Australian Journal of Anthropology最新文献

In this article, I examine the ‘homecoming’ experiences of young second- and third-generation Australian-Hungarians. The aim of the paper is to challenge the compartmentalisation of tourism and migration studies by exploring how these two phenomena intertwine, merge, and influence one another in multiple and fluid ways. Specifically, I attempt to merge the two disciplines by analysing the meta-narratives that have influenced Australian-Hungarian youngsters' experiences in Hungary. In particular, I argue that, alongside images internalised in the diaspora, interlocutors heavily rely on a popular Western backpacker discourse. I demonstrate the ways in which these two meta-narratives are in conflict while at the same time closely inter-related. Specifically, I look at the ways in which the notion of authenticity and the idea of ‘traveller hierarchy’ are borrowed from backpacker discourse, and through them diasporic themes are targeted and deconstructed. I refer to these youngsters as ‘diaspora backpackers’ to indicate that their journeys are influenced by both diaspora life and contemporary youth culture.

This case study contributes to the conceptualisation of, and methodology for, studying caringscapes/carescapes that concern the relations among humans and between human and non-human subjects. It analyses how some local villagers along the Lower Kinabatangan River express their ‘duty of care’ toward the river through their sustained local participation in restorative work by means of such projects as assessing changing water quality in their wetlands. Making sense of their emergent sense of responsibility to foster care for the river entails examining not only how the local sense of place centres upon the river, but also how the river itself affects local communal and personal identity in a two-way flow. This case study highlights the agency of those experiencing the process of socioecological change involving a social learning process covering two decades via learning networks, community participation in citizen science, trust, and leadership by example.

Concepts of solidarity and justice have become salient in relation to tourism. This article describes clandestine activity in the name of solidarity but under the guise of tourism. When Indonesia opened Timor-Leste to tourism in 1988, solidarity activists entered as tourists to obtain information and media that would contradict the official Indonesian position on the status of the territory and its people. Maintaining personae, these activists simulated tourist behaviour in order to avoid detection by the authorities. The information and media they gathered was critical in bringing pressure to bear on Indonesia to resolve the conflict.

In Dili, a new generation of Timorese “foodies” are reshaping the culinary landscape by formulating “Timorese Cuisine.” Armed with mobile devices and active on social media, they seek to build Timor's reputation as a tourist destination by managing consumers' appreciation for “local foods” through a novel “gastro-aesthetics” a culturally inflected field of qualities which contribute to judgements of the “pleasantness,” “beauty,” or “goodness” of food. But bringing Timorese foodways into correspondence with global consumer tastes unsettles their qualitative characteristics and their medical, moral, and cosmological meanings. With cultural politics dominated by resistance heroes and the Indonesian-educated “new generation,” this movement marks a youthful contribution to Timor-Leste's viability through entrepreneurialism. As the country's fossil fuel economy is challenged by climate change, and tourism promoted as a sustainable alternative, configuring “Timorese Cuisine” is an element of nation-branding at once elevates and diminishes the efficacies of “local foods” as social substances.

This paper examines wine drinking among English and Australian women to discover and analyse the connection between their consumption of wine and their experiences, thoughts and imaginings. Comparing the experiences of women from the English town of Halifax with women from the southern suburbs of Adelaide and McLaren Vale (South Australia), I show how imbibing wine enables both groups of women to consume place, space and time, thus extending a liminal experience. Importantly, both groups of women engage with notions of national or regional identity. However, whereas English women typically experience wine drinking as a temporal engagement of social imagination involving a form of armchair alco-tourism, Australian women mostly engage their social memory, and experience wine drinking as embedded within imagined communities of belonging. As such, this study demonstrates that wine drinking is not just gendered, but a complex, culturally situated practice and experience.

Field access is frequently regarded as a mere practical step in the research process, with insufficient attention given to its broader implications. Numerous writings that focus on gaining field access offer just a collection of practical tips. While these recommendations are valuable, they are specific to each setting and individual experiences. Such an ad hoc approach fosters a limited understanding of the research permit application process and limits the discussion of access by disregarding its inherent uncertainty and its manifold consequences. In authoritarian contexts, obtaining field access remains highly uncertain and can be further complicated by arbitrary decision-making. This article demonstrates that in Vietnam, social scientists, including anthropologists, must navigate ambiguous processes of trial-and-error to secure field access. With the term ‘trial-and-error’ we refer to an approach to problem-solving in which various methods are attempted. Proceeding through trial-and-error involves familiarisation, networking, and improvisation. Based on 15 years of experience working in Vietnam we provide evidence that the process of trial-and-error is inherent in all three aspects. Beyond the issues surrounding access for foreign researchers, our observations also underscore the pivotal role of trial-and-error as a mechanism that Vietnamese citizens employ to navigate the uncertainties and arbitrariness associated with bureaucracy.

This audio-visual essay works with the epistemic imperatives of our research subject—the sands and saltwater of a small stretch of coastline in northern Australia. Orchestrating a series of sounds and images together with a gentle rhythm of text-based Yolŋu (human/Indigenous) elaboration, we seek to enable others to attune to a material dynamics of collaboration and co-creation made manifestly palpable in the kinetic zones of coastal life. Rather than either simply telling, or showing, we invite our ‘readers’ to enter into a slow process of attuning to the forms of sensuous instruction offered directly from the wäŋa (land, environment, Country). In this way we orientate towards research as a shared and emergent processes of becoming knowledgeable with more-than-human worlds. The result is a Yolŋu-led digital experiment in sovereign knowledge production: a modelling of a site-specific, participatory onto-epistemics intended to inspire others towards the possibilities of creative, relational modes of more-than-human research.

This essay argues for design as an expression of analytic rigour and ethical commitment. It explores what it might mean to ‘write’ in collaboration with the entities and forces from Country, ancestors, oceans, soil, honeyeaters, sound, wild bores, frogs, fire, ash, sand, trees, and echoes, to colour, code, bitrates, cameras, computers, and archives. Every design decision in ‘Epistemic attunements’ was conceptually-motivated and informed by an anthropologically-attuned sensibilty. It was never simply a case of making things look ‘beautiful’. The analytic force of the design propelled our intermedial arguments forward, but also sideways, down through layers, into shifts of sensation and abrupt moments of pause for specific critical effect.