Biographical note

Bård’s first fieldwork with Kuku Yalanji people was for his Cand. Polit. degree (MA) with the University of Bergen in 2002. For 10 months he lived in a camp at Cape Tribulation, learning bush skills and traditional rainforest knowledge from a group of Kuku Yalanji rangers and tour guides. During this time Bård became interested in the role individual dreams, and the Ancestors in them, play in shaping traditional knowledge and Dreaming stories.

Bård has a continued relation with this group in various capacities and projects, as well as broadening his experience with a two year stint working as an anthropologist in Central Australia for the Central Land Council between 2009-2011.

In 2013 he co-founded ALTAR (Anthropological Laboratory for Tropical Audiovisual Research) at The Cairns Institute.

Research topics

Dreams and Dreaming stories; Truth as Paradox; Philosophy of Time and Temporality; Existential Anthropology and Methodology.

My research

My MA research led into my current PhD project, which investigates the Ancestral influence in the dreams of Kuku Yalanji elder Roy Gibson and the role such dreams play in shaping traditional knowledge and Dreaming stories. Temporal aspects of Dreamtime stories are explored via the dreamer’s avowed contemporaneity with Ancestors and temporally distant events. Analytically, I put Roy’s Dreaming stories, my own experience with dreams, and the existentialist writings of Søren Kierkegaard in dialogue with each other.

My research also entails documenting collected Yalanji artefacts, historical documents and photographs held in museums, and making these available for Yalanji descendants, particularly artists and tour guides. The PhD scholarship is part of a wider ARC project titled Objects of Possession: Artefact Transactions in the Wet Tropics of North Queensland, 1870 -2013 (DP110102291).

Another part of my work has been to film Roy retelling his dreams at the locations where his dreams occurred. By using film as part of the research, new artefacts, new "collection" procedures, new collaborations are co-created in digital format with an ongoing relationship to stories and collections of the past, present and the future.

Research questions

• How are nocturnal dreams and Dreaming stories linked and what are the dynamics between them?
• How do different approaches to and engagement with dreams and Dreaming stories affect our sense of time?
• Alternatively, how do different temporal orientations affect our lived experience?

Supervisory team

Dr Michael Wood

Associate Professor Jennifer Deger

Professor Ton Otto

Professor Rosita Henry

Publications, Conference papers and other outputs

Aaberge, B. R. (2012, December). The paradox of truth and believing the absurd: A Kierkegaardian approach to alterity and Aboriginal dreamings. Paper presented at the European Society for Oceanists (ESfO) Conference, Bergen.

Aaberge, B. R. (2013, July). Becoming contemporaneous with the ancestors: The paradox of eternity in time. Paper presented at the TransOceanik Links Symposium, Cairns.

Aaberge, B. R., Barnard, T., Greer, S., & Henry, R. (2014). Designs on the future: Aboriginal painted shields and baskets of tropical north Queensland, Australia. eTropic: Electronic Journal of Studies in the Tropics, 13(2), 56-74.

Gibson, R., & Aaberge, B. R. (2014). Country, ancestors & man: Dreams and visions of Roy Gibson [Documentary film]. Cairns: ALTAR.

Documented Yalanji artefacts, historical documents and photographs held in museums, and made these available for Yalanji artists and tour guides.

http://orcid.org/0000-0001-9429-502X

Teaching experience