DrJason Gibson

I am a museum anthropologist who has worked extensively with Aboriginal custodians on cultural heritage related projects for the past 25 years. I have led some of the largest digitisation and repatriation projects in undertaken in Australia, in coordination with multiple Indigenous communities, museums, art galleries and libraries, both in Australia and internationally. 

My research examines the history of anthropology, in particular anthropological collections, and their relevance in the 21^st Century. Interrogating these collections with contemporary Indigenous communities is at the heart of my research practice. Extensive fieldwork experience in central Australia has also led to the Ingkantety project, an initiative led by the Laramba community in the Northern Territory to record Anmatyerr ceremonial practices and knowledge. 

This work has resulted in three books:

Ceremony Men: Making Ethnography and the Return of the Strehlow Collection (SUNY Press, New York 2020) – Winner of the 2022 W.K. Hancock Prize presented by the Australian Historical Association; Shortlisted for the 2021 Prime Minister's Literary Awards; Winner of the 2021 Council for Museum Anthropology Book Award presented by the Council for Museum Anthropology (CMA), a section of the American Anthropological Association

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

Birrundudu Drawings (Upswell, Perth 2025) with John Carty, Alistair Paterson, Luke Scholes, Jessyca Hutchens and Stephen Gilchrist

I am also the convenor of the People, Place and Heritage Research Stream at the Deakin Institute of Citizenship and Globalisation and co-editor of Museums Worlds: Advances in Research (Berghahn Open Anthro initiative).

Prospective students are welcome to get in touch if their interests span Aboriginal Australia, Indigenous studies, repatriation, museums and society, anthropology and ethnographic collections, or the history of Indigenous peoples and anthropology.