests:
Teaching and teacher education; curriculum theory; classroom practice; autobiography and narrative inquiry, collaborative modes of inquiry with teachers; practitioner inquiry and teacher learning; feminist theory and pedagogy, ethical issues in qualitative research.
Lana Leslie M.Soc. Sci, B.Soc. Sci. Edith Cowan University, Perth, Western Australia.
Professional Interests:
Lana is a Kamilaroi woman from NSW.
Lana convenes two units within the Bachelor of Community Management. These are Research Methods and Techniques (BCM204) and Issues in Indigenous Research (BCM300).
A PhD (by publication) Candidate in the Department of Human Geography, Macquarie University, Lana’s interests are Indigenous physical activity, Indigenous Ageing and Indigenous Health. The PhD topic is titled ‘Older Indigenous People And Physical Activity’. A current research project is the exclusion of Aboriginal people to the Moree Swimming Pool in the 1950s and 1960s, to be presented at the Sport, Race and Ethnicity Conference at the University of Technology, Sydney in November 2008.
Chris Jones Kavelin PhD Law Macquarie, MTheol (Hons) University of Sydney, BTheol (Hons) Otago University.
Professional Interests:
Chris is the convenor of Business Communication (BCM203) as well as Indigenous Leadership (BCM207) in the Bachelor of Community Management. He is also the convenor of the Spirituality and Social Transformation colloquia in the Global Leadership Program at Macquarie. He has regularly been a casual lecturer in Intellectual Property Law in the Law faculty over the past 5 years.
Chris's research interests are transdisciplinary and transcultural. They include the legal protection of Indigenous medical knowledge, Indigenous spiritual metaphysics, the application of Indigenous and feminist standpoint theory, development theory, the transformation of Western intellectual property law to engage Indigenous spiritual concerns, fostering a global system that honors the diversity and legitimacy of Indigenous customary law, applied Baha'i theology, interreligious dialogue, the interface of Western knowledge and Indigenous knowledge, Indigenous economics and he is exploring a model of regionally based Indigenous owned pharmaceutical companies.
Carol Floyd Masters of Applied Linguistics, Grad Cert in TESL, Grad Dip Editing and Publishing (Macquarie University), Grad Dip in Library Science (Kuringai College of Advanced Education), BA (Georgetown College)
Professional Interests:
Carol has taught academic literacy and writing in a range of contexts at Macquarie University over the past six years; including workshops in the Master of Accounting program, in the Bachelor of Community Management programs (BCM100 and BCM105) and in the Master of Translating and Interpreting (Advanced Writing for Translators). She is employed by the National Centre for English Language and Research and also teaches international students academic literacy and English in university preparation courses. She has recently completed her Master of Applied Linguistics. Carol is also an editor and writer; she edits academic theses and monographs and is the co-author of The Sydney Opera House, a book on the history of the Opera House (2000, New Holland Press).
Gabrielle Lorraine Fletcher Currently enrolled in a MA (Indigenous Research and Development) (Curtin University), Grad. Cert. Indigenous Studies (Curtin University), BA (UNSW)
Professional Interests
Gabrielle Lorraine Fletcher is a Gundungurra woman from the Blue Mountains of New South Wales. She is currently engaged in an MA (Indigenous Research and Development). Her research dissertation examines the construction of Indigenous reality through spatial misappropriation. This work interrogates the settlement of two distinct histories anchored within Local Aboriginal Land Councils, and how these spaces may be inflected towards meaningful Indigenous place. Gabby is also a creative writer. She has been published in Salt The International Journal of Poetry and Poetics, and Cultural Studies Review. She is interested in the boundaries of ficto-critique, with a current work-in progress, 'The Complete Ruben Sloot', an exploration of the mimetics of identity and literary/cultural imposture. She is further interested in the rubric of cultural cubism, and the meaning and quality of occupancy and presence within paradigmatic and lived tensions of civic territorialism. One day she would like to befriend a naturally three-legged cat called Delores. But this will probably never happen.
Research Interests of Warawara Students:
Joyoti Grech, PhD student
Metaphor and Excellence in Outstanding Indigenous Communicators.
How do we measure excellence in communication? Is it by outcome - the results it achieves? Is it by the feelings it rouses in the listener? Is it by the pictures it paints? I am interested in exploring the ways that specific, outstandingly successful individuals from my own indigenous Jumma community (indigenous to Bangladesh) communicate. In particular I am fascinated by the use of metaphoric language by indigenous communicators. This may include varied forms of nonlinear language, physiology, imagery, narrative, song or silence.
What do such excellent communicators share with excellent communicators from a distinct indigenous community? What lessons can be appropriately learned by their example?
My own largely non-academic background in the overlapping fields of storytelling/poetry, human rights and social change and individual change work through Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP) all inform the journey of academic discovery I am beginning.
Keith Vincent Smith, PhD student
Keith, a former journalist, is the author of King Bungaree (1992) and Bennelong (2001).
Keith is currently a PhD candidate at Warawara, SCMP, Macquarie University, Sydney. He was co-curator, with Anthony Bourke, of EORA: Mapping Aboriginal Sydney, 1770-1850, at the Mitchell Galleries, State Library of New South Wales, during 2006. He will curate another exhibition there in 2009, provisionally titled Aboriginal Voyagers.
Tammy Broom BCM Graduate (Macquarie), Tutor (ITAS) and Honours student in the Department of Human Geography (Macquarie)
Professional Interests
Tammy is an Indigenous Katherine Women from the Northern Territory who is currently in the middle of her honours studies with the Department of Human Geography, concentrating on the Commonwealth Intervention. Her research interests are of Indigenous research and Human rights, encouraging/supporting other Indigenous students with their current and further studies.
Duane Hamacher, PhD Student
Education: BS in Physics (University of Missouri), MS in Astrophysics (UNSW)
Advisors: Kristina Everett, Ray Norris, and John Clegg
Project: Australian Aboriginal Astronomy
From Dreamtime mythology and initiation rites, to season cycles and timekeeping, the night sky plays a vital role in many contemporary and prehistoric Australian Aboriginal cultures. The colonization of Australia led to the decimation and destruction of much of this knowledge, especially in the Sydney region. While many examples of rock engravings and stone arrangements across the continent give promising clues as to the nature of astronomy’s role in various Aboriginal cultures of the distant past, much has been lost to the sands of time. Duane's research focuses on understanding the role of astronomy in Aboriginal Australia, primarily in the Sydney region, in both a modern and prehistoric context.