Petronella Vaarzon-Morel - Academia.edu (original) (raw)
Papers by Petronella Vaarzon-Morel
University of Toronto Press eBooks, Dec 31, 2017
American Ethnologist, 1997
The Australian Journal of Anthropology
In November 2019, members of Willowra community marched on the local police station in protest ag... more In November 2019, members of Willowra community marched on the local police station in protest against the police shooting of Kumunjayi Walker at Yuendumu. Expressing solidarity with family at Yuendumu, individuals breached the barbwire fence of the vacant police compound. Unlike settlements such as Yuendumu, which have had resident police for decades, Willowra police station is 1 of 18 Northern Territory ‘Taskforce Themis’ stations set up as a temporary measure during the 2007 Intervention. Although the police presence is recent and inconstant, Lander Warlpiri Anmatyerr people have long experienced the agonistic effects of police authority in their region—beginning in 1928 with the gunning down of their relatives by Constable Murray and his accomplices during the Coniston Massacre. No charges were laid against these murderers, a reflection of the moral economy and ‘politics of life’ of settler society at the time. Although policies have changed, the past reverberates in the present...
The Women's Review of Books, 1990
The Rangeland Journal, 2008
Over the last 130 years, patterns of land use in central Australia have altered dramatically, and... more Over the last 130 years, patterns of land use in central Australia have altered dramatically, and so too have fire regimes and fire management objectives. Although Aboriginal people still have tenure over large parts of the landscape, their lifestyles have changed. Most Aboriginal people now live in towns and settlements and, although fire management is still culturally important, the opportunities for getting out on country to burn are constrained. Large parts of the landscape are now used for pastoral production. Under this land use the management objective is often one of fire exclusion. The other large-scale land use is for conservation. Here, fire management has a greater focus on conserving biodiversity using various burning strategies. In this paper we explore contemporary fire regimes in central Australia. Widespread fire events are found to be associated with two or more consecutive years of above-average rainfall. Although most of the fires linked with these high rainfall ...
The Rangeland Journal, 2010
Feral camels have significant negative impacts on the environment and the social/cultural values ... more Feral camels have significant negative impacts on the environment and the social/cultural values of Aboriginal people. These impacts include damage to vegetation through feeding behaviour and trampling; suppression of recruitment in some plant species; damage to wetlands through fouling, trampling, and sedimentation; competition with native animals for food, water and shelter; damage to sites such as waterholes, that have cultural significance to Aboriginal people; destruction of bushfood resources; reduction in Aboriginal people’s enjoyment of natural areas; creation of dangerous driving conditions; damage to people and vehicles due to collisions, and being a general nuisance in remote settlements. Negative economic impacts of feral camels mainly include direct control and management costs, impacts on livestock production through camels competing with stock for food and other resources and damage to production-related infrastructure. The annual net impact cost of feral camels was e...
The Rangeland Journal, 2010
Feral camels have severe negative impacts on key environmental economic and social/cultural asset... more Feral camels have severe negative impacts on key environmental economic and social/cultural assets across a wide area in Australia and their population is increasing. In this paper we utilised Multicriteria Evaluation (MCE) within a Geographic Information System (GIS) to create a decision tool for their management. Six management methods which are currently used for managing feral camels and their impacts: aerial culling, ground culling, exclusion fencing, and commercial extraction for live export, pet meat, or human consumption, were considered in the development of the tool. The decision tool used GIS-based MCE to determine the suitability of each of the management methods across the range of feral camels in Australia. A range of method-dependent criteria and factors served as inputs to the GIS-based MCE, which produced a suitability map or surface for each of the management methods. The broad-scale nature, Australia wide, of the work resulted in the suitability maps generated bei...
GeoJournal, 2008
... on the basis of local interest in the project and their location between several pastoral pro... more ... on the basis of local interest in the project and their location between several pastoral properties and a ... There was opposi-tion to the first Warlpiri land claim from government and non-government ... As they travel through the landscape Warlpiri will point out sacred sites where ash ...
Ecological Management & Restoration, 2012
... Camel in Australia. Melbourne University Press, Melbourne. Milton K. (1996) Environmentalism ... more ... Camel in Australia. Melbourne University Press, Melbourne. Milton K. (1996) Environmentalism and Cultural Theory: exploring the role of anthropology inenvironmental discourse, Routledge, London. CrossRef. Muir C., Rose ...
The practices of archival return may provide some measure of social equity to Indigenous Australi... more The practices of archival return may provide some measure of social equity to Indigenous Australians. Yet priceless cultural collections, amassed over many decades, are in danger of languishing without ever finding reconnection to the individuals and communities of their origin. The extensive documentary heritage of Australian Indigenous peoples is dispersed, and in many cases participants in the creation of archival records, or their descendants, have little idea of where to find these records. These processes of casting memories of the past into the future bring various conundrums of a social, political, and technical nature. They raise questions about the nature and dynamics of ongoing cultural transmission, the role of institutional and community archives in both protecting records of languages, song, and social history and disseminating them, and the responsibilities of researchers, organisations, and end users in this complex intercultural space. These questions are perforce f...
The Australian Journal of Anthropology, 2014
Many central Australian Aboriginal settlements have recently gained access to mobile phones and t... more Many central Australian Aboriginal settlements have recently gained access to mobile phones and the Internet. This paper explores ways in which Aboriginal people engage with this technology outside of institutional settings. Drawing on long-term research among Warlpiri, I reflect on people's responses to earlier communication media such as the two-way radio and radiotelephone and compare them to patterns of use emerging around new technologies. Attending to the social landscape surrounding the uptake of new media and the social networking site 'Divas Chat', I consider how transformations in material structures of communication interact with changing demographics, embodied socio-spatial relations, sorcery beliefs and mobility to reinforce, refigure and/or disrupt patterns of conflict and connectedness that hitherto have structured Warlpiri relational ontology. I suggest that the way people engage with these technologies illuminates and intensifies fault-lines arising from contradictions between older established social orders and changing relations with the state and modernity.
New Media & Society, 2021
This article considers how Indigenous peoples in Central Australia share and keep digital records... more This article considers how Indigenous peoples in Central Australia share and keep digital records of events and cultural knowledge in a period of rapid technological change. To date, research has focused upon the development of digital archives and platforms that reflect Indigenous epistemologies and incorporation of protocols governing access to information. Yet there is scant research on how individuals with little access to such media share and hold—or not, as the case may be—digital cultural information. After surveying current enabling infrastructures in Central Australia, we examine how materials are held and shared when people do not have easy access to databases and the Internet. We analyze examples of practices of sharing materials to draw out issues that arise in managing storage and circulation of cultural records via Universal Serial Bus (USB) flash drives, mobile phones, and other devices. We consider how the affordances of various platforms support, extend, and/or chal...
Anthropological Forum, 2018
Review(s) of: Aboriginal Business: Alliances in a Remote Australian Town, by Kimberly Christen, 3... more Review(s) of: Aboriginal Business: Alliances in a Remote Australian Town, by Kimberly Christen, 304 pp, School for Advanced Research Press, Santa Fe, New Mexico and Aboriginal Studies Press, Canberra, 2009, ISBN 9780855757021. Includes references. Includes footnotes.
University of Toronto Press eBooks, Dec 31, 2017
American Ethnologist, 1997
The Australian Journal of Anthropology
In November 2019, members of Willowra community marched on the local police station in protest ag... more In November 2019, members of Willowra community marched on the local police station in protest against the police shooting of Kumunjayi Walker at Yuendumu. Expressing solidarity with family at Yuendumu, individuals breached the barbwire fence of the vacant police compound. Unlike settlements such as Yuendumu, which have had resident police for decades, Willowra police station is 1 of 18 Northern Territory ‘Taskforce Themis’ stations set up as a temporary measure during the 2007 Intervention. Although the police presence is recent and inconstant, Lander Warlpiri Anmatyerr people have long experienced the agonistic effects of police authority in their region—beginning in 1928 with the gunning down of their relatives by Constable Murray and his accomplices during the Coniston Massacre. No charges were laid against these murderers, a reflection of the moral economy and ‘politics of life’ of settler society at the time. Although policies have changed, the past reverberates in the present...
The Women's Review of Books, 1990
The Rangeland Journal, 2008
Over the last 130 years, patterns of land use in central Australia have altered dramatically, and... more Over the last 130 years, patterns of land use in central Australia have altered dramatically, and so too have fire regimes and fire management objectives. Although Aboriginal people still have tenure over large parts of the landscape, their lifestyles have changed. Most Aboriginal people now live in towns and settlements and, although fire management is still culturally important, the opportunities for getting out on country to burn are constrained. Large parts of the landscape are now used for pastoral production. Under this land use the management objective is often one of fire exclusion. The other large-scale land use is for conservation. Here, fire management has a greater focus on conserving biodiversity using various burning strategies. In this paper we explore contemporary fire regimes in central Australia. Widespread fire events are found to be associated with two or more consecutive years of above-average rainfall. Although most of the fires linked with these high rainfall ...
The Rangeland Journal, 2010
Feral camels have significant negative impacts on the environment and the social/cultural values ... more Feral camels have significant negative impacts on the environment and the social/cultural values of Aboriginal people. These impacts include damage to vegetation through feeding behaviour and trampling; suppression of recruitment in some plant species; damage to wetlands through fouling, trampling, and sedimentation; competition with native animals for food, water and shelter; damage to sites such as waterholes, that have cultural significance to Aboriginal people; destruction of bushfood resources; reduction in Aboriginal people’s enjoyment of natural areas; creation of dangerous driving conditions; damage to people and vehicles due to collisions, and being a general nuisance in remote settlements. Negative economic impacts of feral camels mainly include direct control and management costs, impacts on livestock production through camels competing with stock for food and other resources and damage to production-related infrastructure. The annual net impact cost of feral camels was e...
The Rangeland Journal, 2010
Feral camels have severe negative impacts on key environmental economic and social/cultural asset... more Feral camels have severe negative impacts on key environmental economic and social/cultural assets across a wide area in Australia and their population is increasing. In this paper we utilised Multicriteria Evaluation (MCE) within a Geographic Information System (GIS) to create a decision tool for their management. Six management methods which are currently used for managing feral camels and their impacts: aerial culling, ground culling, exclusion fencing, and commercial extraction for live export, pet meat, or human consumption, were considered in the development of the tool. The decision tool used GIS-based MCE to determine the suitability of each of the management methods across the range of feral camels in Australia. A range of method-dependent criteria and factors served as inputs to the GIS-based MCE, which produced a suitability map or surface for each of the management methods. The broad-scale nature, Australia wide, of the work resulted in the suitability maps generated bei...
GeoJournal, 2008
... on the basis of local interest in the project and their location between several pastoral pro... more ... on the basis of local interest in the project and their location between several pastoral properties and a ... There was opposi-tion to the first Warlpiri land claim from government and non-government ... As they travel through the landscape Warlpiri will point out sacred sites where ash ...
Ecological Management & Restoration, 2012
... Camel in Australia. Melbourne University Press, Melbourne. Milton K. (1996) Environmentalism ... more ... Camel in Australia. Melbourne University Press, Melbourne. Milton K. (1996) Environmentalism and Cultural Theory: exploring the role of anthropology inenvironmental discourse, Routledge, London. CrossRef. Muir C., Rose ...
The practices of archival return may provide some measure of social equity to Indigenous Australi... more The practices of archival return may provide some measure of social equity to Indigenous Australians. Yet priceless cultural collections, amassed over many decades, are in danger of languishing without ever finding reconnection to the individuals and communities of their origin. The extensive documentary heritage of Australian Indigenous peoples is dispersed, and in many cases participants in the creation of archival records, or their descendants, have little idea of where to find these records. These processes of casting memories of the past into the future bring various conundrums of a social, political, and technical nature. They raise questions about the nature and dynamics of ongoing cultural transmission, the role of institutional and community archives in both protecting records of languages, song, and social history and disseminating them, and the responsibilities of researchers, organisations, and end users in this complex intercultural space. These questions are perforce f...
The Australian Journal of Anthropology, 2014
Many central Australian Aboriginal settlements have recently gained access to mobile phones and t... more Many central Australian Aboriginal settlements have recently gained access to mobile phones and the Internet. This paper explores ways in which Aboriginal people engage with this technology outside of institutional settings. Drawing on long-term research among Warlpiri, I reflect on people's responses to earlier communication media such as the two-way radio and radiotelephone and compare them to patterns of use emerging around new technologies. Attending to the social landscape surrounding the uptake of new media and the social networking site 'Divas Chat', I consider how transformations in material structures of communication interact with changing demographics, embodied socio-spatial relations, sorcery beliefs and mobility to reinforce, refigure and/or disrupt patterns of conflict and connectedness that hitherto have structured Warlpiri relational ontology. I suggest that the way people engage with these technologies illuminates and intensifies fault-lines arising from contradictions between older established social orders and changing relations with the state and modernity.
New Media & Society, 2021
This article considers how Indigenous peoples in Central Australia share and keep digital records... more This article considers how Indigenous peoples in Central Australia share and keep digital records of events and cultural knowledge in a period of rapid technological change. To date, research has focused upon the development of digital archives and platforms that reflect Indigenous epistemologies and incorporation of protocols governing access to information. Yet there is scant research on how individuals with little access to such media share and hold—or not, as the case may be—digital cultural information. After surveying current enabling infrastructures in Central Australia, we examine how materials are held and shared when people do not have easy access to databases and the Internet. We analyze examples of practices of sharing materials to draw out issues that arise in managing storage and circulation of cultural records via Universal Serial Bus (USB) flash drives, mobile phones, and other devices. We consider how the affordances of various platforms support, extend, and/or chal...
Anthropological Forum, 2018
Review(s) of: Aboriginal Business: Alliances in a Remote Australian Town, by Kimberly Christen, 3... more Review(s) of: Aboriginal Business: Alliances in a Remote Australian Town, by Kimberly Christen, 304 pp, School for Advanced Research Press, Santa Fe, New Mexico and Aboriginal Studies Press, Canberra, 2009, ISBN 9780855757021. Includes references. Includes footnotes.