Cultural & Linguistic Transformations Projects

Our goal is to support cultural expression, creativity, identity and the preservation and documentation of tropical cultural and linguistic heritage.

Australian Research Council - Centres of Excellence

ARC Centre of Excellence of Australian Origins and Transformations

Indicative Funding: $4,914,000 over 7 years (administered by University of Wollongong)

This Centre will create a world-class interdisciplinary research programme to understand Australia's unique biodiversity and heritage. The Centre will track the changes to Australia's environment to examine the processes responsible for the changes and the lessons that can be used to continue to adapt to Australia's changing environment. The Centre will support connections between the sciences and humanities and train future generations of researchers to deal with future global challenges and inform policy in an interdisciplinary context.

Investigators: Richard Roberts, Susan O'Connor, Jennie Lawson, Zenobia Jacobs, Timothy Cohen, Simon Haberle, Michael Bird, Sean Ulm [Cairns Institute Theme Leader & Fellow], Chris Turney, Martin Nakata, Darren Curnoe, Alan Cooper, Corey Bradshaw, Laura Weyrich, Bruno David, Lynette Russell, Barry Brook and Chris Johnson in collaboration with Brit Asmussen, Chantal Knowles, Robin Torrence, Michael Slack, Jean-Jacques Delannoy, Matthew Leavesley, Gifford Miller, Stephan Stephan and Michael Storey (University of Wollongong, Australian National University, College of Science & Engineering, College of Arts, Society & Education, The University of New South Wales, Aust Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Centre, University of Adelaide, Monash University, University of Tasmania, Queensland Museum, Australian Museum, Scarp Archaeology Pty Ltd, Universite de Savoie, University of Papua New Guinea, University of Colorado - Boulder, Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History and Natural History Museum of Denmark)

Australian Research Council - Discovery - Future Fellowships

Developing accurate trans-holocene coastal and ocean chronologies: Resolving fundamental problems in the dating of marine shell in the tropics

Indicative Funding: $699,593 over 5 years

Archaeological and quaternary science in tropical Australasia is heavily reliant on radiocarbon (14C) ages on marine materials. However, radiocarbon ages obtained on marine samples are not directly comparable to contemporaneous terrestrial samples owing to variability in the way 14C is distributed in marine environments (the 'marine reservoir effect'). Marine reservoir effects are highly variable and can introduce uncertainties of up to several hundred years into ages obtained on marine samples, creating a key obstacle for advancing archaeological, sea-level and climate change research. This project establishes a reliable model of marine reservoir effects across tropical Australasia that can be used to calibrate marine 14C ages.

Investigators: Sean Ulm [Cairns Institute Theme Leader & Fellow] (College of Arts and Society & Education)

ARC Laureate Fellowship

How gender shapes the world: A linguistic perspective

Indicative funding: $2,416,141

Gender pervades every aspect of life and of living. An understanding of its nature is central to many disciplines. The way gender is articulated shapes the world of individuals, and of the societies they live in. Study of Social Gender and Linguistic Gender offers a unique window into how humans construct representations of the world and encode them in their languages This project puts forward an innovative research program, systematically investigating gender expression and related socialization across languages and cultures, focusing on key Australian immigrant communities and our strategic neighbour New Guinea. The cutting-edge program will advance cross-cultural understanding and enhance capacity building within Australia and beyond.

Chief Investigator: Alexandra Aikhenvald

Collaborating School/Institution: The Cairns Institute; School of Arts & Social Sciences

ARC Discovery Project (DP170100918)

The integration of language and society

Indicative funding: $411,000

This project aims to seek associations between social and life-style differences and language structure. All human societies show pervasive similarities and all languages share recurrent features. Viewing society and language as an integrated whole, the project will study related groups in contrasting physical and social environments in PNG, Africa, East Asia, Amazonia and Australia. Inductive generalisations about associations between societal and language parameters (e.g. varying techniques of address relating to articulated kin systems and social hierarchy) aim to provide insight into the human dynamic. Findings should benefit programmes for cultural awareness, language teaching and revitalisation and understanding of multicultural situations.

Chief Investigators: Alexandra Aikhenvald, RMW Dixon, Professor Maarten Mous (Leiden University); Professor Dr Anne Storch (University of Cologne); Dr Nerida Jarkey (University of Sydney)

Australian Research Council - Linkage - Infrastructure (L-IEF)

A national facility for the analysis of pyrogenic carbon

Indicative funding: $358,031

This project will develop a National Facility for Pyrogenic Carbon Analysis. Pyrogenic carbon (biochar, soot, charcoal, black carbon) is a poorly constrained, slow-cycling terrestrial carbon pool with significant carbon sequestration potential. It is also an important source of palaeoenvironmental and geochronological information. We will expand newly developed hydrogen pyrolysis analytical capability to provide high throughput, robust, measurement of the abundance and isotope (13C, 14C) composition of pyrogenic carbon in soils and sediments. The facility will advance multiple research agendas at nine participating institutions across palaeoecology, geomorphology, geochronology, archaeology and carbon cycle/ sequestration science

Chief Investigators: Michael Bird, Sean Ulm [Theme Leader & Fellow], Timothy Cohen, Richard Roberts, Zenobia Jacobs, Lindsay Hutley, Balwant Singh, Hamish McGowan, Patrick Moss, Jessica Reeves, Simon Haberle, Susan O'Connor, Scott Mooney, Chris Turney and Michael-Shawn Fletcher (College of Science & Engineering, College of Arts, Society & Education, University of Wollongong, Charles Darwin University, The University of Sydney, The University of Queensland, Federation University, Australian National University, The University of New South Wales and The University of Melbourne)

ARC Discovery Project (DP130101361)

How languages differ and why

Indicative funding: $355,002

When languages interact, they become similar in certain ways. This project will explore the reasons for this, by examining why there are many languages of diverse structures in certain regions, focussing on New Guinea, Amazonia and north-east Queensland. The project will assist with understanding how language helps and hinders inter-ethnic communication.

Chief Investigators: Alexandra Aikhenvald, RMW Dixon, Lourens de Vries, Willem F Adelaar

Collaborating Schools/Institutions: School of Arts & Social Sciences; The Cairns Institute; Free University of Amsterdam; University of Leiden

ARC Discovery Project (DP110102291)

Objects of possession: Artefact transactions in the Wet Tropics of North Queensland, 1870-2013

Indicative funding: $350,000

The project’s research into artifact collecting will provide Indigenous peoples, museum curators and other community members with important insights into the history of Indigenous cultures in the Wet Tropics region. Our project will contribute to the development of innovative ways of presenting Indigenous peoples’ connections with their cultural heritage.

Chief Investigators: Rosita Henry [Cairns Institute Fellow], Russell E McGregor, Michael A Wood, Shelley M Greer, Ton Otto

Collaborating School: School of Arts & Social Sciences; The Cairns Institute

ARC Linkage Project (LP110100658)

Land, language and heritage

Indicative funding: $304,724

Building on academic work by RMW Dixon and educational initiatives by Ernie Grant, this large- scale cooperative initiative will produce comprehensive documentation of the Jirrbal Aboriginal tribe from North Queensland, in written, audiovisual and web-based form. It embraces traditional culture, recent history and language adaptation, enhancing the work of Partner Organisation, Echo Creek Cultural Centre, in the cross-cultural training it provides. The project is cast within the framework of the Holistic Approach (linking land, language and heritage), integrating and promoting indigenous knowledge. We work towards the empowerment of Indigenous Australians, reaffirmation of their identity and sustainable use of traditional environment.

Chief Investigators: RMW Dixon, Alexandra Aikhenvald

Collaborating School/Organisation: School of Arts & Social Sciences; The Cairns Institute; Echo Adventure and Cultural Camp

ASSOCIATED PROJECTS

The Ndu languages of New Guinea 

The project investigates the structure and the spread of the Ndu languages of the East Sepik, PNG, the biggest language family in the Sepik area.

The project will result in a number of grammars of Ndu languages, and an account of their migrations and history.

Chief Investigator: Alexandra Aikhenvald

Collaborating School: School of Arts & Social Sciences; The Cairns Institute

The Tariana language revival (Amazonas, Brazil) 

This is an on-going project focussing on description and maintenance of the Tariana language, the major Arawak language in the multilingual Vaupés area of Amazonia.
The project provides continuous benefit to the community by producing grammatical studies, pedagogical materials, dictionaries and support for language maintenance and revival.

Chief Investigator: Alexandra Aikhenvald

Collaborating School/Institution: School of Arts & Social Sciences; The Cairns Institute; The Association of the Tariana of the Upper Rio Negro

Australian Research Council - Discovery - Future Fellowships (FT110100587)

Digital relations: New media in Arnhem Land

Indicative funding: $267,451 over 2 years

This project develops scholarship of contemporary indigenous culture with a complex, interdisciplinary investigation of the ways in which new media are employed in remote indigenous communities. The sophistication with which Yolngu use technology to creatively participate in new global circuits of identity and meaning will be explored in this multi-sited, participatory study. Using digital technologies to collaboratively forge new forms of scholarship and critical reflection, this research will generate international research partnerships and community-based collaborations, leading to high profile scholarly outputs that reveal how these emergent forms and practices refigure the ambitions of a contemporary indigenous society.

Investigator: Jennifer Deger [Cairns Institute Fellow & Theme Leader]

Australian Research Council

The Deep History of Sea Country: climate, sea level and culture

Indicative funding: $60,000 over 3 years administered by Flinders University

This is a pioneering, multi-disciplinary study of submerged landscape archaeology in Australia designed to investigate the records of the now-submerged Pilbara coast (spanning 50,000 to 7000 years ago). Information from drowned contexts will help address critical debates in Australian prehistory relating to past sea-level rise, population resilience, mobility, and diet. The project integrates cultural and environmental studies and contributes a unique southern hemisphere insight into world prehistory through material analysis and an adaptation of method from the world's only confirmed submarine middens. A suite of cutting edge marine and aerial survey techniques will be developed to investigate physical and cultural submerged landscapes.

Chief Investigators: Jonathan Benjamin, Sean Ulm [Cairns Institute Theme Leader & Fellow], Peter Veth, Jorg Hacker and Michael O'Leary with the help of Geoffrey Bailey and Mads Holst (Flinders University, College of Arts, Society & Education, The University of Western Australia, Curtin University of Technology, University of York and Aarhus Universitet)

Universities Australia and German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) - Australia-Germany Joint Research Cooperation Scheme

Language emergence in multilingual contexts

Indicative funding: $25,000 over 2 years

As European colonisation spread around the world, European languages infiltrated numerous areas, giving rise to new language varieties. Bringing indigenous people from various language groups together on plantations, in missions and boarding schools has resulted in creating new forms of dominant languages for inter-group communication, among them European-based Creoles (such as Tok Pisin, the English-based Creole, and the previously undescribed Unserdeutsch, a creolized variety of German, in PNG). New blended languages emerge, as communities come to live together. We focus on areas of high linguistic diversity covering New Guinea, Amazonia, and East Asia, in the context of multilingual situations.

Chief Investigators: Alexandra Aikhenvald, Luca Ciucci, Katarzyna Wojtylak, Nathan White, Junwei Bai, Peter Maitz, Siegwalt Lindenfelser, Katharina Neumeier and Salome Lipfert (College of Arts, Society & Education and Universitat Augsburg)

Universities Australia and German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) - Australia-Germany Joint Research Cooperation Scheme

Creativity in language: Secret codes, special styles and linguistic taboos

Indicative funding: $25,000 over 2 years

Each language has a rich aesthetic texture. Alongside the everyday language style, there can be: (a) special speech styles employed in the poetry of songs; (b) special modes of speech used for ritual communication, in male and female initiation, mourning, and within important activities such as hunting or fishing; (c) respectful registers used in the presence of those relatives with whom one is not allowed to communicate directly; and (d) in-group modes of speech for particular age groups (youth languages), and play languages. The formal and the semantic aspects of special linguistic styles and secret languages reveal the mechanisms—and the limits—of linguistic creativity of speakers. The kinds of special codes reflect the speakers' social and cultural environment, including relationships between kin groups, the roles of men and women within a society, and societal practices. The project aims at providing a systematic examination of special codes, based on their functions and context of use, and how they relate to the everyday language styles. The project focuses on little-known languages from areas of substantial linguistic diversity in New Guinea, Amazonia, Aboriginal Australia, and Africa. The results will advance our understanding of the nature of language creativity and human cognition.

Investigators: Alexandra Aikhenvald in collaboration with Anne Storch, Katarzyna Wojtylak, Nicola Piper, Ryan Pennington, Nico Nassenstein, Andrea Wolvers and Angelika Mietzner (College of Arts, Society & Education and Universität zu Köln)

Australian Institute of Nuclear Science & Engineering - Postgraduate Research Award

Radiocarbon and cryptotephra in the Australian tropical savannas: A case study from Sanemere Lagoon, northeast Australia

Indicative funding: $7,500

This project will provide the information upon which to base optimized dating protocols for tropical lake sediments. The proposed project will be also a section of the PhD thesis of the applicant, which aims to create a high-resolution record of environmental change (sedimentological, vegetation and water balance) in the tropical savannas of northern Australia. Furthermore, the creation of regional marker horizons (using cryptotephra layers) will facilitate the comparison between research sites in the area. Ee will test the presence of cryptotephra by analysing the down-core changes in selected trace element concentrations.

Chief Investigator: Maria Jose Rivera Araya [PhD student] (College of Science & Engineering)

Australian Institute of Nuclear Science & Engineering - Postgraduate Research Award

Fire and Environmental Change in Northern Australia during the Late Holocene

Indicative Funding: $7,500

This project addresses the lack of palaeoenvironmental and palaeofire records available for northern Australia. I will analyse both micro-(<125micron) and macroscopic (>125micron) charcoal from sediment cores collected from lacustrine sites in Cape York and Arnhem Land. I will also analyse modern charcoal collected in fire traps placed during fieldwork to create a modern analogue. Collaboration with AINSE/ANSTO will result in a high-resolution chronology for each site, with implications for the wider region.

Investigators: Emma Rehn, Michael Bird, Cassandra Rowe, Sean Ulm [Cairns Institute Theme Leader & Fellow] and Craig Woodward (College of Science & Engineering, College of Arts, Society & Education and The University of Queensland)