121-224 Garma Fieldwork

This subject will be delivered both on campus and through an intensive fieldwork experience in northeast Arnhem Land, relying on digital, audio-visual and print resources in both Melbourne and the Northern Territory. A quota may apply to this subject. Please contact the department for further details.

Completion of 100 points of first and/or second-year subjects including at least 50 points of first-year level from approved subjects in your home faculty.

This subject aims to introduce students to fieldwork and research in situ in northeast Arnhem Land as guests of the Yolngu Matha speaking people, in particular the Gumatj clan, who annually host the Garma Festival and associated activities, and who welcome students from a range of disciplines at the University of Melbourne to learn Yolngu philosophy and culture and to contribute to the learning and research culture of the Yolngu. In this subject the key literature, film and video works of anthropologists, scientists and others who have worked with the Yolngu Matha speaking people, and the Yolngu Matha literature and audio-visual and digital productions themselves, will be provided to students prior to an intensive fieldwork experience. Students from a range of disciplines - geography, environmental studies, anthropology, archaeology, linguistics, musicology, fine arts, cultural studies, history, law, education and the sciences, particularly biology and botany - will negotiate a collaborative research project and learn the protocols of negotiating a research project with a host indigenous community as well as the Yolngu protocol and philosophy of learning and communication.

Written work totalling 8000 words.