Associate ProfessorHelen Gardner

Helen Gardner completed her PhD thesis in 2000. From 2002 she has lectured in
nineteenth and twentieth century World History and Pacific History at Deakin
University. Helen's research focuses on all aspects of the Pacific Islands.
Her book Gathering for God: George Brown in Oceania, was shortlisted for two
prestigious history awards. She has published on nineteenth century
anthropology, Christian mission, the collection of artifacts, photography and
colonial museums, and has completed a manuscript on nineteenth century
Australian and Pacific anthropology titled Southern Anthropology - A History
of Fison and Howitt's Kamilaroi and Kurnai She has recently undertaken a new
research project on the decolonisation of Melanesia. Her interests include
colonialism and post-colonialism in the Pacific. She is active in the Pacific
History Association and is the external editor of the Journal of Pacific
History.

Helen Gardner began her academic career at the University of Otago, New
Zealand, in 2001. In 2002 she was appointed to Deakin University as a
lecturer in World History and Pacific History.
She is currently working with the Institute in the Contemporary History
Group where she leads research into contemporary and historical Pacific
issues. In 2012 she became the external editor of the Journal of Pacific
History and is a former secretary of the Australian Association for the
Advancement of Pacific Studies.
Helen's most recent publication, co-authored with anthropologist Patrick
McConvell, explores the conception and writing of a nineteenth century book of
Australian anthropology Kamilaroi and Kurnai (1880). Their book Southern
Anthropology - a History of Fison and Howitt's Kamilaroi and Kurnai is based
on archival sources and argues for a reapprasial of Fison and Howitt's
influence on global theories of human variety in the late nineteenth century.

http://www.palgrave.com/page/detail/southern-anthropology-the-history-of-
fison-and-howitts-kamilaroi-and-kurnai-helen-gardner/?K=9781137463807

She is also co-editing an affiliated special issue on the history of
Australian anthropology to be published in Oceania in 2016.

Helen other major project is on the spread of the Boasian culture concept into
the Pacific via the theological colleges, and the influence of these ideas on
the decolonisation of the region. See her co-edited special issue for The
Journal of Pacific History titled ' Decolonisation Melanesia' (2013).

Helen has led a number of research projects including Missions and modernity;
the History of anthropology; Decolonisation in Melanesia.

In 2015 she will present at the Waigani seminar in Papua New Guinea and
undertake a research fellowship at the University of Cambridge.

She is interested in translocal histories and is available for HDR supervision
in the following areas:

History of Anthropology - nineteenth and twentieth centuries

History of Christian Mission in Oceania - nineteenth and twentieth centuries

History of Science in Oceania - nineteenth century

Research Groups
Internationalism in the Pacific: Associate Professor Fiona Paisley, Associate
Professor Christopher Waters, Dr Jonathan Ritchie, Dr Geoff Gray, Dr Helen
Gardner.

Decolonisation in Melanesia: Associate Professor Christopher Waters, Professor
Clive Moore, Professor Judith Bennett, Dr Anne Dixon Waiko, Dr Jonathan
Ritchie, Dr Helen Gardner.

Before the Field, Anthropology in Oceania: Dr Robert Kenny, Dr Martin Thomas,
Dr Samuel Furphy, Dr Bronwen Douglas, Professor Jane Lydon, Associate
Professor Peggy Brock.