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Centre for Australian Indigenous Studies

Discipline

Australian Indigenous studies

Email

cais@arts.monash.edu.au

Home page

www.arts.monash.edu.au/schools/cais/

Inquiries

Room 219B, level 2, Monash University Museum of Art (building 55), Clayton campus

Telephone

+61 3 9905 4200 (Clayton)

The Centre for Australian Indigenous Studies (CAIS) offers units that aim to encourage students to understand the past and contemporary experiences of Australian Indigenous peoples. Students will acquire a general knowledge of many different aspects of Australian Indigenous cultures and of how these cultures have undergone change and adaptation. Such understanding will require students to construct critical arguments and analyse topics studied in their historical and contemporary contexts. Units in Australian Indigenous studies aim to assist students to develop a good knowledge base about key issues in Indigenous societies.

Units offered by Australian Indigenous studies take an interdisciplinary approach to the contemporary experiences of Australian Aborigines by including the study of kinship and political systems in urban and remote societies, and the contrasts between Indigenous and non-Indigenous societies.

From 2006, the AIS first-year sequence will be jointly offered by CAIS and Anthropology and consist of the units ANY1010 (semester 1) and AIS1020 (semester 2). ANY1010 is a joint unit delivered by Anthropology. Anthropology is the study of the diversity of human expression through space and time that not only focuses on differences and similarities between societies and cultures but also on connections and contestations between them. This unit will seek to explore these aspects through focusing on the ongoing relationship between Indigenous and Settler Australians. What is of particular interest to this unit is trying to explore the points of contestation and how this has shaped the position of Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians in contemporary society. The lectures will consider some of the key historical periods in Indigenous Australia and discuss the way in which anthropology, as a discipline, has been involved in the process of understanding Indigenous relationships to each other and to the land. AIS1020 considers the colonial encounter between Aboriginal people and white Australia. Students will gain an appreciation of the historical context in which relationships between Aborigines and white Australia have developed. The unit focuses on the theoretical, political and legal dimensions of Aboriginal encounters with white Australia and provides students with foundational knowledge required to undertake further Indigenous studies.

Teaching in the centre includes lectures and small tutorial and seminar groups, which encourage debate and inquiry. Presentations, written summaries and essays incorporate reflective, analytical and oral skills specific to Indigenous studies as well as to the arts degree. A number of Arts faculty units offered in anthropology, Australian studies, geography, history, politics, linguistics, environmental science, sociology, visual culture and women’s and gender studies complement units offered in Indigenous studies.

The academic staff include Professor Lynette Russell (director of Monash Aboriginal Programs), Dr Liz Reed, Mr Barry Judd, Dr Stephen Pritchard, Dr Jane Lydon and joint appointment with Anthropology Dr. John Bradley. A major aim of the centre is to provide excellent and culturally appropriate undergraduate, honours and postgraduate courses.

For information on the units required for a major or minor in Australian Indigenous studies, refer to the ‘Areas of study’ section on the Arts faculty website at www.arts.monash.edu.au/current/coursework/study-areas/.

Relevant courses

For details of the following courses, see ‘Outline of undergraduate studies’ earlier in this section.