Archaeology Field School in the Remote Aboriginal Community of Barunga


Location: Barunga, Northern Territory, Australia

Season: 
July 6, 2019 to July 12, 2019

Application Deadline: 
Tuesday, April 30, 2019

Deadline Type: 
Rolling

Website: 
https://barungafieldschool.wordpress.com/

Discount for AIA members: 
20% discount for AIA members

Program Type

Field school

RPA certified

no

Affiliation:

Flinders University

Project Director:

Professor Claire Smith

Project Description

This Barunga community archaeology fieldschool has been running annually since 1998. It runs from July 6th to 12th each year. It is led by Claire Smith and Gary Jackson,who have worked with this community every year since 1990, and by community Elders, Rachael Willika/Kendino, Nell Brown, Joslyn McCarthy and Jeannie Tiati. We often work with Aboriginal artists, Wesley Willika and  Trevor Atkinson.

Community archaeology has an important focus on community participation, training, capacity building and outreach. Our community archaeology field school is organised around community requests for assistance to document, record, preserve and manage important aspects of their local heritage.

This topic will develop students’ abilities to participate in community archaeology work in both an Indigenous and non-Indigenous context.  Students will be required to employ skills to an advanced level, which may include those related to site and artefact recording, mapping, collecting oral histories, and ethical interactions with community members, as appropriate to the community archaeology context.  

Participants are taught by community members, who are experts in cultural in knowledge, as well as by staff and postgraduate students from Flinders University.

More information is available here:

https://barungafieldschool.wordpress.com/

Period(s) of Occupation: Ranges from the deep past (rock art and excavations) to the contemporary world (graffiti and graveyards), depending on what the community wants done that year.

Project size: 
1-24 participants

Minimum Length of Stay for Volunteers: The full period

Minimum age: 
16

Experience required: 
None. This is a teaching field school. We are more interested in whether you want to learn from Aboriginal people about Aboriginal culture.

Room and Board Arrangements

We all camp. We share the cooking, the cleaning and the washing up. 

Cost: 
There are different costs associated depending on your enrollment: Flinders University Students a. The normal 4.5-unit topic fee for archaeology and students may choose to defer payment via HECS. Enrolled international students are liable for normal international tuition fees. b.  AUD$1,110 * (inclusive of GST) Fieldwork costs (this includes all accommodation, food, travel between Darwin and the field school location, and incidentals). Overseas Short Course Participants a. AUD$3,350 tuition fee (inclusive of GST). b. AUD$1,110 (inclusive of GST) Fieldwork costs (this includes all accommodation, food, travel between Darwin and the field school location, and incidentals). Non-Flinders University Domestic Short Course Participants a. AUD$2,133 tuition fee (inclusive of GST). b. AUD$1,110 (inclusive of GST). Fieldwork costs (this includes all accommodation, food, travel between Darwin and the field school location, and incidentals).

Academic Credit

Name of institution offering credit: 
Flinders University
Number of credits offered Overseas short course participants receive a Certificate of Achievement which states that the short course is equivalent to the completion of the Flinders University topic ARCH8801, a 4.5-unit topic. Participants should be able to use this to negotiate their own credit transfer with their home institution.
Tuition: 
Assessment is conducted during the fieldschool. It usually consists of three short blogs (before, during, and at the end of the fieldschool), a test about culture and Aboriginal relationships to land, a journal, participation and a community product/report.

Location

Contact Information
Claire Smith
Flinders University GPO Box 2100
Adelaide.
South Australia
Australia
5001
claire.smith@flinders.edu.au
Telephone: 
0882781934
Recommended Bibliography: 

Community Archaeology

Marshall, Y. 2002 What is community archaeology? World Archaeology 34(2):211–219.

Stottman, M.J. 2010 Archaeologists as Activists: Can Archaeologists Change the World? Tuscaloosa: The University of Alabama Press.

Tully, G. 2007 Community archaeology: General methods and standards of practice. Public Archaeology 6(3):155–187.

Community specific

Jackson, G. and C. Smith 2005 Living and learning on Aboriginal lands: Decolonizing archaeology in practice. In C. Smith and H.M. Wobst (eds), Indigenous Archaeologies: Decolonizing Theory and Practice, pp. 328–351. London: Routledge.

Ralph, J. and C. Smith 2014 ‘We’ve got better things to do than worry about whitefella politics’: Contemporary Indigenous graffiti and recent government interventions in Jawoyn Country. Australian Archaeology 78:75–83.

Smith, C. 1999 Ancestors, place and people: Social landscapes in Aboriginal Australia. In P. Ucko and R. Layton (eds) The Archaeology and Anthropology of Landscape. Shaping your Landscape, pp. 189–205. London and New York: Routledge.

Smith, C. 2004 Country, Kin and Culture: Survival of an Australian Aboriginal Community. Kent Town: Wakefield Press.

Smith, C. 2008 Panache and protocol in Australian Aboriginal art. In Ines Domingo Sanz, Danae Fiore and Sally K. May (eds.) Archaeologies of Art: Time, Place, Identity, pp. 215–241 Walnut Creek: Left Coast Press.

Smith, C. and I. Domingo-Sanz and G. Jackson 2016. Beswick Creek Cave six decades later: Change and continuity in the rock art of Doria Gudaluk. Antiquity  90(354):1613-1628. 

Smith, C. and G. Jackson 2010 Decolonizing Indigenous archaeology: Developments from down under. In M.M. Bruchac, S.M. Hart and H.M. Wobst (eds.) Indigenous Archaeologies: A Reader on Decolonization, pp.113–125. Walnut Creek: Left Coast Press.

Wiynjorroc, P. 2005 Jawoyn plants and animals: Aboriginal flora and fauna knowledge from Nitmiluk National Park and the Katherine area, Northern Australia. Darwin: Department of Natural Resources, Environment and the Arts.

Wiynjorroc, P., P. Manabaru, N. Brown and A. Warner 2005 We just have to show you: research ethics blekbalawei. In C. Smith and H.M. Wobst (eds), Indigenous Archaeologies: Decolonizing Theory and Practice, pp. 316–327. London: Routledge.

Ethics

AIATSIS 2012 Guidelines for Ethical Research in Australian Indigenous Studies. Canberra: Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies.

Smith, C. and H. Burke 2003 In the Spirit of the Code. In L.J. Zimmerman, K.D. Vitelli and J. Hollowell-Zimmer (eds), Ethical Issues in Archaeology, pp. 177–197. Walnut Creek: AltaMira.