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Dr

Jason Gibson

Senior Research Fellow, DECRA

Faculty of Arts and Education/Alfred Deakin Institute/Alfred Deakin Institute for Citizenship and Globalisation

Orcid identifier0000-0001-8254-587X
  • Senior Research Fellow, DECRA
    Faculty of Arts and Education/Alfred Deakin Institute/Alfred Deakin Institute for Citizenship and Globalisation
  • Melbourne Burwood Campus, 221 Burwood Highway, Burwood, Victoria 3125

BIO

I am a anthropologist specialising in museums and collections research. I have worked extensively with Aboriginal custodians throughout Australia on history, museum, and heritage related projects and conducted detailed fieldwork in central Australia for the past 20 years. I have worked as a consultant to a number of government and non-government agencies, and also as a Repatriation Curator with the Melbourne Museum's First Peoples Department and has taught Indigenous Studies at Monash University.

My previous work as a museum curator and an a researcher in Indigenous settings in Australia has led me to investigate the history of ethnographic collections and anthropology; knowledge production; theories of interculturality and relationality; and processes of repatriation and their affects. My extensive fieldwork experience in central Australia has also led to the documentation of Anmatyerr ceremonial, song and religious traditions. This work is grounded in collaborative ethnographic methods and explores how communities use and interrogate the methods and principles of salvage anthropology in the 21st Century.

I have published two books:

Ceremony Men: Making Ethnography and the Return of the Strehlow Collection (SUNY Press, 2020)

Repatriation of Indigenous Cultural Heritage Experiences of Return in Central Australia (Routledge, 2024)

I have also worked on some of the largest digitisation and repatriation projects of Indigenous cultural heritage in Australia with Indigenous communities, museums, galleries and libraries. See links on the teal bar (to the left) for access to some of the larger repatriation and digitisation projects I have been involved in.

I am always keen to hear from prospective postgraduate students so please do not hesitate to get in touch.

DEAKIN UNIVERSITY CURRENT APPOINTMENT

  • Senior Research Fellow, DECRA
    Deakin University, Alfred Deakin Institute

MEDIA

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ACADEMIC POSITIONS

  • Lecturer
    Monash University, Melbourne, Monash Indigenous Studies Centre, Melbourne, Australia3 Jul 2017 - 1 Nov 2017

NON-ACADEMIC POSITIONS

  • Curator
    Museum Victoria, Melbourne, Humanities, Melbourne, Australia1 Aug 2013 - 1 Aug 2016

DEGREES

  • Doctor of Philosophy
    Monash University

FIELDS OF RESEARCH (2020)

  • Heritage, archive and museum studies
  • Historical studies
  • Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander culture, language and history
  • Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander curatorial, archives and museum studies
  • Social and cultural anthropology

AREA/FACULTY

  • Faculty of Arts and Education

DEPARTMENT/SCHOOL/INSTITUTE

  • Alfred Deakin Institute

STRATEGIC RESEARCH AND INNOVATION CENTRE

  • Alfred Deakin Institute for Citizenship and Globalisation

RESEARCH STRENGTHS