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The Cairns Institute ANNUAL REPORT 2015 HIGHLIGHTS 2015
The Cairns Institute ANNUAL REPORT 2015 HIGHLIGHTS 2015
© The Cairns Institute, James Cook University 2016
Published by The Cairns Institute, James Cook University, Cairns, Australia.
This publication is copyright. The Copyright Act 1968 permits fair dealing for study, research, information or educational purposes subject to inclusion of a sufficient acknowledgement of the source.
Cover photograph: Daniela Vávrová | House | Ambonwari, East Sepik Provence, Papua New Guinea | 2011
CONTENTS
OUR PRIORITIES ...................................................................................................................................................................... 1
Humanities & Social Science Research of the Tropics ............................................................................................................ 1
Transformational Research for the Tropics .............................................................................................................................. 1
Excellence in Research Training ............................................................................................................................................. 1
Extending Learning Opportunities ........................................................................................................................................... 1
Opening Spaces for Debate .................................................................................................................................................... 1
Communicating Research Outcomes & Opportunities ............................................................................................................. 2
Real World Research for the Tropics ....................................................................................................................................... 3
Director's Report ..................................................................................................................................................................... 4
GOVERNANCE .......................................................................................................................................................................... 5
Management Committee ......................................................................................................................................................... 5
International Advisory Board ................................................................................................................................................... 6
Organisational Chart ............................................................................................................................................................... 7
MEMBERSHIP ........................................................................................................................................................................... 8
Tropical Leaders & Professors ................................................................................................................................................ 8
Postdoctoral Researchers ..................................................................................................................................................... 11
Research Fellows.................................................................................................................................................................. 15
Honorary Fellows .................................................................................................................................................................. 18
Adjuncts ................................................................................................................................................................................ 18
Administration ....................................................................................................................................................................... 20
RESEARCH ............................................................................................................................................................................. 21
Theme 1: Regional Economic Development .......................................................................................................................... 21
Theme 2: Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Futures ............................................................................................................ 23
Theme 3: Tropical Planning, Research Management & Design ............................................................................................. 26
Theme 4: Social Justice & Community Wellbeing .................................................................................................................. 28
Theme 5: Education & Capacity Building ............................................................................................................................... 30
Theme 6: Governance & Political Innovation ......................................................................................................................... 32
Theme 7: Sustainable International Development ................................................................................................................. 34
Theme 8: Language & Culture .............................................................................................................................................. 37
TRAINING ................................................................................................................................................................................ 40
2015 Graduate Students ....................................................................................................................................................... 40
Training & Professional Development ................................................................................................................................... 44
DIALOGUE ............................................................................................................................................................................... 45
Conferences, Seminars & Other Events Summary ................................................................................................................ 45
Conferences ...................................................................................................................................................................... 48
Language & Culture Research Centre Seminars and Workshops ...................................................................................... 48
Centre for Research & Innovation in Sustainability Education Seminar .............................................................................. 48
ALTAR events ................................................................................................................................................................... 49
Cairns Institute Seminars ................................................................................................................................................... 50
Exhibitions ......................................................................................................................................................................... 51
LINKAGES & PARTNERSHIPS ................................................................................................................................................ 52
JCU Partners ........................................................................................................................................................................ 52
ALTAR ............................................................................................................................................................................... 53
Australian University Partners ............................................................................................................................................... 54
Visiting Scholars ................................................................................................................................................................... 54
International University Partners ........................................................................................................................................... 55
Community & Non-profit Organisation Partners ..................................................................................................................... 55
Australian Government Agencies & Department Partners ..................................................................................................... 56
Indigenous Arts Centre Alliance (IACA) ................................................................................................................................. 57
MEDIA & PUBLIC OUTREACH ................................................................................................................................................ 58
Newsletter ............................................................................................................................................................................. 58
Media Coverage - Examples ................................................................................................................................................. 59
PUBLICATIONS ....................................................................................................................................................................... 62
AWARDS & PEER RECOGNITION .......................................................................................................................................... 62
SERVICES TO THE ACADEMIC COMMUNITY ....................................................................................................................... 63
Editors .................................................................................................................................................................................. 63
Editorial Boards ..................................................................................................................................................................... 63
Participation on Professional & Review Committees ............................................................................................................. 65
Invited Keynote & Plenary Presentations ............................................................................................................................... 67
Other Services to the Academic Community ......................................................................................................................... 68
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OUR PRIORITIES
The Cairns Institute supports JCU’s strategic intent to create a brighter future for life in the tropics world-wide through graduates and discoveries that make a difference.
www.jcu.edu.au/about/strategic-intent
James Cook University has established an institute for advanced studies in sustainable industries, economies, people and societies in the tropics. Bringing together the expertise and intellectual resources of more than 20 disciplines in the humanities and social sciences, The Cairns Institute is a uniquely robust and vibrant hub of research, training and dialogue in the tropics, for the tropics.
Humanities & Social Science Research of the Tropics
Cairns Institute research focuses on critical dimensions of social and environmental transformation in the topics, with a particular focus on northern Australia, Papua New Guinea, the South Pacific and the wider Asia Pacific region. It engages with those issues that most impact the current and future wellbeing of tropical peoples. The Institute prioritises research in:
1. Sustainable development of northern Australia 2. Innovative research agendas with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples 3. Development of research networks in the Pacific and South East Asia.
Transformational Research for the Tropics
The Cairns Institute research contributes, in practical ways, to transformations that respect cultural and linguistic diversity; support sustainable and inclusive development; and assist communities in mitigating and adapting to environmental change. This involves: fundamental research and theory building concerning the social roots of vulnerability and transformation; applied research targeting opportunities for lasting positive change; and strong connections with capacity-building and communication and outreach activities.
Excellence in Research Training
The aspiration to be a hub of advanced studies in the humanities and social sciences presupposes strong higher degree by research programs. Ensuring a world class student experience is essential both to support existing students and as a basis for recruitment and growth. Over time, this will lead to the development of a diaspora of alumni throughout the region whom the Institute will continue to collaborate with. In the short-term, this priority relates to the importance of aligning supervisory capacity and research priorities with proactive recruitment of research higher degree candidates.
Extending Learning Opportunities
Professional development and other short courses offer an invaluable opportunity to capitalise on the expertise within the Institute and extend learning opportunities beyond award programs. Courses must, however, be aligned with the Institute’s mission and strategic intent.
Opening Spaces for Debate
Conferences, seminars and other interactive events are fundamental to the Institute’s mission and strategic intent to contribute to positive social and environmental transformations in the tropics. The Institute ensures a diversity of events that encourage the development of core knowledge and theory, discussion of research and its implications for public policy and other applications, and reasoned deliberation over challenging political issues.
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Communicating Research Outcomes & Opportunities
The relevance and potential impact of research often extends well beyond those audiences with ready access to scholarly outputs. Communication is not generally well resourced and the Institute plays an active role assisting staff, students and other stakeholders to connect with broader audiences for their work. This increases the visibility and impact of social scientists working on transformations in the tropics.
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Real World Research for the Tropics
As the world’s tropical zones face immense social, economic and environmental challenges the Institute aims to provide innovative research with local, national and global applications. Its unique profile is built on the following key concerns:
• Promote stronger economic development and diversification of industry to sustain livelihoods in the tropicsRegional economic development
• Support Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander empowerment and prosperity across health, education, employment, housing, law, justice, language and culture
Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander futures
• Contribute to more sustainable built and natural environments through innovative and culturally appropriate approaches to planning, management and design
Tropical planning, research management & design
• Assist communities to respond to social and environmental change and increase social inclusion through projects committed to social justice, health and wellbeing
Social justice & community wellbeing
• Build the capacity of current and future citizens to thoughtfully and productively participate in the production of sustainable and just tropical communities and societies
Education & capacity building
• Improve the effectiveness and inclusiveness of governance and connectivity across corporate, government and non-government sectors
Governance & political innovation
• Strengthen Australia’s engagement with our neighbours in the Asia-Pacific to meet international sustainable development goals
Sustainable international development
• Support cultural expression, creativity, identity and the preservation and documentation of tropical cultural and linguistic heritage
Language & culture
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Director's Report
Since its formation, The C airns Institute has established itself as a leading centre for research and dialogue with and for the people of Northern Australia, the South Pacific, and the tropics globally. Much of the Institute’s work challenges the traditional observer-observed relationship between researchers and the people they work with through co- and participatory research, collaborative art practice and exhibition, and the use of multiple communication channels to report results and foster dialogue. In a region marked by exceptionally high levels of cultural and linguistic diversity, rapid social and economic transformation, global environmental significance, and persistent economic and social inequality, the Institute must work with the people of the region if it is to deliver on its mission of contributing to a brighter future. This is not solely a matter of ethical obligation. It is a matter of understanding, responding to and influencing the pace and direction of change.
Across the Institute’s three core activity areas—research, training and dialogue—priorities for the period 2015–18 have been identified as:
1. Sustainable development of northern Australia. 2. Innovative research agendas with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. 3. Development of research networks in the Pacific and South East Asia.
Several years of relationship building within Papua New Guinea and relevant Australian Government agencies led, in 2015, to ratification of a ‘twinning’ arrangement between JCU and the University of Papua New Guinea (UPNG) supported financially by the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT). The Institute is proud to have played a major role in this initiative and looks forward to working with UPNG and JCU staff to ramp-up of collaborative research activity.
The Institute is also proud to have hosted in 2015 the second TEDxJCUCairns (tedxjcucairns.com). This has provided a platform for researchers from across JCU to interact with and reach audiences not typically involved in JCU or Institute events. Far from a ‘feel good’ publicity event, researchers presenting at TEDxJCUCairns have developed concrete collaborations with people who either presented themselves, attended as a volunteer or audience member, or watched online. All those involved have felt rewarded by the opportunity to interact with genuinely outstanding members of the wider North Queensland community.
Finally, it is also important to note that The Cairns Institute (TCI) was reviewed in November 2015 under the provisions of the James Cook University (JCU) Research Centres and Institutes Policy. Recommendations from the review focused on strategies to increase access to resources through the mobilisation of research capacity at JCU. The Institute will work through these recommendations in 2016 and report on progress with implementation in early 2017.
Professor Stewart Lockie Director
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GOVERNANCE
The Cairns Institute was led by the Foundation Director, Professor Hurriyet Babacan, from 2009 – November 2012, by Acting Director, Professor Sue McGinty from November 2012 – December 2013, and Professor Stewart Lockie from January 2014. During this time the Institute appointed leading national and international scholars including
Tropical Leaders, Visiting Scholars, and Senior Fellows and Fellows. Along with higher degree research students and postdoctoral researchers, the Institute has expansive capacity for working across the tropics.
Management Committee
The Management Committee of The Cairns Institute provides oversight and direction of the Institute’s operations and is responsible to the Vice-Chancellor for the proper conduct of its affairs. The Director of the Institute reports to the Management Committee. Committee membership for 2015 included:
Professor Chris Cocklin (Chair) Senior Deputy Vice-Chancellor
Professor Nola Alloway Dean, College of Arts, Society & Education
Associate Professor Glenn Dawes College of Arts, Society & Education
Professor Lynne Eagle Associate Dean - Research, Division of Tropical Environments & Societies
Professor Robyn McGuiggan Deputy Vice Chancellor, Division of Global Strategy & Engagement
Professor Stewart Lockie (ex-officio) Director, The Cairns Institute
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International Advisory Board
The International Advisory Board’s role is to advise the Senior Deputy Vice-Chancellor, The Cairns Institute Management Committee and the Director of The Cairns Institute on strategic and academic matters relating to the development of The Cairns Institute, realisation of its vision, and implementation of its strategic intent.
Appointed by the Vice-Chancellor, its members are distinguished people of international reputation, recognised by their peers as having made an outstanding contribution to one or more of the academic disciplines represented within the Institute. Members of the International Advisory Board are appointed for a period of five years and will normally meet at least annually in Cairns with the Vice-Chancellor, Senior Deputy Vice-Chancellor, Director, Management Committee and academic leaders of The Cairns Institute, as part of its review and planning cycle.
In 2015 The Cairns Institute underwent a formal review as part of JCU’s Research Centres and Institutes Policy which specifies that Institutes should be undertake a full review in their 5th year. Due to the university restructure process this did not happen in 2014 as scheduled, but was deferred until resources were available in 2015. The Review recommendation was that the International Advisory Board be replaced and in 2016 when the VC will appoint a new External Advisory Board for the Institute. Some key differences with the old board:
1. Members will be drawn from the region rather than internationally. 2. The Terms of Reference make it clear the Board’s role is to advise the Institute, not to assume the role of a
governance board. 3. Members will reflect key sectors of relevance to the Institute.
Membership of the International Advisory Board in 2015 included:
Professor Chris Cocklin (ex-officio) Senior Deputy Vice-Chancellor, James Cook University
Professor Barbara Glowczewski Director of Research, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Laboratoire d’Anthropologie Sociale, Collège de France
Professor Jon Tikivanotau M Jonassen Department of Political Science, College of Business, Computing & Government, Brigham Young University, Hawai’i
Associate Professor Tarcisius Tara Kabutaulaka Center for Pacific Islands Studies, University of Hawai’i
Professor Bruce Kapferer Professor of Anthropology, University of Bergen, Norway
Dame Carol Kidu Former Member of Parliament, Papua New Guinea; Nonresident Fellow at the Lowy Institute for International Policy, Sydney
Professor Tom Kompas Director of Crawford School of Economics and Government; Foundation Director of the Australian Centre for Biosecurity and Environmental Economics, Australian National University
Ms Joann Schmider Wet Tropics FNQ Rainforest Aboriginal People Traditional Owner (Director, ComUnity ACETs Pty Ltd)
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Organisational Chart
The Cairns Institute Director
Research Services Manager
Project Officer
Personal Assistant
Prof. Short Course & Training Manager
Division of Tropical Environments &
Societies
Tropical Leaders1
Research Teams & P/Grad Students
Research Fellows2
Honorary Fellows3
Visiting Scholars4
Adjunct Appointments5
Associates6
1 College of Business, Law & Governance and College of Arts, Society & Education
2 Appointed for 5 years, renewable by the Board on recommendation of the Director, The Cairns Institute
3 Appointed for 5 years by the VC on the recommendation of the Management Committee
4 Appointed by the Board on the recommendation of the Director, The Cairns Institute
5 Appointed under James Cook University’s Adjunct Appointments Policies and Procedures on the recommendation of the Director, The Cairns Institute
6 Appointed by the Director to stakeholder agencies and individuals affiliated with The Cairns Institute
International Advisory Board
Management Committee
Senior DVC
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MEMBERSHIP
Tropical Leaders & Professors
Distinguished Professor Alexandra (Sasha) Aikhenvald
Distinguished Professor Alexandra (Sasha) Aikhenvald is an Australian Laureate Fellow
and Tropical Leader, People & Societies of the Tropics. She is also a Fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities (FAHA), Fellow of Queensland Academy of Arts and Sciences (FQAAS) and Director of the Language and Culture Research Centre (LCRC) which brings together linguists, anthropologists and other social scientists working in the humanities. Sasha’s current major focus is investigating synchronic and diachronic features of the languages of the world, especially tropical areas of Amazonia and New Guinea. The aim is to deepen our understanding of the interrelationship between language and culture, investigating the issue of practical outcomes (such as educational activities for the regional communities). Her major project now is the Australian Research Council (ARC) Australian Laureate Fellowship, How gender shapes the world: a linguistic perspective (2012-2017), focusing on the expression and conceptualisation of gender across languages and cultures, in addition to her work on linguistic diversity in the tropics. Sasha supervises eight PhD students who are all working on a grammar of a previously undescribed language, from various regions of Papua New Guinea, Mexico, Colombia and the Torres Straits, and four Postdoctoral Fellows.
Professor Chris Cunneen
Professor Chris Cunneen holds a part-time position as Tropical Leader, Justice & Social Inclusion. Chris
has an international reputation as a leading criminologist specialising in Indigenous people and the law, juvenile justice, restorative justice, policing, prison issues and human rights. Chris has participated with a number of Australian Royal Commissions and Inquiries (including the Stolen Generations Inquiry, the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody and the National Inquiry into Racist Violence), and with the federal Australian Human Rights Commission. He taught criminology at Sydney Law School (1990-2005) where he was appointed as Professor in 2004. He was also the Director of the Institute of Criminology (1999-2005) at the University of Sydney. Chris also holds a research chair in the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences at the University of New South Wales (UNSW) and is an elected Fellow of the Academy for Social Sciences in Australia (ASSA).
Professor Allan Dale
Professor Allan Dale is Professor of Tropical Regional Development in The Cairns
Institute. He has a strong interest in governance systems across the tropics. He has both extensive research and policy expertise in regional development and in integrated natural resource management. His work is particularly focused on the future of northern Australia and the Great Barrier Reef. He is also Chair of Regional Development Australian Far North Queensland and Torres Strait. His past research helped inform the policy and investment foundations for the nation’s regional natural resource management system, and he was also responsible for natural resource policy in the Queensland Government. Allan was also the CEO of the Wet Tropics Regional NRM body before returning to this international research role. As Professor of Tropical Regional Development, he also accesses a national and international network of research expertise in the governance field, with particularly strong linkages throughout Charles Darwin University and CSIRO.
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Associate Professor Jennifer Deger
Associate Professor Jennifer Deger joined the Institute as a Tropical Leader in March 2014
from ANU bringing her ARC Future Fellowship, Digital relations: New media in Arnhem Land. As part of this project, Jennifer and her Yolngu research collaborators have curated and installed three major exhibitions in Cairns, Brisbane, New York and Aarhus, Denmark as part of this collaborative, creative investigation into the role of digital technologies in transforming Indigenous worlds. They have also completed and launched a documentary film, Ringtone, which has toured to several US and European film festivals. Jennifer and her collaborators are currently working on a book on mobile phone-made media art for Aboriginal Studies Press. The exhibition in New York associated with this research, Gapuwiyak Calling: Phone-made media from Aboriginal Australia, was awarded an Honourable Mention in the 2015 CHASS Australia Prize for a Distinctive Work. In 2015 Jennifer was appointed a Research Associate at the Smithsonian Institute’s National Museum of Natural History as part of a project entitled Life Specimens which will use mobile phones to create artworks from botanical specimens collected by the 1948 American-Australian Scientific Expedition to Arnhem Land. In 2015 Jennifer was also appointed to the editorial board of Visual Anthropology Review, a journal produced by the Society for Visual Anthropology in association with the American Anthropological Association.
Professor Ton Otto
Professor Ton Otto is part-time Tropical Leader, People & Societies of the Tropics (proportionally
employed at 20% from 2015). Simultaneously he is professor at Aarhus University and Head of the Ethnographic Collections at Moesgård Museum, Aarhus, Denmark. His major interest is in understanding processes of social change and in developing new ways for the social sciences to contribute to change in participatory ways. He is involved in the development of anthropological theory and methodology in the fields of material and visual culture, agency, and design. As part of this he engages in making exhibitions and films and investigates the participatory research potential of these media. Regionally his research focuses on Melanesia, and Papua New Guinea in particular, and thematically he studies the impact of time orientations, tradition, history, heritage, and collective memory on processes of change.
Professor Bob Stevenson
Professor Bob Stevenson is Tropical Leader, Education for Environmental Sustainability and Director of
the Centre for Research & Innovation in Sustainability Education (CRISE). Bob’s research focuses on theory-policy-practice relationships in environmental and sustainability education and its history and marginalised status as an educational reform in K-12 schooling. He has critically examined international and national policies and discourses and has developed seminal explanations of the discrepancies between policies and practice in environmental education. His current research interests centre on the current and potential sites of learning about issues of environmental sustainability by young people; conceptualising climate change education; and the role of leadership and centralised policies in creating effective ecologically sustainable schools.
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Professor Natalie Stoeckl
Professor Natalie Stoeckl is Tropical Leader, Regional Economic Development.
Natalie is an economist with a keen interest in the environmental and social/distributional issues associated with economic growth with extensive experience in a variety of non-market valuation techniques. What distinguishes her from many other economists is her track record of collaborative cross-disciplinary research using models that combine economic, environmental and social variables to explore interactions between socio-economic and ecological systems. She has published widely in both national and international forums and supervises many (mostly multidisciplinary) research students.
Professor Komla Tsey
Komla Tsey is Tropical Leader, Education for Social Sustainability. Komla supports academic staff to
form collaborative research teams across different disciplines, mentors early career academics to become competitive researchers, and works with research groups to develop methodologies to evaluate the impact and benefit of their research. Komla’s current research is motivated by the JCU vision to create a brighter future for peoples and societies in the tropics through research and teaching that promotes sustainability. A key element in creating brighter futures is to support communities of people and their institutions to develop the capacity to learn how to routinely adapt and respond constructively to change—the idea is that to change the world you must first learn to change yourself. Based on this understanding, Komla has been working with teams to test and evaluate transformative learning packages based on the Aboriginal Family Wellbeing program in a wide variety of settings across Australia and internationally. Examples of the diversity of issues currently being addressed in pilot studies include: workforce training for remote Indigenous child protection workers in north QLD; enhancing the capacity of families to better deal with the growing ice epidemic in regional VIC; engaging young Indigenous men and women in the NSW central coast who are at risk of dropping out of the school; leadership training for senior Ministry of Health managers and directors in Timor-Leste; promoting wellbeing and improving retention rates among first year university students at an Australian university; and communication and relationship training to build the spirit of innovation and enterprise amongst students in a Chinese university.
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Postdoctoral Researchers
Dr Angeliki Alvanoudi
Dr Angeliki Alvanoudi is an Adjunct Lecturer at the Language and Culture Research Centre
(LCRC) at The Cairns Institute. Angeliki's main interests are language and gender, language and cognition, and talk-in-interaction. In 2014, Angeliki published a revised version of her doctoral dissertation entitled Grammatical gender in interaction: Cultural and cognitive aspects with Brill. She has published scholarly articles on language and gender and is currently working on a monograph about language contact-induced change in Greek spoken by immigrants in Far North Queensland. She has also edited a special section on aspects of the meaning of gender for the International Journal of Language and Culture (in press).
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Dr Roxanne Bainbridge
Dr Roxanne Bainbridge is a Gungarri Aboriginal woman from South Western Queensland.
She is a Senior Research Fellow in The Cairns Institute and her work is embedded in Aboriginal empowerment and social inclusion research and has a particular focus on the social determinants of Aboriginal Australian health and wellbeing. Roxanne demonstrates multidisciplinary expertise clustered around Aboriginal empowerment and wellbeing. Her methodological expertise lies particularly in participatory research approaches; auto/ethnographic approaches, systematic literature reviews and grounded theory. She has worked across a number of projects in Aboriginal health and wellbeing (e.g., mental health, youth resilience, suicide, palliative care for end-stage renal patients, social and emotional wellbeing and health promotion) and education (e.g., engagement, pedagogy, school transitions, inclusive practice and mentoring); and currently supervises research students from these key fields.
Dr Michelle Esparon
Dr Michelle Esparon obtained her PhD in 2013 from JCU, Townsville
where she now works as a Postdoctoral Researcher. She has contributed to several research projects that explore trade-offs between economic development and environmental protection, including national projects such as Tropical Rivers and Coastal Knowledge (TRaCK) and the National Environmental Research Program (NERP). Her research interests include environmental management and economics, sustainable tourism development, tourism certification schemes, protected areas and non-market valuation techniques. She is currently involved in research projects looking at the relative importance of non-market values of the Great Barrier Reef and Wet Tropics World Heritage Areas and the economic costs associated with macro-algae productions. Michelle also has experience in research projects involving Indigenous engagement and research experience in developing countries, recently joining the team looking at the regional economic impact of agriculture extension programs in Laos.
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Dr Marina Farr
Dr Marina Farr is a Postdoctoral Researcher based at Townsville campus. Marina’s
research interests include natural resource economics and management, environmental economics, non-market valuation techniques, tourism economics and recreational fisheries. Marina is currently involved in the project evaluating new methods for encouraging practice change, behaviour and participation in water quality improvement programmes in the Great Barrier Reef. This project is aiming to identify intrinsic and extrinsic motivations, value-orientations, norms, social networks and communication protocols of different segments of land managers (particularly graziers and cane growers) and to assess the efficacy of such programmes, determining if they result in changed behaviour, in regions where they have recently been, or will soon be, rolled out.
Dr Valérie Guérin
Valérie Guérin (PhD, University of Hawai'i at Mānoa, 2008) joined LCRC under Professor
Aikhenvald’s ARC Australian Laureate Fellowship in July 2013. In August 2013, she started documenting Tayatuk, a language of Papua New Guinea spoken in two small villages in the mountainous area of the Morobe Province. While in Cairns, Valérie continues her work on Mavea, an Oceanic language of Vanuatu, along with her research in language typology. Her most recent activity included the organisation of a workshop on bridging constructions (with colleague Dr Simon Overall), and seminar presentations for the LCRC’s international workshop on Imperatives and command strategies (organised by Professors Aikhenvald and Dixon) and the LCRC’s weekly seminar series. She is currently preparing her next field trip to Papua New Guinea, to take place from March-May 2016.
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Dr Susan Jacups
Now employed as an Epidemiologist with the Primary Health Networks (Department of Health funding),
Susan continues to collaborate with researchers from The Cairns Institute and across JCU. Her collaborations within The Cairns Institute include research and evaluation of human psychological health and wellbeing, and substance misuse. In this capacity she has evaluated an alcohol binge drinking project conducted in an Indigenous community; and has similarly evaluated the delivery of a Family Wellbeing program and several homelessness programs. For the last 2 years Susan has continued to assist post-graduate students with their research study design and analysis plan (statistical design) via JCU Graduate Research School’s StatsHelp program. Students make appointments for one-on-one sessions to tighten their research design, proposed statistics methodology, interpretation of results, and presentation of findings.
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Dr Janya McCalman
Dr Janya McCalman is a public health researcher with a background in health promotion practice. She has
a Masters of Public Health and a PhD, conferred in 2013 with a Dean’s Excellence Award. She is recognised for her diverse multi-method research with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders partners over the last 15 years, including in Aboriginal mental health, social and emotional wellbeing, youth health, maternal and child health, health services research and implementation research. She has led systematic literature reviews, participatory action research, grounded theory and impact evaluation research projects which seek to inform improvements in resilience, empowerment-based health and wellbeing and the implementation of health programs and services. Given she is at an early career stage, her ability to report and publish research is prolific; outputs include 43 peer-review papers; 1 book, 4 book chapters; 22 other publications; and 31 conference presentations. She has been successful as Lead/Chief Investigator on 16 grants, including two fellowships and three competitive grants (NHMRC APP1076774; NHMRC 1078927; ARC IN150100011); contributing to $9.7m funding. She has received JCU performance awards for external income and publication outputs. She has also contributed to the design and facilitation of training workshops with international mental health leaders.
Dr Elena Mihas
Elena Mihas carried on research work on Alto Perene (Arawak) and continued documentation
and grammatical analysis of Satipo Ashaninka (Arawak). She did extensive fieldwork in the Chanchamayo and Satipo provinces of Peru in the winter and spring of 2015 to collect more conversational data in the communities where the languages are spoken. The fieldwork was supported by the JCU Faculty Grant Ethnography of communication: Patterns of Ashéninka Perené (Arawak) public discourse, 2015, Jacobs Research Funds Grant Ethnography of communication: Patterns of Ashéninka Perené (Arawak) public discourse”, 2015, and the Language and Culture Research Centre (LCRC). An outcome of the 2015 fieldwork is a volume on conversational structures of Alto Perene to be submitted for publication in the spring of 2016. The book covers a range of topics including chapters on linguistic resources used for coding participation roles, linguistic resources used for coding membership categories, organisation of focused encounters, nonverbal resources used by participants in interaction, mechanisms of turn-taking and repair, epistemic positioning of participants, and types and functions of responses.
Dr Simon Overall
Dr Simon Overall received his PhD in 2009 from the Research Centre for Linguistic Typology, then at Latrobe
University, with a thesis on the grammar of Aguaruna, soon to be published in the Mouton Grammar Library series (de Gruyter, Berlin). His research focuses on the diachrony of nominalisations and their involvement in discourse and switch-reference; the linguistic history of the eastern foothills of the Andes; and the representation of traditional knowledge. He started his three-year Research Fellowship within the ARC Discovery project, How languages differ and why, in July 2013. His major project involves working on a grammar of Kandozi-Chapra, an isolate of Peru. He is also part of a community-based project to document Aguaruna ethnobotanical knowledge, funded by the Firebird Foundation. In 2016 Simon will undertake further fieldwork, funded by the Endangered Languages Documentation Programme, in Kandozi, Chapra, and Aguaruna indigenous communities in north Peru.
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Dr Anne Stephens
Dr Anne Stephens is a Senior Post Doctoral Researcher with the Northern Futures
Collaborative Research Network (CRN) at The Cairns Institute. She specialises in systems thinking and complexity science in applied and evaluation research. Her work in northern Australia has centred on vocational training in rural and regional Australia and public health. She is author of Ecofeminism and Systems Thinking (Routledge, 2015) and she has authored dozens of journal articles and book chapters. In 2016 with the support of a Department of Foreign Affairs & Trade (DFAT) Endeavour Research Fellowship, Anne will be a Visiting Scholar at Columbia University's School of International and Public Affairs and the University of Hull's Centre for Systems Sciences at the School of Business Management.
Dr Daniela Vávrová
Dr Daniela Vávrová is an Adjunct Research Fellow in the College of Arts, Society and Education & Casual
Research Officer in The Audio Visual Lab of The Cairns Institute. Her PhD thesis, Skin Has Eyes and Ears, an audio-visual ethnography in a Sepik society, explores how people shape and are shaped by their social and cultural environment through their sensory experiences. Beside the written thesis she also made a feature-length film as part of the thesis, which was screened at several ethnographic film festivals around the world. Her specialisation is in visual anthropology and experimental filmmaking. In 2013 she co-founded ALTAR (Anthropological Laboratory for Tropical Audiovisual Research) at The Cairns Institute.
Dr Catherine Mei Ling Wong
Dr Catherine Mei Ling Wong is a Senior Research Officer at The Cairns Institute, working on a comparative analysis of
climate governance in Australia, China and the UK. Prior to that, Catherine completed her PhD at the Australian National University on risk governance in the nuclear industry in India after the Fukushima nuclear disaster. Her current research expands her earlier work on risk governance and political ecology into the fields of climate change, the sociology of time and comparative policy analysis. Since joining the Institute in April 2014, Catherine has conducted fieldwork and elite interviews with senior executives of public and private sector programs of climate governance in China, Australia and the UK. She has also written a number of journal articles and book chapters, some of which have been published and others currently under review. She also received a book contract to publish an edited version of her dissertation. In January 2015, Catherine was elected to the executive committee of the Society for Risk Analysis – Australia and New Zealand (SRA-ANZ) and co-convened a symposium titled Managing trans-boundary risk in the Asia-Pacific region at the 2015 World Congress on Risk in Singapore. She was also a member of the organising committee for The Australian Sociological Association (TASA) Annual Conference 2015 which was held in Cairns.
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Research Fellows
The Cairns Institute is administratively located within the Division of Research and Innovation but draws the majority of its members from the wider JCU community including, but not restricted to, staff employed by the Division of Tropical Environments & Societies, the Division of Tropical Health & Medicine, and the ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies.
The Cairns Institute Membership Guidelines and Procedures were revised in 2015. While the Institute engages with researchers and scholars in a variety of ways, formal membership must, as stipulated in JCU policy, be based on merit. The revised categories are: Fellows; Members; Postgraduate members; Cairns Institute Research Staff; Adjunct Appointments; Visiting Scholars; and Institute Associates.
Prior to 2015 Research Fellows were appointed at the discretion of the Management Committee, on the recommendation of the Director of The Cairns Institute for a period of 5 years. In 2015 the following people were Research Fellows with The Cairns Institute:
Associate Professor Peter Aitken Research Fellow; College of Public Health, Medical & Vet Sciences (Anton Breinl Centre)
Dr Hurriyet Babacan Research Fellow; Adjunct Professor, College of Arts, Society & Education
Professor Berhard Baune Research Fellow; College of Medicine & Dentistry
Dr India Bohanna Research Fellow; College of Public Health, Medical & Vet Sciences; Centre for Research Excellence in the Prevention of Chronic Conditions in Rural & Remote Populations
Dr Helen Boon Research Fellow; College of Arts, Society & Education; CRISE
Dr Lawrence Brown Research Fellow; Adjunct Associate Professor, Mt Isa Centre for Rural & Remote Health
Dr Steven Campbell Research Fellow; College of Arts, Society & Education
Professor Peter Case Research Fellow; College of Business, Law & Governance; Centre for Tropical Water & Aquatic Ecosystem Research (TropWATER)
Ms Karen Cheer Postgraduate Member; PhD student, College of Arts, Society & Education
Associate Professor Alan Clough Research Fellow; College of Public Health, Medical & Vet Sciences; Centre for Research Excellence in the Prevention of Chronic Conditions in Rural & Remote Populations
Dr Garry Coventry Research Fellow; Adjunct Senior Research Fellow, College of Arts, Society & Education
Dr Lynda Crowley-Cyr Research Fellow, College of Business, Law & Governance
Professor Ryan Daniel Research Fellow; College of Arts, Society & Education
Professor Caroline de Costa Research Fellow; College of Medicine & Dentistry
Dr Eduardo De La Fuente Research Fellow; College of Arts, Society, Education
Professor Lynne Eagle Research Fellow; College of Business, Law & Governance; TropWATER
Ms Jennifer Gabriel Research Fellow; Australian Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Centre
Ms Kate Galloway Research Fellow; College of Business, Law & Governance
Ms Lennie Geerlings Postgraduate Member; College of Arts, Society & Education
Professor David Gillieson Research Fellow; College of Science & Engineering
Professor Jonathan Golledge Research Fellow; College of Medicine & Dentistry
Dr Narayan Gopalkrishnan Research Fellow; College of Arts, Society & Education
Associate Professor Susan Gordon Research Fellow; College of Healthcare Sciences; Anton Breinl Research Centre for Health Systems Strengthening
Dr Yetta Gurtner Research Member; College of Science & Engineering; Centre for Disaster Studies
Professor Russell Hawkins Research Fellow; College of Healthcare Sciences
Associate Professor Clare Heal Research Fellow; College of Medicine & Dentistry; Anton Breinl Research Centre for Health Systems Strengthening
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Professor Edward Helmes Research Fellow; College of Healthcare Sciences
Professor Rosita Henry Research Fellow; College of Arts, Society & Education; Language & Culture Research Centre
Professor John Hamilton Research Fellow; College of Business, Law & Governance
Dr Ernest Hunter Research Fellow; Adjunct Professor, College of Public Health, Medical & Vet Sciences; Remote Area Mental Health Service, Queensland Health
Associate Professor Mohan Jacob Research Fellow; College of Science & Engineering
Adjunct Professor Jega Veeriah Jegatheesan Research Fellow; College of Science & Engineering
Dr Johannes John-Langba Research Fellow; Department of Social Development, University of Cape Town, South Africa
Professor Robert Lawn Research Fellow; College of Science & Engineering
Associate Professor Ickjai Lee Research Fellow; College of Business, Law & Governance
Associate Professor Darren Lee-Ross Research Fellow; College of Business, Law & Governance
Associate Professor Hayden Lesbirel Research Fellow; College of Business, Law & Governance
Ms Qian Li Research Member; College of Science & Engineering
Associate Professor David Lindsay Research Fellow; College of Healthcare Sciences; Centre for Nursing & Midwifery Research
Associate Professor Bruce Litow Research Fellow; College of Business, Law & Governance
Ms Heron Loban Research Fellow; College of Business, Law & Governance
Associate Professor Anita Lundberg Research Member; JCU Singapore
Dr David MacLaren Research Fellow; College of Medicine & Dentistry; Anton Breinl Research Centre for Health Systems Strengthening
Dr Maria M’Balla-Ndi Research Member; College of Arts, Society & Education
Associate Professor Russell McGregor Research Fellow; College of Arts, Society & Education
Mr Virgilio Maguigad Postgraduate Member; College of Science & Engineering
Adjunct Associate Professor Wayne Melrose Research Fellow; College of Public Health, Medical & Vet Sciences
Ms Ben Menadue Postgraduate Member; College of Arts, Society & Education
Adjunct Associate Professor Richard Monypenny Research Fellow; College of Arts, Society & Education
Professor Peter Murphy Research Fellow; College of Arts, Society & Education
Dr Stephen Naylor Research Fellow; College of Arts, Society & Education
Associate Professor Paul Nelson Research Fellow; College of Science & Engineering; Centre for Tropical Environmental & Sustainability Studies (TESS); TropWATER
Dr Maxine Newlands Research Member; College of Arts, Society & Education
Dr Nick Osbaldiston Research Member; College of Arts, Society & Education
Professor Philip Pearce Research Fellow; College of Business, Law & Governance
Dr Theresa Petray Research Member; College of Arts, Society & Education
Associate Professor Glenn Porter Research Fellow; College of Arts, Society & Education
Professor Bob Pressey Research Fellow; ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies
Adjunct Professor Frances Quirk Research Fellow; College of Medicine & Dentistry
Dr Robin Rodd Research Fellow; College of Arts, Society & Education
Dr David Salisbury Research Fellow; College of Arts, Society & Education
Professor Jeffrey Sayer Research Fellow; College of Science & Engineering; Centre for Disaster Studies; TESS
Dr Phil Schneider Associate Member; College of Science & Engineering
Associate Professor Venkatesh Shashidhar Research Fellow; College of Medicine & Dentistry
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Emeritus Professor Richard Speare Research Fellow; Division of Tropical Health & Medicine; Anton Breinl Research Centre for Health Systems Strengthening
Ms Miriam Supuma Postgraduate Member; College Science & Engineering
Emeritus Professor Rosamund Thorpe Research Fellow; College of Arts & Society & Education
Adjunct Associate Professor Stephen Torre Research Fellow; College of Arts, Society & Education
Professor Steve Turton Research Fellow; College of Science & Engineering; CRISE; TESS
Professor Sean Ulm Research Fellow; College of Arts, Society & Education; Language and Culture Research Centre (LCRC); Centre for Tropical Environmental and Sustainability Studies (TESS)
Adjunct Professor Kim Usher Research Fellow; College of Healthcare Sciences; Centre for Nursing & Midwifery Research; Centre for Research Excellence in the Prevention of Chronic Conditions in Rural and Remote Populations
Ms Astrid Vachette Postgraduate Member; College of Science & Engineering
Mr Patrick White Postgraduate Member; College of Arts, Society & Education
Dr Hilary Whitehouse Research Fellow; College of Arts, Society & Education; CRISE
Dr Eric Wolanski Research Fellow; Centre for Tropical Water and Aquatic Ecosystem Research (TropWATER)
Adjunct Professor Matthew Yau Research Fellow; College of Healthcare Sciences
Associate Professor Ahmad Zahedi Research Fellow; College of Science & Engineering
Professor Zhang-Yue Zhou Research Fellow; College of Business, Law & Governance
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Honorary Fellows
Honorary Fellows are distinguished individuals of international standing, who have made an outstanding contribution to our knowledge of peoples and societies in the tropics worldwide and/or their quality of life and wellbeing.
Professor Maria Serena I. Diokno Professor of History, University of the Philippines Diliman and Executive Director, Southeast Asian Studies Regional Exchange Program (SEASREP) Foundation
Professor Vilsoni Hereniko Director and Professor, Center for Pacific Islands Studies, University of Hawai’i
Professor Charles Higham Professor, Department Anthropology, Gender and Sociology, University of Otago, New Zealand
Professor Edvard Hviding Head of Department, Department of Social Anthropology, University of Bergen, Norway
Professor Bruce Kapferer Professor of Anthropology, University of Bergen, Norway
Hon. Nursyahbani Katjasungkana MP Member of Indonesian Parliament and Director, Institute for Indonesian Women's Association for Justice
Professor John Quiggan Australian Research Council Federation Fellow in Economics and Political Science, The University of Queensland
Adjuncts
Adjunct appointments are a mechanism for recognising in a formal way suitably qualified and experienced individuals who have a close association with, and make a significant contribution to, the academic activities of the University in a largely honorary capacity on an ongoing basis.
Dr Cheryl Albers Adjunct Professor, The Cairns Institute Professor Emeritus, State University of New York
Prof Matthew Allen Adjunct Professor, The Cairns Institute
Ms Fiona Allison Adjunct Research Fellow, The Cairns Institute
Dr Angeliki Alvanoudi Adjunct Lecturer, The Cairns Institute Postdoctoral Research Fellow, College of Arts, Society & Education
Prof Hurriyet Babacan Adjunct Professor, The Cairns Institute PVC (Academic & Research), Torrens University Australia
Mr Lawrence Bragge Adjunct Research Fellow, The Cairns Institute Community Relations Consultant to PNP Petroleum Industry
Mr Jack Bulman Adjunct Research Fellow, The Cairns Institute CEO Mibbinbah
Professor Paul Carter Adjunct Professor, The Cairns Institute Chair in Creative Place Research, School of Communication & Creative Arts, Deakin University
Dr Lesley Clark Adjunct Professor, The Cairns Institute Director, PacificPlus Consulting
Dr Gabriel Crowley Principal Research Fellow, The Cairns Institute Environmental Consultant
Dr Diana Forker Adjunct Research Fellow, The Cairns Institute Research Fellow, University of Bamburg, Germany
Ms Jenny Fraser Adjunct Research Fellow, The Cairns Institute
Dr Margaret Gooch Adjunct Senior Research Fellow, The Cairns Institute Manager, Knowledge & Resource Management, Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority
Dr Stephanie Graff Adjunct Research Fellow, The Cairns Institute Attaché Congress of New Caledonia
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A/Prof Deborah Graham Adjunct Associate Professor, The Cairns Institute
Dr Ernest Grant Adjunct Research Fellow, The Cairns Institute Cultural Advisor and Cultural Officer, Department of Education, Queensland
Professor Romy Greiner Adjunct Professor, The Cairns Institute Professor of Tropical Knowledge, Charles Darwin University
Dr Susan Jacups Adjunct Senior Research Fellow, The Cairns Institute
Dr Lawrence Kalinoe Adjunct Professor, The Cairns Institute Secretary, Department of Justice & Attorney General, Papua New Guinea Government
Professor David Kavanamur Adjunct Professor, The Cairns Institute Director General, Office of Higher Education, Papua New Guinea
Dr Elin Kelsey Adjunct Principal Research Fellow, The Cairns Institute Consultant, Elin Kelsey & Company
Professor Albert Mellam Adjunct Professor, The Cairns Institute Vice Chancellor, University of Papua New Guinea
Ms Cassie Nancarrow Adjunct Lecturer, The Cairns Institute Executive Director, Australian Centre for Leadership for Women
Professor Wadan Narsey Adjunct Professor, The Cairns Institute
Dr Tess Newton Adjunct Principal Research Fellow, The Cairns Institute
Dr Hai Nguyen Adjunct Research Fellow, The Cairns Institute Honorary Research Fellow at the University of Sydney
Dr Colleen Oates Adjunct Senior Research Fellow, The Cairns Institute Linguist-Translator, Summer Institute of Linguistics, Papua New Guinea
Mr Boris Pointing Adjunct Research Fellow, The Cairns Institute Youth Service Development Officer, Family Health & Wellbeing, Cairns & Hinterland Hospital & Health Service
Professor Biman Prasad Adjunct Professor, The Cairns Institute Adjunct Professor, Griffith University Professor of Economics, The University of the South Pacific
Professor Elspeth Probyn Adjunct Professor, The Cairns Institute Professor of Gender & Cultural Studies, The University of Sydney
Dr Diann Rodgers-Healey Adjunct Professor, The Cairns Institute Executive Director, Australian Centre for Leadership for Women (ACLW)
Dr Albert Schram Adjunct Professor, The Cairns Institute Vice-Chancellor, Papua New Guinea University of Technology
Professor Gregory Smith Adjunct Professor, The Cairns Institute Professor of Teacher Education, Lewis & Clark College, Portland, Oregon
Professor Kenneth Sumbuk Adjunct Professor, The Cairns Institute Executive Dean, School of Humanities & Social Sciences, University of Papua New Guinea
Sneha Satheesan Thusath Satheesan Senior Research Officer, The Cairns Institute Behaviour Therapist, The Caterpillar Clinic, Cairns
Ms Kishani Townshend Adjunct Research Fellow, The Cairns Institute Research Psychologist
Mr Jim Turnour Adjunct Research Fellow, The Cairns Institute CEO, Jabalbina Yalanji Aboriginal Corporation
Professor Craig Volker Adjunct Professor, The Cairns Institute Professor of Linguistics, Gifu Shotoku Gakuen University, Gifu, Japan
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Administration
The administrative team in 2015 included for all or part of the year the following people:
Helen Clarkson Personal Assistant to the Director
Brigitta Flick Publication Officer, LCRC
Mark Franks (resigned) Professional Development & Training Manager
Maxine Goulston (resigned) Personal Assistant to the Director
Katrina Keith Manager, Research Services
Jennifer McHugh Events & Project Manager
Jolene Overall Publication Officer, LCRC
Amanda Parsonage Personal Assistant to Professor Aikhenvald, LCRC
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RESEARCH
A list of current and completed projects can be viewed on the Institute's website at www.cairnsinstitute.jcu.edu.au
They are organised under the eight research themes, but it should be noted that a number of projects are truly multi-disciplinary and would easily fit under multiple themes. It should also be noted that not all projects are administered by The Cairns Institute or James Cook University.
Theme 1: Regional Economic Development
Natalie Stoeckl Tropical Leader, Regional Economic Development, The Cairns Institute; College of Business, Law & Governance; Centre for Sustainable Tropical Fisheries and Aquaculture (CSTFA); TropWATER
Allan Dale The Cairns Institute
Vanessa Adams ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies
Margaret Atkinson Research & Innovation
Anna Blackman College of Business, Law & Governance
Melissa Bos Student
Gabriel Crowley The Cairns Institute
Michelle Esparon College of Business, Law & Governance; The Cairns Institute; CSTFA
Marina Farr College of Business, Law & Governance; The Cairns Institute; CSTFA
Daniel Grainger College of Business, Law & Governance
Romy Greiner The Cairns Institute
Rosemary Hill College of Science & Engineering
Helen Jenkins Student
Dean Jerry College of Science & Engineering
Marcus Lane College of Science & Engineering
Silva Larson College of Business, Law & Governance
Jennifer McHugh The Cairns Institute
Connor McShane College of Healthcare Sciences
Anya Pabel College of Business, Law & Governance
Rebecca Pearse Student
Bob Pressey ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies; Centre for Tropical Biodiversity and Climate Change (CTBCC)
Bruce Prideaux College of Business, Law & Governance
Jorge Alvarez Romero ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies
Anne Stephens The Cairns Institute
Leah Talbot Student
Michelle Thompson College of Business, Law & Governance
Jim Turnour The Cairns Institute
Daniela Vávrová | Colour basket | Ambonwari Village, East Sepik Province, Papua New Guinea | 2011
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In 2015 The Cairns Institute researchers continued to focus strongly on northern Australia, and some examples of our work in this area are detailed below.
Allan Dale continued his work with the Collaborative Research Networks (CRN) program—Northern Research Futures (NRF) —with colleagues from Charles Darwin University. Allan also updated and expanded upon the existing social resilience benchmarking data for the Gulf Horizons Foundation. He provided an assessment of the social resilience of Gulf communities against a set of prescribed indicators, with reference to climate change drivers.
The Cairns Institute researchers worked on a number of Department of the Environment - National Environmental Science Program (NESP) projects in 2015.
Professor Natalie Stoeckl and team began a 2015-16 NESP project, Review of integrated models, frameworks and decision support tools to guide management and planning in Northern Australia (NESP Northern Australia Environmental Resources Hub Project 1.2) that will provide a resource to help ensure that modelling tools that are selected for management decisions in Northern Australia will suit end-user needs and can feasibly be developed with available resources and with knowledge of their strengths and limitations.
Professor Stoeckl and colleagues also worked on a NESP project, Research priorities for Indigenous Protected Areas (IPAs) across Northern Australia (Northern Australia Environmental Resources Hub Project 5.1) with partners from North Australian Indigenous Land and Sea Management Alliance Ltd (NAILSMA) and the CSIRO. The project seeks to prioritise research needs for IPAs. Working closely with IPA managers and other key stakeholders, a sub-component of the project (JCU's focus) will identify: (a) core social, economic and cultural benefits associated with IPAs; (b) gaps in our understanding of the economic 'value' of those benefits; and (c) ways in which stakeholders could use information about the economic 'value' of those benefits in decision making contexts. Results will contribute to the development of a multi-year research plan to help address these priorities.
In 2007-08, a water quality pilot tender was trialled in the Lower Burdekin River area. Cairns Institute Adjunct Professor Romy Greiner conducted an evaluation of the pilot tender collaborating with NQ Dry Tropics and tender participants with the project Legacy of the Lower Burdekin Water Quality Tender (NESP - Tropical Water Quality Hub (TWQ Hub) Project 1.5). They reviewed the trial to evaluate the effectiveness of the tender in achieving long-term change and identified strengths as well as opportunities for improvement. The research will inform economic theory and future tenders. See project website.
Addressing water quality issues in the Great Barrier Reef, Allan Dale and Karen Vella (QUT) also began a 2015-16 NESP project, Monitoring and adaptively reducing system-wide governance risks facing the GBR (Tropical Water Quality Hub Project 3.11) which will engage the new Great Barrier Reef Long Term Sustainability Plan (LTSP) implementation/review structures and stakeholders to build a commitment to institutionalising this method. Outputs will inform five-yearly outlook reporting.
In 2015 Professor Allan Dale was also the Principle Investigator for a project with the Department of Environment and Heritage Protection that addressed communication and awareness barriers in communities in Far North Queensland regarding potential project opportunities under the Commonwealth Government’s Emissions Reduction Fund. Low risk goods (Off the shelf) focused on the agriculture and natural resource management sectors and Indigenous communities, and also examined how to improve land sector participation and to build the capacity of the land sector to participate in the Emission Reduction Fund and other carbon market options. It explored the most appropriate role for the Queensland Government in supporting landscape change through the operation of the Commonwealth Government’s Emissions Reduction Fund.
This report can be downloaded from the NESP site nesptropical.edu.au/index.php/round-1-projects/project-1-5/
This report can be downloaded from the NESP site nesptropical.edu.au/ wp-content/uploads/2016/05/NESP-TWQ-3.11-FINAL-REPORT.pdf
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Theme 2: Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Futures
Komla Tsey Tropical Leader, Education for Social Sustainability, The Cairns Institute; College of Arts, Society & Education; Anton Breinl Research Centre for Health Systems Strengthening; CRISE
Roxanne Bainbridge The Cairns Institute
Nerina Caltabiano College of Healthcare Sciences
Sandra Campbell Student
Yvonne Cadet-James Australian Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Centre; Anton Breinl Research Centre for Health Systems Strengthening
Allan Dale The Cairns Institute
Jacinta Elston Division of Tropical Health & Medicine; Anton Breinl Research Centre for Health Systems Strengthening
Adrian Esterman College of Public Health, Medical & Vet Sciences
Rebecca Evans College of Medicine & Dentistry
Narayan Gopalkrishnan College of Arts, Society & Education
Marion Heyeres The Cairns Institute
Aaron Hollins College of Medicine & Dentistry
Ernest Hunter College of Public Health, Medical & Vet Sciences
Katrina Keith The Cairns Institute
Irina Kinchin The Cairns Institute
Sarah Larkins College of Medicine & Dentistry; Anton Breinl Research Centre for Health Systems Strengthening
Stewart Lockie The Cairns Institute
Emma McBryde Australian Institute of Tropical Health & Medicine (AITHM)
Janya McCalman The Cairns Institute
Sue McGinty Australian Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Centre
Adrian Miller College of Public Health, Medical & Vet Sciences
Vinnitta Mosby Student
Richard Murray College of Medicine & Dentistry
Vicki Saunders Public Health & Tropical Medicine
Rick Speare College of Public Health, Medical & Vet Sciences
Anne Stephens The Cairns Institute
Richard Stewart Student
Craig Veitch Student
Jacqueline Ward Student
Rachael Wargent The Cairns Institute
Felecia Watkin-Lui Australian Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Centre
Katarzyna Wojtylak | Anderson Agga showing a fish he has just caught | Linguistic fieldwork among the Murui, Amazonia, Colombia | 2013
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The Cairns Institute researchers have a strong commitment to Indigenous research and continue to be very active in this area. Some examples of our work from 2015 are summarised below.
At a local level, Komla Tsey and colleagues conducted an evaluation of the Culture Rebound Project at Yarrabah. The Culture Rebound project was developed to mentor Yarrabah youth to develop a strong sense of cultural identify and purpose through cultural empowerment; thus developing the capacity of young people to strengthen protective factors and reduce the risk factors associated with suicide. The evaluation was conducted in 2014-15 in partnership with the evaluation of the NSW BackTrack youth mentoring program and the Mt Isa Mona project evaluation. Knowledge will be shared across the three sites to examine the domains and activities required for mentoring Indigenous youth to build resilience and support their pathways into education and employment.
Another example of a local project was the Evaluation of social and emotional wellbeing (SEWB) integration within the implementation of the Baby One Program (BOP) conducted by Dr Janya McCalman and colleagues in 2015-16. The study aims to evaluate the integration of social and emotional wellbeing within the implementation of maternal and child health services in primary health service sites for women who are enrolled in the Baby One Program and their young children (0-3 years).
Dr Roxanne Bainbridge and colleagues continued the Australian Research Council (ARC) Discovery Indigenous project (IN130100023), Inspiring Indigenous youth to build resilience and sustain participation with education and employment: The role of targeted mentoring support. This project will strengthen the evidence-base for promoting the education and employment prospects for Indigenous youth by examining the processes and effectiveness of targeted mentoring support. Mentoring is integral to the larger policy framework of inspiring youth to build resilience and sustain participation in education and employment, and benefits include increased human, cultural and social capital.
L to R standing: Janya McCalman, Arlene Laliberté, David Stanger, Yvonne Cadet-James, Lynne Russell (on screen), Komla Tsey, Richard Stewart, Nerina Caltabiano, Yan Li, Yann Le Bossé Sitting: Marie O’Dea, Helen Klieve, Sandy Russo, Cath Brown, Roxanne Bainbridge, Katrina Rutherford Participants not in photo: Patrick McGorry, Ernest Hunter, Mark Wenitong
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Dr Bainbridge and colleagues also worked on a large NHMRC - Mental Health Targeted Call for Research (1076774) project, Psycho-social resilience, vulnerability and suicide prevention: A mentoring approach to modifying suicide risk for remote Indigenous students at boarding school. Responsive to concerns of suicide risk for transitioning students by Education Queensland’s Transition Support Service, this study will examine the implementation and effectiveness (including cost-effectiveness) of a targeted mentoring approach that promotes psychosocial resilience against suicide for remote Indigenous students who are compelled to transition to boarding schools. It will contribute practice- and policy-relevant knowledge for education providers and broader Indigenous suicide prevention efforts, and in May 2015 Komla Tsey, Roxanne Bainbridge, and Janya McCalman hosted the first Chief Investigators meeting for project. This project runs over five years and the group consists of members from JCU, Headspace Cairns, Apunipima Health Council, Qld Health, Griffith University, plus some participants from Canada, New Zealand (via Skype).
In 2015 Dr Anne Stephens and colleagues began a project funded by Ninti One Ltd, Enhancing training advantage for remote Indigenous learners. This project seeks to provide answers to the longstanding questions about how post school training enhances the employability of remote adult learners. In particular, the project will examine programs in remote parts of Australia where rates of retention and completion are relatively high compared to the average for remote Australia.
Dr Felecia Watkin-Lui and colleagues from The Cairns Institute began an ARC Indigenous Discovery (IN150100011) project titled Developing a framework for measuring Indigenous research benefit, which will bring together researchers and Indigenous community members to develop a collaborative framework for measuring research benefit. It aims to address two main 'Closing the Gap' priority areas, Indigenous health and education, by questioning what constitutes research benefit from an Indigenous perspective, and how the benefits of research can be measured to ensure sustainable outcomes for Indigenous communities. The innovation of this project lies in its methodology which endeavours to unpack the benefit construct from an Indigenous worldview to enable future research projects to be designed with outcomes in mind that are acceptable and valued by Indigenous beneficiaries and be informed by Indigenous knowledges.
Professor Komla Tsey also continued working with long-term research partner Professor Anthony Shakeshaft from UNSW and colleagues on a NHMRC project (1048069) titled Intervention trial to reduce alcohol related harms among high risk young Indigenous Australians. Indigenous Australians experience disproportionately high rates of drug and alcohol harms and young people are particularly vulnerable. This study investigates the benefits/costs of combining cognitive-behaviour therapy with a community-reinforcement strategy to reduce substance-related harms among young Indigenous Australians.
A highlight of Komla’s research in 2015 was the development of Research for Impact Tool designed to enable researchers to plan, track and assess the impact and benefit of their research. The challenges of sustainability are forcing governments to invest significant resources in research and innovation in order to find smarter solutions to problems. The more governments invest in research, the more they expect researchers to show the value of their research. They are no longer satisfied with researchers showing only the quality of their research as measured by journal impact factors and frequency of citations but also want evidence for the impact and benefit of their research to society. In Australia, Indigenous people are also complaining that for a long time they have been the subject of a great deal of research yet anticipated improvements in their social, economic and health conditions have not followed. As a result, they now require researchers on Indigenous issues to demonstrate the potential impact and benefit of the research for the communities involved. However, for a range of reasons, it is methodologically difficult to determine whether a particular piece of research is of value to society. To address this difficulty the Lowitja Institute, which is Australia’s national institute of Indigenous research, commissioned a team led by Komla to develop the Research for Impact Tool to support researchers to plan for and track the impact of their research. The tool has been designed in the context of Indigenous research, but the basic idea—that the way to plan, monitor and evaluate research impact is to start upfront by identifying users’ information needs, the decisions confronting them and the extent to which the results of the research will inform smarter decisions—is equally applicable to research in other settings, both applied and theoretical. The recent decision by the Australian Government to include ‘industry engagement’ and ‘impact’ as additions to the Excellence Research Australia (ERA) quality measures from 2018 makes the Research for Impact tool a timely development.
Also in 2015, a study by Irina Kinchin, Susan Jacups, Janya McCalman and Komla Tsey assessed outcomes of the empowerment program, Family Wellbeing (FWB), developed by and for Indigenous people through measuring effect sizes. Empowerment programs have been shown to contribute to increased empowerment of individuals and build capacity within the community or workplace, but to date, the impact of empowerment programs has proved difficult to measure. To address this problem, a three-day FWB workshop designed to promote empowerment and workplace engagement among child protection staff was held across five remote north Queensland Indigenous communities in 2015. Staff were assessed before and after (three months) attending the FWB workshops. The analysis revealed positive changes in communication, conflict resolution, decision making and life skill development. One measurement tool indicated a 17% positive change. The study has extended qualitative research and identified tools for measuring outcomes of empowerment programs.
In 2015 The Cairns Institute continued to be a core partner with Rainforest Aboriginal Peoples (RAP) in their quest to have the cultural values of the rainforest Aboriginal people formally recognised.
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Theme 3: Tropical Planning, Research Management &
Design
Stewart Lockie Director, The Cairns Institute
Natalie Stoeckl Tropical Leader, Regional Economic Development, The Cairns Institute; College of Business, Law & Governance; Centre for Sustainable Tropical Fisheries and Aquaculture (CSTFA); TropWATER
Allan Dale The Cairns Institute
Jon Brodie TropWATER
Gabriel Crowley The Cairns Institute
Michelle Esparon College of Business, Law & Governance; CSTFA
Margaret Gooch The Cairns Institute; Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority (GBRMPA)
Silva Larson College of Business, Law & Governance
Bruce Prideaux College of Business, Law & Governance
Joseph Thomas College of Business, Law & Governance
Catherine Mei Ling Wong The Cairns Institute
In 2015 under this theme Professor Allan Dale and Adjunct Professor Gabriel Crowley completed a project funded by the Department of Climate Change and Energy Efficiency titled Climate knowledge synthesis and planning for climate change adaptation across Australia's monsoonal north. Scaling continental climate change and biodiversity data for the northern Australia NRMs and engaging stakeholders through interactive web-based reporting tools is vital for adapting to future climate change. The aim of this project was to: 1) 'downscale' recent national assessments of climate change refugia for freshwater and terrestrial biodiversity to spatial scales appropriate to regional NRMs; 2) update species distribution models to include additional modifiers (e.g., landscape connectivity); 3) provide data in several formats including a web-based reporting tool (e.g., CLiMAS); and 4) add to several planning exercises.
Professor Stewart Lockie continued working on an ARC Discovery Project (DP130104842) titled Conflicting temporalities of climate governance: A comparative sociology of policy design and operationalisation in Australia and the UK. Through a comparative case study of Australia and the UK, the project aims to promote a deeper understanding of potential contradictions between the temporalities of global environmental change and the temporalities of governance strategies developed in response to it; to develop a more sophisticated sociological theorisation of the temporalities of socio-ecological change; and to contribute to informed debate in Australia and elsewhere concerning the utility of key conceptual frameworks and policy instruments.
Daniela Vávrová | House | Ambonwari, East Sepik Province, Papua New Guinea | 2011
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Professor Natalie Stoeckl and colleagues completed their work on a NERP Tropical Ecosystems Hub Project (10.2) titled Socioeconomic systems and reef resilience. This project focused on relationships between socio-economic systems and the Great Barrier Reef (GBR). It comprised three interrelated activities which sought to improve our understanding of (a) resident and tourist views about the relative 'value' of key ecosystem services that are provided by the reef; (b) tourist views about the relative value of key attributes of reef health, and the likely consequence (e.g. fewer visits, less expenditure) of deterioration in reef health; and (c) the extent to which variations in beef prices, the exchange rate and other socioeconomic variables (in conjunction with biophysical variables) influence water quality in the GBR lagoon.
Professor Stoeckl and Silva Larsen continued another NESP project, Relative social and economic values of residents and tourists in the WTWHA (Project 12.3). This project will fill critical information gaps about the relative importance of key attributes (or ‘values’) associated with the Wet Tropics World Heritage Area (WTWHA) to a variety of different stakeholders, and will examine the way in which those ‘values’ might be effected by a range of external influences (e.g. different types of economic development, increases in population, changes in the mix of visitors). It will fill a critical methodological gap – testing and refining both ‘traditional’ and state-of-the art techniques for generating estimates of the relative importance of those ‘values’. See project website.
Another northern Queensland project funded by the Wet Tropics Management Authority (WTMA) was the State of Wet Tropics Report 2014/15. The desktop research for this report was completed by Professor Natalie Stoeckl and colleagues Joseph Thomas and Michelle Esparon. The report is in two parts: an annual report, and a thematic report. The selected theme for the 2014/15 State of the Wet Tropics Report is on 'The value (economic contribution) of the Wet Tropics World Heritage Area to the region'.
The new academic journal, Environmental Sociology, edited by Professor Stewart Lockie published its first issue in 2015 and attracted 65 submissions in that year. The journal will build on the profile of environmental sociology and, importantly, the role of sociologists in helping communities respond to environmental change at multiple scales.
The very popular Designed in Cairns public seminar series continued in 2015 with six more seminars attracting a total of 368 attendees, mostly from the Cairns community. The series is an initiative through the Australian Institute of Architects FNQ Region and is held in conjunction with The Cairns Institute. It provides both continuing professional development activities for architects and designers generally in the region and interesting opportunities for discussions and information for anyone interested in regional design. The 2015 seminars included:
Seminar 4. Urban Design in Cairns | Paul Cohen | 19 March | 43 attendees Seminar 5: Indigenous Ecology and Landscape Design | Gudju Gudju & Jenny Lynch | 23 April | 32 attendees Seminar 6. Indigenous Ecology and Landscape Design | Shaneen Fantin | 21 May | 63 attendees Seminar 7: Women & Design in the tropics | Jane Hanan, Lisa Law, Gisela Jung, Kelly reason, Anne-Marie
Campagnolo | 6 August | 72 attendees Seminar 8: Innovation in the tropics | Charles Wright | 15 October | 86 attendees Seminar 9: 2015 Gold Medallist Peter Stutchbury | Peter Stutchbury | 12 November | 72 attendees
Charles Wright Designed in Cairns Seminar Charles Wright Designed in Cairns Seminar
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Theme 4: Social Justice & Community Wellbeing
Chris Cunneen Tropical Leader, Justice & Social Inclusion, The Cairns Institute; College of Business, Law & Governance
Bård Aaberge PhD student, College of Arts, Society & Education
Fiona Allison The Cairns Institute
Mandy Brock College of Business, Law & Governance
Maureen Fuary College of Arts, Society & Education
Jenny Gabriel Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Centre
Rosita Henry College of Arts, Society & Education; LCRC
Sue McGinty Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Centre
Susan McIntyre-Tamwoy College of Arts, Society & Education
Mike Wood College of Arts, Society & Education; LCRC
Our work in this area has reduced significantly with Professor Chris Cunneen returning to UNSW although he maintains 10% contact with JCU and The Cairns institute. In 2015 Professor Cunneen continued his work on his ARC Discovery project (DP130100184), A comparative analysis of youth punishment in Australia and the United Kingdom. This project is a comparative Australian and United Kingdom investigation of penal policy and the punishment of juvenile offenders.
In 2015, Chris also completed his ARC Linkage Project (LP100200455) National research study of the civil and family law needs of Indigenous people. This project identified and analysed the civil and family law needs of Indigenous Australians in areas such as discrimination, consumer matters, credit and debt, child protection, education, employment, health, housing and wills and estates. The research will inform successful models of legal service delivery, and improved responses will deliver better access to justice, enhanced compliance with human rights norms and improved social justice outcomes for Indigenous people.
The Australian Research Council funded Indigenous Legal Needs Project completed its primary research. The reports for VIC, QLD, WA and the NT are now available at www.jcu.edu.au/ilnp. There are also short animated films available on the website which explain the research findings for each of the focus states and territories (NT, VIC, QLD, WA). In the first half of 2015 the lead research team (chief investigators Professor Chris Cunneen and Ms Melanie Schwartz, and the senior project manager, Ms Fiona Allison) presented the findings from this project at a number of forums across the country, including: Melbourne in February 2015 at the Federation of Community Legal Centres (Victoria) to an audience of representatives from community legal centres; the Aboriginal Legal Service; the Family Violence Prevention Legal Service Victoria; and Legal Aid Victoria. Project members were also keynote speakers at a civil law conference organised by Legal Aid Commission Western Australia in Perth in February 2015. In March 2015 project members were invited to speak about the research at the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission 2015 National Consumer Congress in Sydney.
Katarzyna Wojtylak | Minika girl from La Chorrera | Linguistic fieldwork among the Murui, Amazonia, Colombia | 2013
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Chris Cunneen also made a number of public submissions including a Submission to the Senate Finance and Public Administration References Committee Inquiry into Access to Legal Assistance Services with Fiona Allison and Melanie Schwartz (Indigenous Legal Needs Project) in April 2015, and a Submission to the Senate Finance and Public Administration References Committee Inquiry into Access to Legal Assistance Services with Melanie Schwartz, David Brown, Julie Stubbs and Courtney Young (Australian Justice Reinvestment Project) also in April 2015.
In October 2015 Chris Cunneen also visited Vietnam for two weeks as part of the Vietnam Human Rights Technical Cooperation Program (HRTC). The HRTC program is funded by the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade and managed by the Australian Human Rights Commission and consisted of a series of three Vietnam Ministry of Public Security (MPS) managed workshops on the topic of Ensuring and Protecting Human Rights in Prison Management – experiences from Vietnam and Australia. The three workshops were held in the south, centre and north of Vietnam in October 2015. The first workshop in Ho Chi Minh City also involved a visit to a Vietnam prison. The workshops sought to build knowledge and capacity of MPS regarding the rights of prisoners, and to enhance the capacity of prison officials to implement these rights. Each workshop was attended by approximately 50 MPS officials with responsibilities for prison management, administration and policy development in Vietnam.
The Attorney-General’s Department funded training program, So you want to work in Native Title? was conducted again in 2015. This professional short course was designed for graduate and early career anthropologists utilising industry experts to focus and direct skills and methods in Native Title projects (see separate account under Training & Professional Development).
From 11-14 May 2015, the Creating futures conference returned to Cairns (www.cf15.conorg.com.au) and was coordinated with the inaugural Leadership in Mental Health (LMH) for Pacific Island nations course. The Conference featured 18 national and international plenary speakers including: Vikram Patel; Charles Gilks; Helen Glover; Helen Herrman; Dame Carol Kidu; Stuart Kinner; Mark Lawrence; Harvey Whiteford; Michael Spencer; and Robyn McDermott. The conference attracted over 330 delegates and featured over 60 parallel sessions. In developing and supporting sustained relationships with colleagues in neighbour nations, The Cairns Institute is ideally placed to advance what is a major health issue across our neighbour nations and which we now understand will increase in importance as communicable diseases are more effectively treated, and as populations age in environments that are vulnerable in the face of climate change.
On 13 May 2015 The Cairns Institute was pleased to co-host with the Australian Institute of Tropical Health and Medicine (AITHM) a free public forum as part of the Creating Futures Conference 2015. The panel included Professor Vikram Patel, named by Time Magazine as one of the world’s 100 most influential people in recognition of his work as a champion of those facing the two-fold disadvantage of living with a mental-health disorder in a resource-poor country. Two prominent Aboriginal Australians, politician Alison Anderson who is a Member of the Northern Territory Legislative Assembly, and psychiatrist Marshall Watson, joined Professor Patel, and the panel was chaired by journalist, Melissa Sweet who founded the public health blog, Croakey.
In September 2015, Dr Anne Stephens, Senior Researcher at The Cairns Institute and Dr William Liley from the Cooktown Medial Centre and Hope Vale clinic, presented epidemiological work done for Queensland on the incidence of Infant Abusive Head Trauma (IAHT) at the Early Years Conference in Cairns. Their work is associated with the Period of PURPLE Crying programme, a brief educational package delivered to parents/carers of a new born baby. A number of midwifery services, community health, Indigenous controlled services, and hospitals both in Queensland and other Australian states and territories, are implementing the programme. The incidence infant head trauma in Queensland is on a par with the road toll, and it has been found that over 28 out of every 100,000 babies under the age of two presented in Queensland Emergency Departments have been excessively shaken. Of these, six children died, and the children that survive normally incur a lifetime of high-care need. For severe cases, the life-time cost can be up to $25 million according to figures provided by Brain Injury Australia. Drs Liley and Stephens also presented details of the Period of PURPLE Crying programme at the 2015 Australian STOP Domestic Violence Conference hosted by the Australian & New Zealand Mental Health Association in Canberra, 7–9 December 2015.
Vikram Patel speaking at the Creating Futures Conference 2015
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Theme 5: Education & Capacity Building
Bob Stevenson Tropical Leader, Education for Environmental Sustainability, The Cairns Institute; CRISE; College of Arts, Society & Education
Komla Tsey Tropical Leader, Education for Social Sustainability, The Cairns Institute; College of Arts, Society & Education; Anton Breinl Research Centre for Health Systems Strengthening; CRISE
Hurriyet Babacan College of Arts, Society & Education
Helen Boon College of Arts, Society & Education; CRISE
Lawrence Brown Mt Isa Centre for Rural & Remote Health
Brian Lewthwaite College of Arts, Society & Education; CRISE
Sue McGinty Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Centre
Paul Pagliano College of Arts, Society & Education
Rick Speare Anton Breinl Research Centre for Health Systems Strengthening; College of Public Health, Medical & Vet Sciences
Katarina Te Riele Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Centre
Kim Usher College of Healthcare Sciences; Centre for Nursing and Midwifery Research; Centre for Research Excellence in the Prevention of Chronic Conditions in Rural and Remote Populations
Valda Wallace Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Centre
Riccardo Welters College of Business, Law & Governance
Much of Professor Bob Stevenson’s research in 2015 was linked to his role as Director of the Centre for Research & Innovation in Sustainability Education (CRISE). The work of the centre focused on collaborative research projects established around the interests and expertise of staff in JCU’s College of Arts, Society & Education, and some examples are detailed below.
The Embedding cultural sustainability and Indigenous knowledges in pre-service teacher education project (Dr Peta Salter, Max Lenoy and Professor Bob Stevenson) completed two phases of data collection and preliminary data analysis in 2015. This project team received funding from the Office of Learning and Teaching (OLT) in 2012 to conduct, in partnership with Griffith University and Queensland University of Technology, a state-wide systems action research study engaging all eight Queensland universities with teacher education programs and other key policy agencies and professional associations. A further OLT Dissemination grant was obtained with our original partners to conduct workshops in 2015 in all other states and the Northern Territory on the systems-wide model, processes and outcomes of the original project.
Daniela Vávrová | Sanggrmari doing homework | Ambonwari, East Sepik Province, Papua New Guinea | 2011
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The TropFutures sustainable schools project (Professor Bob Stevenson and Dr Cliff Jackson) completed interviews of principals, teachers and students involved over the past two years in two related projects for gifted students. For the Holloways Beach Environmental Education Centre’s facilitation of an Environmental science and sustainability enrichment program for students from four primary schools in the Cairns area, they conducted research and took action on environmental issues in their local communities. They also documented an innovative curriculum initiative from Gordonvale State School, Excelsior: A whole community approach to sustainability. This project highlighted what the developers considered to be the key components for the program’s success.
The Climate change education research group (Professor Bob Stevenson, Associate Professor Hilary Whitehouse, Dr Helen Boon and Jen Nicholls) published several papers and made a number of conference presentations.
The Journal of Environmental Education (JEE), which has its editorial office housed in CRISE, processed well over 200 submitted manuscripts in 2015 for the second consecutive year.
April 2015 saw the signing of a second memorandum of understanding (MoU) between the University of Papua New Guinea (UPNG) and JCU. This MoU is also supported by a Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade grant of $2 million for the next three years. The MoU will enable a UPNG/JCU Twinning project which is aimed at building teaching capacity and supporting collaborative research capability. As part of this project the first subject of the Australian accredited Graduate Certificate of Education (Academic Practice) (GCE) was conducted with 14 UPNG staff at The Cairns Institute from 23–27 November 2015. The GCE provides a formal credential, focused on contemporary pedagogies and curriculum design, including development of skills in the use of wide ranging learning technologies.
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Theme 6: Governance & Political Innovation
Allan Dale The Cairns Institute
Bob Pressey ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies; Centre for Tropical Biodiversity and Climate Change (CTBCC)
Jon Brodie TropWATER
The Institute’s governance expert is Professor Allan Dale who has two projects focusing on governance issues in northern Australia. The first one is Conservation planning for a changing coastal zone (Project 9.4), funded by the Department of Sustainability, Environment, Water, Population and Communities: National Environmental Research Program (NERP) with partners from ARC CoE Coral Reef Studies, Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority, and the Australian Centre for Tropical Freshwater Research. The broad goal of this project is to identify strategic priorities for protection and restoration of coastal ecosystems that support the health and resilience of the Great Barrier Reef World Heritage Area in the context of changing land use, expanding infrastructure, and climate change. See project website.
The second governance project that Allan continued to be involved in in 2015 was an Australian Research Council (ARC) Linkage Project (LP130100933) with QUT as the lead institution. The project, The impact of governance on regional natural resource planning, will look at how the management of natural resources in regional Australia is challenged by complex decision-making and poorly integrated planning systems at the federal, state and local levels. It will develop an evaluation framework to assess the effectiveness of planning and natural resource management governance at the regional scale. Other partners include Griffith University, Terrain Natural Resource Management, NQ Dry Tropics, CSIRO, Queensland Regional Natural Resource Management Groups Collective, Condamine Alliance, Fitzroy Basin Association Incorporated, and Queensland Murray-Darling Committee Inc. In October 2015 the project team launched a newsletter to disseminate project activities.
Above: Fiona Mwanicki L to R: Jen Nicholls, Bob Stevenson & Ellen Field (absent Snowy Evans)
Daniela Vávrová | Coloured long grass ready for making baskets | Ambonwari, East Sepik Province, Papua New Guinea | 2011
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In June 2015 the Institute once again ran the eight day Masterclass in Native title for anthropologists. Designed for early career anthropologists, the Masterclass also benefits archaeologists, cultural heritage workers, lawyers or other professionals looking to learn more about the very latest in Native Title practices with a particular focus on northern Australia and providing participants with targeted, skills-based training to prepare them for Native Title work. In 2015 the class attracted 25 students and this year the course included a practical exercise in eliciting ‘evidence’ from native title holders. Students interviewed ‘claimants’ without prior knowledge of social positions/authority to speak etc. The course also involved consideration of ethical issues and objectivity that face anthropologists in the Native Title environment. There was discussion on the future directions and opportunities for anthropologists in Native Title and beyond the Native Title context. Throughout the course students gained valuable insights from industry experts to assist a smooth transition from study to Native Title practice and field work. Feedback was once again overwhelmingly positive with 100% of the participants stating that they would recommend the masterclass to others and the majority of participants now definitely seeking work in native title. Held in The Cairns Institute building, the masterclass was an intensive course but it also included field trips in the Cairns and Kuranda regions to a range of significant Aboriginal sites. Made possible by a generous grant from the Australian Government Attorney-General’s Department, this masterclass is scheduled to run again in 2016 and we expect it to grow from strength to strength.
Yirrganydji Elder, George Skeene with Masterclass for Native Title participants on Redden Island
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Theme 7: Sustainable International Development
Stewart Lockie Director, The Cairns Institute
Ton Otto Tropical Leader, People & Societies of the Tropics, The Cairns Institute; LCRC; College of Arts, Society & Education
Peter Case College of Business, Law & Governance; TropWATER
Jennifer Gabriel College of Arts, Society & Education
David MacLaren Division of Tropical Health & Medicine; Anton Breinl Research Centre for Health Systems Strengthening
Michelle Redman-MacLaren College of Medicine & Dentistry; Anton Breinl Research Centre for Health Systems Strengthening
Natalie Stoeckl Tropical Leader, Regional Economic Development, The Cairns Institute; College of Business, Law & Governance; Centre for Sustainable Tropical Fisheries and Aquaculture (CSTFA); TropWATER
Rachael Tommbe College of Public Health, Medical & Veterinary Sciences
Michael Wood College of Arts, Society & Education; LCRC
Professor Stewart Lockie’s Australian Research Council - Discovery Project (DP140101682) Farmers of the future, which runs from 2014-2017 continued in 2015. Women farmers produce about 50% of all foodcrops, but are neither recognised as farmers, nor do they own productive assets. This project is investigating the feminisation of agriculture in different social, cultural and agro-ecological contexts in India to ensure future food security, women's empowerment and to make rural livelihoods more sustainable. The lead institution is ANU with partners from Gujarat Institute of Development Research, The University of Sydney, and The Cairns Institute.
Another project still active in 2015 was David MacLaren’s Seventh Day Adventist responses to HIV in Papua New Guinea. The research team included Matupit Darius, Tracie Mafile'o, Graeme Humble, Lalen Simeon, Rachael Tommbe, Michael Wood, Ton Otto, and Michelle Redman-MacLaren and it was funded by the PNG National Aids Council. It has documented and analysed Seventh Day Adventist policy and theology on HIV in PNG and described how these policies and theology were interpreted and influenced responses to HIV by church leaders, church employees and church members.
In 2015 Professor Natalie Stoeckl had a project aimed at improving management of agricultural extension services in Lao PDR. For this project a JCU team is partnering with the Government of Lao's Department of Agriculture Extension and Cooperatives to research and implement ways of strengthening extension. In the project, Enhancing district delivery and management of agriculture extension in Lao PDR, organisation development and participatory action research methodologies are being used to engage stakeholders from villages, districts, provinces and relevant government agencies in the co-creation and implementation of: (a) extension guidelines to match new extension interventions to local needs and opportunities; and (b)
Katarzyna Wojtylak | Walter Agga in his jungle garden | Linguistic fieldwork among the Murui, Amazonia, Colombia | 2013
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extension management system tools to assist District Agriculture and Forestry Offices to plan and manage services. The first part of the project focused on two crops—rice and coffee—and involved farmers from four districts. Having identified that farmers are benefiting from such activities (e.g., by learning about more appropriate farming methods, obtaining better quality seeds, negotiating for a better price for their product, being able to earn more and send their children to school), researchers now want to understand the local/regional economic impact—does the local economy benefit from the increased income being earned by the farmers? Dr Michelle Esparon travelled to Vientiane in January 2015 where, she met with John Connell and the team at the FoA. Her role was to help them with their assessment of these economic impacts. She gave a presentation where she introduced the concept of the multiplier effect—a new concept to the staff there. However, to better understand the context, Michelle went on a three-day fieldtrip in two of the participating districts. Each day, she met with staff from DAFO and then with the head of the farmers’ organisation in each of the villages. At the meeting with DAFO, staff gave presentations and reported on their progress to date and plans for the future. Meeting with the farmers was one of the highlights of the trip. The farmers provided valuable information about how their circumstances have changed from prior to the extension activities to now and the challenges they still face. It was also important to understand what they spend their money on, and where this money is spent—essential information for calculating the multiplier effect.
In 2015 the Independent Evaluation Office of UN Women undertook an evaluation of the agency’s first 5 years of operation to consider the effectiveness of its mandate to promote gender equality and the empowerment of women. Dr Anne Stephens from The Cairns Institute and her colleague, Ms Ellen Lewis, from the Centre for Systems Studies at the University of Hull, were invited to comment on the evaluation design. In particular, the UN Women were interested in the application of systemic thinking and gender perspectives and how Anne’s Feminist-Systems Thinking (FST) framework might contribute to the review (Anne Stephens, 2013, Ecofeminism and systems thinking. New York: Routledge). Together, Ellen and Anne ran workshops with UN evaluation specialists and as a result of this, the Independent Evaluation Office of UN Women has also endorsed ongoing collaborative research with Anne and Ellen to further develop a resource to assist the UN Women’s mandate, as well as other evaluation offices throughout the UN Evaluation Group.
In 2015 we did not continue the 2014 seminar series on Papua New Guinea but in December 2015 Professor Albert Schramm (Cairns Institute Adjunct Professor and Vice-Chancellor of Unitech in Papua New Guinea) presented a seminar, Papua New Guinea: Failing to develop, or developing to fail? which was well attended with fifty-five people at the seminar.
Dr Catherine Mei Ling Wong, Senior Research Officer, presented a paper at a high level international workshop on core concepts in environmental sociology in Sweden in September 2015. Organised by the Environmental Sociology section of the Örebro University in collaboration with Research Committee 24 (Environment and Society) of the International Sociological Association, paper submissions were highly competitive and less than 20 were accepted. Catherine’s paper—A material-semiotic approach to risk: Apply environmental sociology to risk—explored ways of bridging social and technical risk analysis through concepts of hybridity, co-production and reflexivity.
In 2015 Catherine was elected to the committee of the Society for Risk Analysis - Australia & New Zealand (SRA-ANZ) where she will serve as a Council member and newsletter editor. The purpose of SRA-ANZ is to provide an opportunity for an inclusive, broad-based society that promotes communication between disciplines, a breadth of tools and viewpoints, and platforms for training, workshops, and conferences. SRA-ANZ is sponsored by the Centre of Excellence for Biosecurity Risk Analysis (CEBRA), University of Melbourne, and the objectives of the society are:
To serve as the focal point for interaction of members of the Society and other interested individuals and organisations in Australia and New Zealand
To further understanding, awareness, and appropriate applications of risk analysis, and to promote an exchange of ideas and practical experiences among members of the academic, professional, industrial, and regulatory communities involved in risk analysis and risk management in Australia and New Zealand
To hold scientific and educational meetings.
Jen Nicholls and Ellen Field, two PhD students affiliated with the Centre for Research and Innovation in Sustainability Education (CRISE), in The Cairns Institute, both attended the World Environmental Education Congress (WEEC weec2015.org/) in Gothenburg, Sweden in July 2015. The Congress is hosted in different international cities every two years
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and brings together researchers, practitioners, and environmental organisations from around the world. Gothenburg is considered an international model for sustainability and was an inspiring urban landscape for the conference. Jen presented a paper, Teachers' positioning and understandings of climate change and climate change education and their influence on practice. This presentation provided a broad summary of her doctoral research which investigated Queensland teachers’ understandings of climate change and climate change education. Ellen’s paper, Arising activism or situating slacktavism: youth usage of social media & conceptualizations of environmental activism explored various ways that youth respondents from Ellen’s dissertation project use their Facebook profiles for environmental activism as well as a discussion on youth reflections on social media activism in general. Both Jen and Ellen used a crowd-funding platform to help subsidise their attendance at WEEC.
We continued our links with Papua New Guinea with a Leadership Masterclass for Papua New Guinea Department of Justice and Attorney General (DJAG) in June 2015. The training was coordinated by the Institute’s Professional Development and Training Manager, Mark Franks and was facilitated by Dr Murray Prideaux with 15 attendees at the 3 day course.
Masterclass participants from the Papua New Guinea Department of Justice & Attorney General
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Theme 8: Language & Culture
Alexandra Aikhenvald Tropical Leader, People & Societies of the Tropics, Distinguished Fellow and Australian Laureate Fellow, The Cairns Institute; LCRC; College of Arts, Society & Education
Ton Otto Tropical Leader, People & Societies of the Tropics, The Cairns Institute; LCRC; College of Arts, Society & Education
Grant Aiton PhD scholarship holder, College of Arts, Society & Education; LCRC
Jennifer Deger The Cairns Institute
RMW Dixon College of Arts, Society & Education; The Cairns Institute; LCRC
Shelley Greer College of Arts, Society & Education
Rosita Henry College of Arts, Society & Education; LCRC
Russell McGregor College of Arts, Society & Education
Simon Overall College of Arts, Society & Education; LCRC
Nicola Piper PhD student, College of Arts, Society & Education; LCRC
Ryan Pennington PhD student, College of Arts, Society & Education; LCRC
Michael Wood College of Arts, Society & Education; LCRC
Katarzyna Wojtylak PhD student, College of Arts, Society & Education; LCRC
Many of the activities within this theme were undertaken through the Language and Culture Research Centre (LCRC) nested within the Institute, with Professor Aikhenvald as Director and Adjunct Professor R. M. W. Dixon as Deputy Director. In 2015 the LCRC continued their weekly seminar and workshop series with 41 workshops and seminars attracting a total of 706 people.
In October 2015 Distinguished Professor Alexandra Aikhenvald attended the 42nd International Symposium of the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) of the Republic of Korea. The Academy was established in 1952 and includes 150 members who have been selected by their peers for their outstanding contribution to various fields within natural sciences, social sciences and humanities. Alexandra was one of the two overseas speakers, with her presentation entitled Imperatives and commands in language and society. Her talk was based on a wide variety of languages, calling listeners' attention to the fact that so many fascinating languages are in danger of becoming extinct.
LCRC PhD student Grant Aiton and LCRC Post-doc researcher Dr Simon Overall were both successful in securing funding from the Endangered Languages Documentation Programme (SOAS) - Small Grant Scheme. Grant and co-researcher,
Daniela Vávrová | Colouring the baskets 2 | Ambonwari Village, East Sepik Province, Papua New Guinea | 2011
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Alexandra Aikhenvald,will use the funding for the documentation of Eibela (also called Aimele), as part of Grant’s PhD project at JCU which will ultimately produce a grammar of the language along with a dictionary and a corpus of texts. Simon will use his funding to complement ongoing work on the description of the Kandozi variety, by visiting Chapra communities and collecting linguistic data. In addition to the academic benefits, they hope to help the community to document traditional knowledge that is under threat from a changing lifestyle. Kasia Wojtylak, PhD student in the LCRC, gave a presentation at the prestigious 41st Annual Meeting of Berkeley Linguistics Society (BLS41) that took place in University of California at Berkeley on 7–8 February 2015.
LCRC Postdoctoral researchers Valérie Guérin and Simon Overall also organised a workshop on the topic of "bridging linkage" on 25 and 26 February 2015: this refers to the way that speakers of diverse languages use repetition in systematic ways, to give a coherent structure to their conversations and narratives. The workshop provided a wealth of data and generated vigorous discussion among the participants. There were ten presentations: four on languages spoken in South America; four on languages of Oceania (including Australia); and one on Greek, spoken in Europe and diaspora communities around the globe, including here in Cairns. The workshop was officially opened by Professor Andrew Krockenberger, Dean of Research at JCU. Andrew formally presented Kate Elder, Manager, Campus Client Services in the Cairns Library, with three books that were published in 2014 by members of the LCRC: The art of grammar: A practical guide, by Alexandra Y. Aikhenvald (Oxford University Press); Grammatical gender in interaction. Cultural and cognitive aspects, by Angeliki Alvanoudi (Brill); and Making new words. Morphological derivations in English, by R.M.W. Dixon (Oxford University Press).
Dr Jennifer Deger continued her ARC Future Fellowship, Digital relations: New media in Arnhem Land. Also in 2015, Ringtone, Miyarrka Media's documentary about mobile phones and a Yolngu poetics of connection directed by Jennifer Deger and Paul Gurrumuruwuy, was selected for competition in the Royal Anthropological Institute's International Festival of Ethnographic Film which was held in Bristol from 16-19 June 2015. Ringtone premiered in October 2014 at the Margaret Mead Film Festival in New York and was then selected to screen at the Virginia Film Festival, the Sheffield Doc Fest Videoteque, and the International Society for Ethnology and Folklore's conference, Utopias, Realities, Heritages: ethnographies for the 21st century. Jennifer Deger had a number of film screenings Ringtone in 2015 including at the Society for Visual Anthropology, American Anthropological Association Conference; Australian Anthropological Society annual conference, Melbourne; The International Society for Ethnology and Folklore Conference Croatia. Jennifer also exhibited Gapuwiyak calling: Phone made media in Aboriginal Australia, in The Cairns Institute building, from 17 September–15 October 2015.
In June 2015, Jennifer shared examples of her collaborative film work at the annual Flaherty Film Seminar which has awarded her a Professional Development Fellowship. Held at Colgate University in New York State, the Flaherty is the longest continuously running film event in the US, and this weeklong residential seminar brings together over 160 filmmakers, artists, curators, scholars, students, and film enthusiasts to celebrate the power of the moving image. Her other film, Manapanmirr, in Christmas spirit was screened at the Creating Futures Conference, in Cairns in May 2015.
“Bridging linkage” workshop participants with Amanda Parsonage in February 2015
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In 2015 Jennifer Deger established the Digital, Visual, Material research group with Ton Otto and Rosita Henry. Daniela Vávrová from the Anthropological Laboratory for Tropical Audiovisual Research (ALTAR) was invited to Musée du quai Branly in Paris, France, to participate in the symposium held in conjunction with the opening of the art exhibition Sepik, Arts in Papua New Guinea (27 October 2015–31 January 2016). The exhibition in the Musée du quai Branly aimed to present the artefacts as if walking through a Sepik village, and Daniela presented a videoclip about Kay wurukrarin (Rocking canoe) in the session entitled ‘Exchanges’.
LCRC events
Street view of Musée du quai Branly, Paris |Daniela Vávrová
L-R: Dr Daniela Vávrová and Dr Anita von Poser, Department of Social & Cultural Anthropology, Free University Berlin | Daniela
Vávrová
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TRAINING
2015 Graduate Students
A total of 53 students were supervised by Cairns Institute Tropical Leaders and researchers in 2015.
31 PhD students were enrolled through the College of Arts & Society & Education 13 PhD students were enrolled through the College of Business, Law & Governance 3 PhD students were enrolled through the College of Healthcare Sciences 2 PhD students were enrolled through the College of Public Health, Medical and Veterinary Sciences 1 PhD student was enrolled through the ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies 1 PhD student was enrolled through the College of Marine & Environmental Sciences 1 PhD student was enrolled through Griffith University 1 PhD student was enrolled through the University of Adelaide
3113
3 2 11 1 1
No students
College of Arts, Society & Education
College of Business, Law & Governance
College of Healthcare Sciences
College of Public Health, Medicine & Veterinary Sciences
College of Marine & Environmental Sciences
ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies
Griffith University
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As in previous years, the students' countries of origin were varied as illustrated below.
Enrolling colleges/institutions are listed below with thesis titles and supervisors.
College Thesis title Principal Supervisor Secondary Supervisor/s
College of Arts, Society & Education
Kuku Yalanji traditional knowledge and artefacts in the past and the present
Michael Wood Ton Otto Jennifer Deger
Anthropological linguistics on the Eibela language of Western Province Papua New Guinea
Alexandra Aikhenvald RMW Dixon Mike Wood
A grammar of Lele, Manus Province, PNG (submitted 31 March 2015)
Alexandra Aikhenvald Ton Otto
“Ya no es como antes”. A critical study of tradition and cultural change in a Huave community, Mexico
Ton Otto Mike Wood Torsten Kolind (Aarhus University)
Socio-cultural understandings of Asia-Pacific peoples’ health and wellbeing Komla Tsey David MacLaren Jenny Kelly
The effectiveness of using a social and emotional skills intervention to support the wellbeing of Indigenous students with high mobility
Komla Tsey Felecia Watkin-Lui Cliff Jackson
Gender relations at the intersection of natural resource management and development in the Solomon Islands
Rosita Henry Ton Otto Simon Foale
Local interpretations and appropriations of modern technologies at the Sepik River in PNG
Ton Otto Michael Wood
An exploration of youth driven peer to peer learning and environmental activism through social networking sites
Bob Stevenson Raoul Adam
Catholic school meditation research: Case study in universal student wellbeing promotion
Maree Dinan-Thompson
Komla Tsey Kathryn Meldrum
Implementing the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples at the local level - Self-determination [Masters]
Theresa Petray Stewart Lockie
Trauma and gender in natural disasters and conflict contexts: A comparative study of Aceh, Indonesia and the deep south, Thailand
Stewart Lockie Theresa Petray
Populations of humanitarian concern: Vulnerability, protection and resilience in the informal settlement
Komla Tsey Deborah Graham
The cost-effectiveness of empowering the PNG health workforce to reduce the burden of harm [EdD]
Komla Tsey Susan Jacups
How scientists can learn to better collaborate and cooperate both amongst themselves and with the general public to improve research outcomes from how the public respond to new ideas in fiction
Richard Lansdown Komla Tsey
0
5
10
15
20
25
Student country of origin
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College Thesis title Principal Supervisor Secondary Supervisor/s
A qualitative evaluation of the implementation of Auslan as the language of education for the deaf in Queensland schools
Pauline Taylor Paul Pagliano Alexandra Aikhenvald
The influence of a radio intervention on farmers' understanding and practices in climate change mitigation and adaptation in Kenya
Bob Stevenson Philemon Chigeza
Researching the unconvinced: Understanding barriers to the implementation of climate change adaptation in Far North Queensland
Bob Stevenson Hilary Whitehouse Raoul Adam
Ma Manda reference grammar Alexandra Aikhenvald RMW Dixon Valérie Guérin
A grammar of Meriam Mir Alexandra Aikhenvald Rosita Henry RMW Dixon
Addressing Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander men's health, in a cultural safe place
Komla Tsey Yvonne Cadet-James
Image-ining modernity: A comparative collaborative ethnography of future-making through experimental video art in Australia and Benin
Ton Otto Barbara Glowczewski Rosita Henry
Indigenous textile design and production in remote communities Jennifer Deger Robyn Glade-Wright
A grammar of Huave as spoken in San Dionisio del Mar, Oaxaca, Mexico Alexandra Aikhenvald RMW Dixon Maurizio Gnerre, University of Naples (Italy)
No race, no competition: Considering the possibility of post-race theory in Australia: a study with migrant teachers
Hilary Whitehouse Ton Otto
Interior/exterior: Landscapes from Far North Queensland Robyn Glade-Wright Jennifer Deger Eduardo de la Fuente
An analytical psychological and ethnographic investigation of shamanic vision in the Amazon
Robin Rodd Alexandra Aikhenvald
Outdoor education and sustainable futures Hilary Whitehouse Bob Stevenson
Tobian customary principles of ownership in contemporary negotiations over Helen Reef, in the republic of Palau
Ton Otto Michael Wood
A reference grammar of Witoto Murui Alexandra Aikhenvald RMW Dixon Elena Mihas
Exploring differences in family education between China and Australia with a focus on children's academic development in primary school years
Neil Anderson Reesa Sorin Komla Tsey
College of Business, Law & Governance
Accessing justice: Aboriginal people and racial discrimination in Australia Chris Cunneen Simone Rice (ANU)
A new front? Have online comments changed agenda setting? Hayden Lesbirel Stewart Lockie
Special measures and racial discrimination: A case study of the Cape York welfare reform
Chris Cunneen Loretta de Plevitz (QUT)
The contribution of the environment to wellbeing [Masters by research] Natalie Stoeckl Bob Pressey
People building stronger regions: An empirical investigation into the determinants of migration
Natalie Stoeckl Riccardo Welters
Hot + Cold = Lukewarm. A comparative study on the history and governance of indigenous peoples in Denmark and Australia
Chris Cunneen Paul Havemann
Investigating the contribution of natural capital to human well-being: A case study in the Metro-Iloilo Guimaras Area, Philippines
Riccardo Welters Natalie Stoeckl
A critical analysis of how contemporary transitional justice processes consider the needs of female victims of sexual violence
Chris Cunneen Samantha Hardy
Economic, social and environmental factors influencing life and tourist satisfaction
Natalie Stoeckl Hong-bo Lui
Indigenous peoples and consumer law: The impact of culture history and location
Chris Cunneen Felecia Watkin-Lui
The role of alternative food networks in the proliferation and economic feasibility of small-scale organic farming in multifunctional landscapes
Breda McCarthy Stewart Lockie
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College Thesis title Principal Supervisor Secondary Supervisor/s
Livelihood benefits of adaptive co-management of hand collectable fisheries in the Torres Strait and Fiji
James Butler (CSIRO) Natalie Stoeckl Helene Marsh Simon Foale
Indigenous economic development and sustainable livelihoods for northern Australia
Anne Stephens Hurriyet Babacan Riccardo Welters
College of Healthcare Sciences
Developing a conceptual cognitive behavioural model to predict cyberbullying behaviour
Nerina Caltabiano Komla Tsey Marie Caltabiano
Go/No/Go: Exploring the mismatch between intentions and behaviour (submitted 2015)
Anne Swinbourne Deb Graham Komla Tsey
Gaining 'two way understanding' of 'recovery' from the storylines at the cultural interface of Aboriginal mental health: does 'recovery' have a place in the Aboriginal meaning of mental health?
Kim Usher Komla Tsey Roxanne Bainbridge
College of Public Health, Medical and Veterinary Sciences
A multi component mentoring training: Enhancing the work practices of support staff to improve the resilience of remote Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students that transition from their communities to boarding schools [MPhil]
Janya McCalman Roxanne Bainbridge Michelle Redman-MacLaren Sandra Campbell
Blackgammon: An exploration of alternate reality game design in Indigenous Australian health promotion
David Plummer (Griffith University)
Roxanne Bainbridge Christian Jones (University of the Sunshine Coast)
College of Marine & Environmental Sciences
Coal mining and human well being: A case study in Inner Mongolia, China David King Natalie Stoeckl Emma Gyuris
ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies
Securing marine ecological and socio-cultural outcomes through innovative and strategic finance
Bob Pressey Natalie Stoeckl
Griffith University
A little less conversation, a little more action: Assessing NRM planning governance systems in Australia (submitted 2015)
Karen Vella (Griffith) Allan Dale Neil Sipe (Griffith)
University of Adelaide
The power of the healing agent Zoe Jordan (Adelaide) Komla Tsey
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Training & Professional Development
In 2015 The Institute ran a number of masterclasses including the very successful Native title for anthropologists in June 2015 with 26 participants. Other classes included Leadership Training for Papua New Guinea Department of Justice and Attorney General (15 participants); Healthcare Masterclass: Facilitating Innovation and Improvement in Healthcare – conducted by Professor Gill Harvey (89 participants); Applying Continuous Quality Improvement beyond Primary Health Care: An Introductory Masterclass – conducted by Professor Komla Tsey & Dr Janya McCalman (35 participants); and Culture, Creative Economy and Tropical Places – conducted by Professor Susan Luckman (12 participants).
The Professional Development and Training Officer resigned in September 2015 and was not replaced.
Daniela Vávrová | The stones: Cook Hwy FNQ | 2016
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DIALOGUE
Open and democratic dialogue is fundamental to the Institute’s mission of contributing to positive social and environmental change. The Institute hosts a diversity of scholarly and public events focused on social change and major policy issues facing people in the tropics. Policy forums, research seminars, conferences, film screenings and exhibitions all play a role encouraging analysis and discussion of challenging social and political issues.
All our events are detailed on our Events calendar.
Conferences, Seminars & Other Events Summary
A major event in 2015 for the Institute was TEDxJCUCairns on 2 October. TED is a non-profit organisation devoted to the concept of ‘Ideas Worth Spreading’. TEDx supports independent organisers who want to create a TED-like event in their own community, and Jennifer McHugh of The Cairns Institute gained the licence to hold TEDxJCUCairns. By April 2016 the 2015 TEDxJCUCairns talks had received over 33,000 views and continued rising. The views will continue to increase as the talks get more exposure from the university and the individual speakers. In particular, former refugee and JCU student Tulsa Gautam’s talk has proven popular in the Bhutanese community with one viewer commenting:
TEDx is one of my favourite talk shows especially when it comes to listening to inspirational talks, learning about ones outstanding accomplishments (mostly cutting edge) as well as research based findings. Coming to know about and watching one of our own community members speak here, I feel like this is an inspiration more to others who do not have to live lives like ours than to ourselves because we know exactly what she is talking about here. This video is a good piece of information for our coming generation, a testimony for ourselves and most importantly an inspiration for our own young people.
Student and speaker mentors played an essential role in ensuring that presentations and the TEDx event went well. The mentors provided significant insight for the students that went beyond the tasks at hand. Mentors were also role models for students who could relate in a professional setting and under the critical conditions of production and presentation with real world expectations and outcomes. The recruitment of mentors came from the event team, contractors and JCU staff members from appropriate departments. The students and mentors enjoyed getting to know the presenters and hearing about their research and ideas as well as gaining real-world experience that will boost their resumes and skills.
TEDxJCUCairns again received good media coverage in 2015. A local radio station, ABC Far North, interviewed 12 presenters mainly on the afternoon Drive program. Some of the interviews were repackaged and played during the day. Bumma Bippera Media 98.7 conducted a couple of pre-interviews and did a live feed on the day. A number of speakers were also featured in the Cairns Eye (The Weekend Post).
The Facebook page (www.facebook.com/tedxjcucairns/) has slowly grown and now has 300 likes (April 2016). A number of posts have reached over 2,000 people and photos on the page have been shared by the major TEDx site. The Twitter account (twitter.com/tedxjcucairns) has around 500 followers. To view all talks from 2015, follow the links from tedxjcucairns.com/the-speakers/
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Also in 2015 the Institute co-hosted the Early Years Conference in September 2015 with a total of 260 delegates attending. The Early Years Conference is an annual event that promotes the wellbeing of children and families by advancing collaboration and evidence-based practice, and provides a platform to reflect multiple perspectives to improve early childhood development.
Another major conference was Creating Futures 2015, the sixth in a series, in which the target populations are Indigenous peoples from Australia, New Zealand and beyond, the residents of Australia’s neighbouring island nations, and people living with and recovering from mental and/or physical illness or disability in remote and tropical areas. This conference attracted 340 attendees and was preceded by two free public events hosted by The Cairns Institute and the Australian Institute of Tropical Health and Medicine (AITHM). Two lectures chaired by Melissa Sweet from Croakey featured columnist for The Australian, Nicholas Rothwell ("Outsider art and the creative spirit”), local professional printmaker, Theo Tremblay (“Boundary riders”). It also included a forum facilitated by Melissa Sweet titled “Bridging gaps: different contexts different solutions?” with global mental health expert, Vikram Patel, Aboriginal politician, Alison Anderson, and Aboriginal psychiatrist, Marshall Watson.
Another large event was The Australian Sociological Association (TASA) Conference: Neoliberalism and contemporary challenges for the Asia-Pacific held on 23-26 November 2015. This conference was co-hosted by The Cairns Institute and the College of Arts, Society & Education and attracted 310 attendees from Australia, Asia and Pacific nations. The keynote speaker was Professor Eva Cox. With 11 thematic breakout rooms, the conference programme offered something for every interest—sports sociology, family, religion, environment, migration and more, plus special events were organised for postgraduate students and two highly successful post-conference sociological investigations to the Great Barrier Reef and Yarrabah community south of Cairns.
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The biennial Tropics of the Imagination Conference, a multidisciplinary conference on imaginative and creative approaches to culture and nature in the tropics, was held again in September 2015 with 61 attendees. The Conference is a forum for scholars, artists and creative-industries workers interested in imaginative and creative visions and conceptions of nature, society and culture in the tropics.
The Language and Culture Research Centre (LCRC) organised 42 workshops and seminars in 2015 with a total of 706 people attending.
The Anthropological Laboratory for Tropical Audiovisual Research (ALTAR) hosted nine film screenings, one workshop and one seminar in 2015 that attracted a total of 272 people.
Also in 2015, the Institute continued the successful Designed in Cairns seminar series, an initiative through the Australian Institute of Architects FNQ Regional Members Committee in conjunction with The Cairns Institute, We hosted a further six seminars in the series attracting 368 people. The largest attendance (86) was for the Innovation in the tropics seminar by Award Winning Architect, Charles Wright. Charles has developed an international reputation for his innovative approaches to tropical design and in the seminar he explained the philosophy behind his work, including future resilience in design in the tropics, clearly of great interest to the Cairns community.
On 24 June 2015, Terri Janke, an Indigenous lawyer, writer and consultant gave a free seminar at The Cairns Institute titled Who owns the research? Intellectual property in native title, in connection reports, fieldwork notes and other material as part of the Masterclass in Native Title for Anthropologists. The seminar was attended by 82 people and explored how, in order to secure native title rights and interests, traditional owners have to give information about themselves including their history, their beliefs, their culture and their stories to anthropologists and lawyers who work in the native title field.
The Centre for Research & Innovation in Sustainability Education (CRISE) co-hosted a seminar in 2015 with the Centre for Tropical Environmental and Sustainability Sciences (TESS) that was attended by 51 people in Cairns and Townsville.
L-R: Anne Stephens, Stewart Lockie, Rosita Henry, Eva Cox, Gudju Gudju Fourmile, Theresa Petray
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Conferences The Institute was again a popular choice for hosting conferences in 2015, hosting 5 conferences and one affiliated conference workshop.
Conference Title Presenter/Host Date Type No Attendees
Creating Futures - Leadership in mental health: Island Nations course
Ernest Hunter 11-17 May Training/ workshop (affiliated with conference)
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Creating Futures 2015: Practice, Evidence & Creativity in Tropical & Remote Settings
The Cairns Institute; Australian Institute of Topical Health & Medicine (AITHM)
11-14 May Conference 340
Early Years Conference: Today’s Children – Tomorrow’s Future
The Cairns Institute; Mission Australia; Child Safety Services; QLD Health; The Benevolent Society; Dept of Education & Training
10-11 Sep Conference 260
Tropics of the Imagination Stephen Torre 17 Sep Conference 61
TEDxJCUCairns Jennifer McHugh 2 October Conference 100
The Australian Sociological Association (TASA) Conference: Neoliberalism and contemporary challenges for the Asia-Pacific
23 November Conference 310
TOTAL 1103
Language & Culture Research Centre Seminars and Workshops The Language and Culture Research Centre seminars and workshops were held almost weekly throughout 2015. A troal of 41 workshops/seminars were held with 706 participants.
Centre for Research & Innovation in Sustainability Education Seminar The Centre for Research in Sustainability Education (CRISE) co-hosted with the Centre for Tropical Environmental and Sustainability Sciences (TESS) one seminar in October 2015: Sustainability as learning: Beyond scientific knowledge and behaviour and policy change, with 51 people in attendance.
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ALTAR events The Anthropological Laboratory for Tropical Audiovisual Research (ALTAR) had another busy year with nine film screenings, a hands-on workshop on researching with a video camera and a special seminar, Camera as cultural critique. The screenings attracted 259 attendees and included the following films: Atanarjuat, the fast runner; The master and Divino; The hyperwomen; Manakamana; The fringe dwellers; War of the Gods; Leviathan; Vanuatu women's water music; and The gleaners and I.
You can follow ALTAR on https://espaces.edu.au/altar or https://www.facebook.com/groups/AltarFilms/
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Cairns Institute Seminars The Institute’s Jennifer McHugh continued organising the Designed in Cairns seminar series is collaboration with the Australian Institute of Architects FNQ Committee Chapter. The series was designed to provide continuing professional development activities for architects and designers generally in the regions and attendance figures were excellent throughout the year. Six Designed in Cairns seminars were hosted with a total of 368 attendees.
Jennifer and Helen Clarkson also organised a number of seminars for visiting scholars and public lectures (e.g., the annual Courtenay lecture), all of which provided excellent opportunities for dialogue with JCU and the community. These public seminars attracted 364 attendees.
Opening events
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Exhibitions The Institute building has been a popular choice for a variety of events, and particularly lends itself to art exhibitions, and there continued to be strong demand from JCU and the community to utilise the beautiful space in the Institute building to host exhibitions.
In May 2015 the 36-24-36 Art Exhibition featured the work of a collaborative group of JCU Bachelor of Creative Media Industries students. The concept of the exhibition was the exploration of the concept of beauty and the contemporary female.
In June the Designed in Cairns group launched an exhibition celebrating local design and architecture. It featured works by People Oriented Design; Indij Design; Eden & Wade; MMP Architects; Ghostwood Furniture; Works of Heart; Leah Kelly by design; Sewn in the
Cupboard; Bernard Lee Singleton; and Peter Thompson.
Gapuwiyak Calling: phone-made media from Arnhem Land was another exhibition in 2015. This show was launched by Professor Stewart Lockie in conjunction with the Tropics of Imagination conference. In 2014 a team of Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal artists and filmmakers created a unique exhibition about the creative potential of mobile phones. Bringing together ancestral spirits and new YouTube inspired performances, Gapuwiyak Calling showcases the vibrant digital culture emerging in a once-remote community in Australia’s northeast Arnhem Land. Installed at the American Museum of Natural History in New York in conjunction with the Margaret Mead Film Festival, Gapuwiyak Calling attracted over 8,000 visitors over four days. It was installed in The Cairns Institute for 1 month only from 18 September to 16 October 2015. The Institute building provided a fabulous space for the show, and enabled Miyarrka Media’s Jennifer Deger to teach a number of JCU classes in anthropology and creative arts with the exhibition onsite. In recognition of the achievements of Gapuwiyak Calling, Miyarrka Media was awarded an honourable mention in The Council for the Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences Australia Prize for Distinctive Work in October 2015. In November 2015 the collective won a prize from the American Society for Visual Anthropology for the Best Short Film at the American Anthropological Association Annual Conference in Denver.
We finished the year with a book launch in November which attracted 105 people.
Opening of the Designed in Cairns Exhibition
L to R: Shaneen Fantin (AIA), Francoise Lane (Indij Design), Jhay Baniaga (LA3), Paul Cohen (Cairns
Regional Council)
36-24-36 group interactive piece
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LINKAGES & PARTNERSHIPS
JCU Partners
In 2015 our work was truly multi-disciplinary with our projects involving partners in many of JCU's colleges and research centres.
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ALTAR
Since its establishment in 2013 and its official launch in 2014, ALTAR, the Anthropological Laboratory for Tropical Audiovisual Research has progressed with several interesting and engaging projects, and continues inspiring audiences with the regular free public film screenings.
Among the films screened in 2015 was The Fringe Dwellers (1986), presented by artist/curator Jenny Fraser as part of NAIDOC week. Other screenings included Vanuatu Women’s Water Music (2014), War of The Gods (1971), and Gleaners and I (2000). There were also films made by The Sensory Ethnography Lab based at the Harvard University and several productions by Videonasaldeias (the Video in the Villages project) from Brazil.
Daniela Vávrová was invited to the Sepik Symposium in October 2015 in the Parisian museum, Quai Branly. She presented a short video, Rocking Canoe, which is about communication with the spirits in Ambonwari village of East Sepik Province of Papua New Guinea. She will publish the paper about the event together with the other participants of the symposium in the future issue of Journal de la Société des Océanistes. Daniela has also submitted two other manuscripts for publication; one is a chapter in an edited book dealing with the art based research methods using examples from her PhD fieldwork in Ambonwari village; and the other is a collaboration with Professor Rosita Henry about their film, An Extraordinary Wedding: Some Reflections on the Ethics and Aesthetics of Authorial Strategies in Ethnographic Filmmaking. The film, An Extraordinary Wedding, will be finalised in 2016. Daniela’s film, Skin Has Eyes and Ears, was screened at the Days of Ethnographic Film in Slovenia and was selected for other ethnographic film festivals in 2016.
Jennifer Deger’s collaboratively made film, Ringtone, co-directed with Paul Gurrumuruwuy as part of her work with the new media collective Miyarrka Media, screened in ethnographic film festivals in Europe and the US, winning the Visual Anthropology Association’s Short Film prize at the American Anthropological Association Conference in Denver and a commendation in the Material Culture section of the Royal Anthropological Association Film Festival in Bristol. The film also featured in the Gapuwiyak Calling: Phone-made media in Arnhem Land exhibition held at The Cairns Institute in September 2015. A special screening of Miyarrka Media’s film Manapanmirr, in Christmas Spirit featured at the Creating Futures Conference in Cairns in May 2015.
In July 2015, Jennifer Deger and Daniela Vávrová ran an intensive two-day workshop in conjunction with the College of Arts, Society & Education as an introduction to audiovisual production methods for social science researchers. Entitled Researching with a video camera: a social science field methods workshop, it covered a combination of practical and conceptual material and gave a foundation for those with little or no prior experience with media production looking to incorporate video as an integral method of their research.
In 2015 ALTAR established a new AVLab at The Cairns Institute. This laboratory offers a unique range of audiovisual services to the university and wider community. It specialises in participatory and community based research consultancy, photography, recording of colloquia and conferences as well as online audiovisual services. Projects in 2015 included recording of workshops and lectures, conference photography, editing of a film, and recording and editing a lecture series.
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Australian University Partners
In 2015 we collaborated with colleagues in many Australian universities.
Australian National University
Charles Darwin University (2)
Griffith University
Hunter Medical Research Institute
Menzies School of Health Research (6)
Queensland University of Technology (4)
Southern Cross University
The University of Newcastle (5)
The University of Queensland (3)
The University of Western Australia (6)
University of New South Wales (8)
University of Sydney (3)
University of Technology Sydney
Victoria University
Visiting Scholars
The Institute hosted 15 Visiting Scholars in 2015 for varying lengths of time.
Visitor Organisation Country
Professor Willem F. H. Adelaar University of Leiden The Netherlands
Penelope Bergen Charles Darwin University Australia
Mateus Cruz Maciel de Carvalho Universidade Estadual Paulista ‘Júlio de Filho Brazil
Professor Peter I. Crawford Aarhus University Denmark
Associate Professor Janet Fletcher University of Melbourne Australia
Professor Iwona Kraska-Szlenk University of Warsaw Poland
Professor Stephanie Lawson Macquarie University Sydney
Dr Hai Hong Nguyen University of Queensland Australia
Professor Ortwin Renn Stuttgart University Germany
Dr Rob Pensalfini University of Queensland Australia
Dr Hiroko Sato University of Hawai’i at Manoa USA
Professor Albert Schramm Unitech Papua New Guinea
Dr Iwona Kraska Szlenk University of Warsaw Germany
Professor Kazuo Uedo Japanese Risk Management and Insurance Organisation Japan
Dr Li Yan Shenyang University of Chemical Technology China
Professor Ortwin Renn, an eminent sociologist on risk governance from the University of Stuttgart in Germany, visited Cairns in July 2015. Hosted by The Cairns Institute, Professor Renn gave a public lecture on 14 July 2015 on risk governance and the conceptual tools available to deal with a broad range of contemporary risks. The invitation-only event brought together 20 representatives from key government, industry and civil society organisations in the Cairns region, as well as researchers from across different disciplines at JCU.
On Friday 11 September 2015, Visiting Scholar, Professor Kazuo Ueda, the former Dean of the Graduate School at Senshu University, Tokyo, and the Chairman of the Japanese Risk Management and Insurance Organisation, gave a lecture at The
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Cairns Institute which was also video conferenced to the Townsville campus. His talk highlighted the difficulties associated with dealing with a major disaster, and the triple disaster (earthquake, tsunami, nuclear radiation fallout) that Japan experienced in March 2011. Some of the statistics he used to illustrate the scale of the disaster were shocking: 20,000 people dead or missing; 200,000 people relocated to other parts of Japan; and a cost that exceeded 17 trillion yen (approximately $AUD200 billion). Some of the more detailed data were revealing: 92% of those who died, drowned, and more than 90% of those people were over 65 years of age. The talk was well attended, and the audience included many from emergency services.
In December 2015 Professor Albert Schram, Vice-Chancellor of Unitech in Papua New Guinea gave a seminar, Papua New Guinea: Failing to develop, or developing to fail? The seminar was well attended with 55 people in the audience.
International University Partners
Free University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands
George Institute for Global Health, India
Gujarat Institute of Development Research, India
Leiden University, The Netherlands
Pacific Adventist University, Papua New Guinea
Portland State University, USA
University of Cologne, Germany (2)
University of Liverpool, UK
University of Victoria, Canada
Victoria University of Wellington, NZ
Community & Non-profit Organisation Partners
Much of the research that the Institute conducts is reliant on the partnerships with community and non-profit organisations—our research is largely in the tropics, for the tropics. In 2015 we worked with colleagues from 37 different groups as listed below.
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Legal Service (QLD) Limited
Aboriginal Legal Service of Western Australia Inc.
Aboriginal Medical Service
Aboriginal Medical Services Alliance Northern Territory (AMSANT) (3)
Anangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara (APY) Lands
Apunipima Cape York Health Council (8)
Australian Prawn Farmers Association
Brotherhood of St Laurence
Catholic Education Office, WA
Centacare Townsville
Condamine Alliance
Echo Creek Cultural Centre
Edmund Rice Education Australia
Fitzroy Basin Association Incorporated
George Institute for Global Health Australia
Gurriny Yealamucka Health Service
headspace Cairns
Institute for Urban Indigenous Health
Jabalbina Yalanji Aboriginal Corporation (JYAC)
LMC Training
Lowitja Institute Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health CRC (Lowitja Institute CRC)
Mind Australia
National Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Organisation (NACCHO)
North Australian Aboriginal Family Violence Legal Service
North Australian Aboriginal Justice Agency Limited
North Australian Indigenous Land & Sea Management Alliance (NAILSMA)
Northern Gulf Resource Management Group
NQ Dry Tropics (2)
Orygen Youth Health Research Centre, VIC
Queensland Aboriginal and Islander Health Council (2)
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Queensland Murray-Darling Committee Inc.
Rainforest Aboriginal Peoples’ Alliance (RAPA)
Southern Gulf Catchments
Telethon Institute for Child Health Research
Terrain Natural Resource Management
Victorian Aboriginal Legal Service Co-operative Limited
Wontulp-Bi-Buya College
Australian Government Agencies & Department Partners
We also value our partnerships with Australian government agencies and departments, which included the following in 2015:
Batchelor Institute of Indigenous Tertiary Education (BIITE), Northern Australia
Central Australian Aboriginal Family Law Unit
CSIRO (4)
Department of Health NT (3)
Education Qld
Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority (2)
Legal Aid Commission of Western Australia
Legal Aid Queensland
Northern Territory Legal Aid Commission
NT Department of Education & Children's Services
Queensland Health (2)
Queensland Health Mental Health Branch
Queensland Regional Natural Resource Management Groups Collective
Regional Development Australia Far North Queensland & Torres Strait Inc (RDA FNQ&TS)
South Australian Health & Medical Research Institute (SAHMII)
TAFE (SA)
Victoria Department of Education & Early Childhood Development
Victoria Legal Aid
Wet Tropics Management Authority (WTMA)
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Indigenous Arts Centre Alliance (IACA)
In February 2012 The Indigenous Art Centre Alliance Inc. (IACA) was created in Cairns, auspiced and housed within The Cairns Institute. IACA is the peak service organisation for the community-based Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander art and cultural centres of Far North Queensland. IACA grew from a pressing need for support and assistance to remote art centres from a peak industry body—something the rest of Australia had had for decades.
In February 2013 IACA incorporated and moved to managing its own funds under the direction of a Management Committee. Having grown from humble beginnings of one staff member, in 2015 IACA employed five staff so at the end of March 2015 it was time to move to a new and larger premises in the Cairns CBD at 16 Scott Street, Parramatta Park. The Institute’s alliance with IACA was extremely productive and we were delighted to have the IACA Kinship Exhibition in 2013 as part of the opening celebrations for the new Cairns Institute building.
Aurukun dogs, sculptures, and ceramics from across the IACA membership
Textiles, prints and paintings from across the IACA membership
Elliott Koonutte, Pormpuraaw Two brolgas on stand 2012
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MEDIA & PUBLIC OUTREACH
Newsletter
The Cairns Institute continued to produce a quarterly newsletter with each issue going to all JCU staff plus a mailing list of over 800 external recipients.
Sample pages from The Cairns Institute newsletter
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Media Coverage - Examples
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Public lectures: creativity and mental health May 11, 2015
The connections between creativity and mental health provide the theme for two daytime public lectures in Cairns on Wednesday 13 May. At 1.45pm writer Nicholas Rothwell will give a personal perspective on outsider art, examining its special place in the cultural landscape and tracing the parallels between outsider creativity and the contemporary Australian Aboriginal art movement. At 2.30pm Cairns printmaker Theo Tremblay will discuss the people he calls ‘boundary riders’ – artists who “are gaining confidence and respect by sharing their culture stories, anecdotes, confessions and aspirations with the broader community through printmaking”. The lectures are presented by The Cairns Institute and the Australian Institute for Tropical Health and Medicine at James Cook University. They will be chaired by journalist Melissa Sweet who founded the public health blog Croakey. The public lectures will be held at the Shangri-La Hotel on Pierpoint Rd, Cairns, from 1.45pm on Wednesday 13 May. Admission is free and all are welcome. Online registration can be completed at: alumni.jcu.edu.au/CF15Public Information for media Further information attached. For further comment please contact: • Theo Tremblay at Canopy Art Centre 4041 4678
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PUBLICATIONS
In 2015 Institute staff, Tropical Leaders and their teams, Research Fellows, Visiting Scholars and Adjuncts produced five books, 19 book chapters, 68 journal articles, three theses, 33 conference papers, 13 reports and six commentaries. The complete list of 2015 publications can be viewed online at www.cairnsinstitute.jcu.edu.au/research-publications
AWARDS & PEER RECOGNITION
Professor Chris Cunneen was the recipient of the 2015 Allen Austin Bartholomew Award for the best article in the Australian and New Zealand Journal of Criminology for 2014. The winning article was: Baldry, E., & Cunneen, C. (2014). Imprisoned Indigenous women and the shadow of colonial patriarchy. Australian and New Zealand Journal of Criminology, 47(2), 276-298.
Also in 2015 Professor Alexandra Aikhenvald was elected Fellow of the Queensland Academy of the Arts and Sciences.
Dr Anne Stephens was awarded an Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) Endeavour Fellow which enabled her to spend time at Columbia University as a Visiting Scholar and Hull University, School of Business, Centre for Systems Studies, also as a Visiting Scholar.
In 2015 Dr Catherine Mei Ling Wong, Senior Research Officer at The Cairns Institute, won a travel scholarship from the Society for Risk Analysis – Australia and New Zealand (SRA-ANZ). The grant funded her travel to attend and present at the World Congress on Risk held in Singapore from 19–23 July 2015. Her presentation titled Smart regulation: A multi-stakeholder approach to environmental governance was part of a collection of papers that will be presented at Symposium 1 on Managing trans-boundary risk in the Asia-Pacific region.
The Cairns Institute was well represented at the Cairns Regional Council Woman of the Year Awards in March 2015. The awards recognise women who have demonstrated courage and/or have made an outstanding contribution to the lives of women and girls in the Cairns Regional Council area, and this year Dr Roxanne Bainbridge, Senior Research Officer in The Cairns Institute and Jenny Fraser, Cairns Institute Adjunct Research Fellow, were both nominated. Roxanne was nominated for a variety of achievements including her significant contribution as a mentor and leader. Drawing from her life experience as a Gungarri woman, mother, grandmother, academic, role model and mentor, Roxanne has quietly and consistently worked to support and empower the lives of Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal women and girls in her sphere of influence. Her doctoral thesis explored the process by which Aboriginal women achieved empowerment. Since completing her PhD in 2009, she has led projects and mentored beginning researchers, including community researchers. She was part of a five year National Health & Medical Research Council (NHMRC) Building Indigenous Research Capacity Program and is currently part of a new five year National Indigenous Research Knowledge Network. Our other nominee, Jenny Fraser, is a celebrated screen artist, being awarded an honourable mention at the 2007 imagineNATIVE Film Festival, Toronto, Canada, and in 2009 nominated for a Deadly Award. She received an Australia Council Fellowship for her project Midden in 2012. Jenny has refined the art of curating for the screen through a strong commitment to collaboration with others and she founded cyberTribe, an unfunded online gallery 15 years ago and the Blackout Collective in 2002, which organises a regular program of events every year.
Jennifer Deger won a number of awards in 2015 including: Society for Visual Anthropology Film Festival Best Short Film Award for Ringtone; Commendation, Material Culture category, Royal Anthropological Institute Film Festival, for Ringtone; CHASS Australia Prize for a Distinctive Work 2015 - awarded Honourable mention for Gapuwiyak Calling; Flaherty Professional Development Fellowship, Flaherty Seminar, USA. Jennifer was also appointed as a Research Associate Smithsonian Natural History Museum to collaborate with Global Curator, Joshua Bell (2015-2018).
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SERVICES TO THE ACADEMIC COMMUNITY
Editors
The Director and a number of The Cairns Institute professors are editors for academic journals and book series.
Publication Publisher Role Name Rank ISI1
Brill’s studies in language, cognition and culture
Brill Series Editors Alexandra Aikhenvald RMW Dixon
Environmental Sociology Taylor & Francis Foundation Editor Stewart Lockie
Explorations in Linguistic Typology
Oxford University Press
Series Co-editors Alexandra Aikhenvald RMW Dixon
Institute of Criminology Monograph Series
Institute of Criminology
Series Editor Chris Cunneen
Journal of Environmental Education
Taylor & Francis Editor-in-Chief Bob Stevenson 1.033
Journal of Language Contact Brill Associate Editor Alexandra Aikhenvald
1Journal citation reports (JCR) via InCites Web of Science
Editorial Boards
Many of the Institute’s researchers are members of editorial boards for academic publications.
Publication Publisher Role Name Rank ISI1
African Review of Economics and Finance (AREF)
University of Stirling Editorial Board, Member Komla Tsey
Anthropological Forum Routledge International Advisory Board Ton Otto 0.447
Anthropological Linguistics Indiana University Editorial Board RMW Dixon
The Asia Pacific Journal of Anthropology
Routledge Advisory Board Ton Otto 0.266
Australian Indigenous Law Review
Indigenous Law Centre, UNSW
Editorial Board Chris Cunneen
Australian Journal of Environmental Education
Cambridge University Press
International Advisory Board Bob Stevenson
Bio Med Research International: Public Health
BioMed Central Ltd Editorial Board Member Komla Tsey 2.134
Brill’s studies in language, cognition and culture
Brill Editorial Board Ton Otto
Crime Media Culture Sage International Advisory Editorial Board
Chris Cunneen 0.486
Current Issues in Criminal Justice
Institute of Criminology Press
Editorial Board Chris Cunneen
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Publication Publisher Role Name Rank ISI1
Ecosystem Health and Sustainability
Ecological Society of America
Subject Editor Stewart Lockie
Environmental Education Research
Taylor & Francis International Advisory Board Bob Stevenson 1.374
Etropic: electronic journal of studies in the tropics
James Cook University
Editorial Board Jennifer Deger
Frontiers in Public Health Policy
Frontiers Research Foundation
Associate Editor Komla Tsey
Glossa Universidad del Turabo
Review Board Alexandra Aikhenvald
International Journal of Comparative Sociology
Sage Editorial Board Stewart Lockie 1.028
International Journal of Crime, Justice and Social Democracy
Queensland University of Technology - Crime and Justice Research Centre
International Editorial Board Chris Cunneen
International Journal of Language and Culture
John Benjamins Editorial Board Alexandra Aikhenvald
Journal of Language Contact Brill Associate Editor Alexandra Aikhenvald
Language and Linguistics Compass
Wiley-Blackwell Editorial Board Alexandra Aikhenvald
The Oxford Guides to the World’s Languages [Book series]
Oxford University Press
Advisory Board Alexandra Aikhenvald
Restorative Justice. An International Journal
Hart Publishing Ltd. International Advisory Board Chris Cunneen
Sociolinguistic Studies Equinox Publishing Ltd.
Editorial Board Alexandra Aikhenvald
Sociology of Development University of California Press
Editorial Board Stewart Lockie
Studia Linguistica Wiley-Blackwell Editorial Board Alexandra Aikhenvald
Studies in Functional and Structural Linguistics
John Benjamins Editorial Board Alexandra Aikhenvald
Tourism Economics IP Publishing Ltd Editorial Advisory Board Natalie Stoeckl 0.392
Visual Anthropology Review Wiley Editorial Board Jennifer Deger
Youth Justice: An International Journal
Sage Editorial Board Chris Cunneen
1Journal citation reports (JCR) via InCites Web of Science
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Participation on Professional & Review Committees
Two Tropical Leaders and the Director of the Institute are Fellows of the prestigious Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia (ASSA). Fellowship of ASSA is an honour conferred for scholarly distinction in research or the advancement of social sciences.
Academy Role Name
Fellow of the Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia Elected member Alexandra Aikhenvald
Fellow of the Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia Elected member Chris Cunneen
Fellow of the Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia Elected member Stewart Lockie
Many of the Institute’s researchers and Tropical Leaders are members of professional associations, peak government, community, and industry groups. They also serve on advisory panels and committees and review funding applications for key bodies including the Australian Research Council.
Committee Role Name
American Evaluation Association Member Anne Stephens
American Society of Criminology Member Chris Cunneen
Australian Agricultural and Resource Economics Society Member Natalie Stoeckl
Australian and New Zealand Society of Criminology Member Chris Cunneen
Australian Research Council Research proposal reviewer Alexandra Aikhenvald
Chris Cunneen
Allan Dale
Jennifer Deger
Stewart Lockie
The Australian Sociological Association Member Anne Stephens
2015 TASA Conference: Neoliberalism and contemporary
challenges for the Asia Pacific
Co-Convenor Anne Stephens
Central Land Council Community Development Advisory Committee
Member Komla Tsey
Centre for Sustainable Fisheries and Aquaculture Member Natalie Stoeckl
Society for Conservation Biology Member Allan Dale
DFG (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft) Reviewer Alexandra Aikhenvald
Economic Society of Australia Member Natalie Stoeckl
Edward Koch Foundation Governing Board Member Komla Tsey
ELDP (Endangered Languages Documentation Programme)
Reviewer Alexandra Aikhenvald
Estonian Science Foundation Reviewer Alexandra Aikhenvald
European Research Council Reviewer Alexandra Aikhenvald
European Science Commission Reviewer Alexandra Aikhenvald
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Committee Role Name
European Society of Criminology Member Chris Cunneen
Excellence Research for Australia (ERA) 2015 Reviewer Komla Tsey
Foodswell Inc. Board Director Anne Stephens
The Fulbright Visiting Scholar Program Reviewer Chris Cunneen
Georgian Science Foundation Reviewer Alexandra Aikhenvald
The Harry Frank Guggenheim Foundation Reviewer Chris Cunneen
Independent Expert Panel (for GBR 2050 Plan) Member Natalie Stoeckl
Institute of Linguistics, Academia Sinica, Taiwan Member of the Board Alexandra Aikhenvald
International Council for Science (ICSU) Committee for Scientific Planning and Review (2013–2017)
Stewart Lockie
International Society of Ecological Economics Member Natalie Stoeckl
International Society for Systems Sciences (ISSS) Member Anne Stephens
International Sociological Association Research Committee
on Environment and Society (RC24)
Board of Governors Member
2006–present
Stewart Lockie
International Sociological Association Member Anne Stephens
The Marsden Fund (NZ) Reviewer Chris Cunneen
National Science Foundation Reviewer Alexandra Aikhenvald
NHMRC Centre of Research Excellence in Integrated Quality Improvement (CRE-IQI) Management Committee
Member Komla Tsey
Northern Australia Environmental Resources Hub of the
National Environmental Science Program
Research Executive Committee Natalie Stoeckl
Northern Australian Governance Research Group C-Founder Anne Stephens
QIMR Berghofer Medical Research Institute Indigenous
Research Advisory Group
Member Komla Tsey
Queensland College of Teachers Registration Anne Stephens
Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada
Reviewer Jennifer Deger
Society for Risk Analysis - Australia & New Zealand
(SRA-ANZ)
Elected member Catherine Mei Ling
Wong
Swiss Science Foundation Reviewer Alexandra Aikhenvald
Tropical Rivers and Coastal Knowledge Research
Consortium (from CDU)
Member Natalie Stoeckl
Tropical Water Hub of the National Environmental Science
Program
Scientific Advisory Committee Natalie Stoeckl
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Committee Role Name
TropWATER – Centre for Tropical Water and Aquatic Ecosystem Research
Theme Leader – Socioeconomic systems and Natural Resource
Management
Natalie Stoeckl
Invited Keynote & Plenary Presentations
Some examples of invited and plenary speaker engagements by Cairns Institute researchers are listed below.
Presentation Role Name
42nd International Symposium of the National Academy of Korea, Seoul, South Korea, October 2015
Keynote Alexandra Aikhenvald
Beyond the North South Culture Wars, Townsville, April 2015 Keynote Allan Dale
Biennial Conference of the Australian Association of von Humboldt
Fellows, Hobart, November 2015
Keynote Alexandra Aikhenvald
Crime, Justice and Social Democracy: 3rd International Conference, July
2015, Brisbane
Panel speaker Chris Cunneen
Indigenous Children’s Well-Being in the Neo-Liberal Age Symposium,
Sydney, September 2015
Keynote Chris Cunneen
Indigenous Economic Development Conference, Cairns, September 2015
Plenary Allan Dale
International Conference on Public Policy, Milan, Italy, July 2015 Plenary Stewart Lockie
Peter Cullen Trust Leadership Forum, Canberra, November 2015 Keynote Allan Dale
Place as a Frame For Building Resilience, Queensland Department of
Communities Ministerial Forum, Brisbane, August 2015
Keynote Allan Dale
SAF07 – Australia’s Agricultural Future Project, Australian Council of
Learned Academies, Melbourne, 2015
Keynote Stewart Lockie
Seoul National University Language Research Institute Seminar series,
Seoul, South Korea, October 2015
Keynote Alexandra Aikhenvald
Societas Linguistica Europea Conference, Leiden, The Netherlands, September 2015
Plenary (in absentia) Alexandra Aikhenvald
TEDXJCUCairns, October 2015 Invited Allan Dale
Young Language Ambassador Conference, Cairns, August 2015 Plenary Alexandra Aikhenvald
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Other Services to the Academic Community
A small number of examples of services that the Institute's researchers provided to the wider academic community in 2015 are listed below.
Professor Chris Cunneen gave a number of presentations at community events including:
Presentation, Indigenous Civil and Family Law Needs in Victoria, Community Legal Centres Workshop, Federation of Community Legal Centres (Victoria), Melbourne, 9 February 2015.
Presentation, Indigenous Civil and Family Law Needs in Western Australia, Legal Aid Summer Series, Civil Law Workshop, Legal Aid Western Australia, Perth, 27 February 2015.
Presentation, Indigenous Civil Law Needs: Credit, Debt and Consumer Issues, Australian Competition and Consumer Commission 2015 National Consumer Congress, Sydney, 21 March 2015.
Presentation, National Civil and Family Law Needs of Aboriginal People, Legal Aid NSW Aboriginal Justice Committee, Sydney, 24 April 2015
Reducing Indigenous Mass Incarceration: How Respecting Indigenous Human Rights Can Address the Problem, Public Lecture, Auckland University of Technology, Auckland, 7 October 2015.
Member of Delegation, Vietnam-Australia Human Rights Technical Cooperation Program, Workshops on Prisoner’s Rights, Vietnam Ministry of Public Security and Australian Human Rights Commission, Ho Chi Minh City, 14-16 October 2015; Nha Trang 19-20 October 2015; Ha Long City, 23-24 October 2015.
Panellist, Changing the Record on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Incarceration, ANTAR, UNSW Law Faculty, 10 November 2015.
In 2015 The Cairns Institute set up a new AudioVisual Lab (AVLab) which offers a unique range of audiovisual services to the University and wider community. With expertise developed from various research situations, from small-scale community projects to on-campus workshops and documentary production, the AVLab now provides an array of skills and services necessary for the production of audiovisual research outputs. Bringing high quality production values to projects, small and large, the AVLab aims to make audiovisual presentations come alive with clear sound, multiple camera angles and framing, and dynamic editing.
The AudioVisual Lab services are listed below and packages are put together according to the scope of events and the requirements of clients:
Participatory/Community Based Research Consultancy o Planning and implementation of audiovisual research projects, especially with regard to community oriented
audiovisual representation for Papua New Guinea (PNG) and Australia o Filming, sound recording, photography, and editing for specific research projects; specialising in working in
challenging tropical and remote locations Photography
o Photographic work for research, newsletters, display boards and other publicity material advertising research Audiovisual Recording of Colloquia, Conferences, Talks and Events
o Photography and video recording of events focusing on keynote speakers and presenters, opening events, discussions as required
o Post-production of recorded material: either basic editing only or including additional post-production (audiovisual enhancement, integrating multimedia with recorded material)
o DVD production and web-based materials Online Services
o Audio and video podcasting o Making materials otherwise available on the web (via JCU YouTube channel, ALTAR JCU YouTube channel
or LearnJCU)
cairnsinstitute.jcu.edu.au
