National Museum of Australia – Audio on demand program
Summary: The National Museum of Australia's audio series explores Australia's social history: Indigenous people, their cultures and histories, the nation's history since 1788, and the interaction of Australians with the land and environment. The series includes talks by curators, conservators, historians, environmental scientists and other specialists.
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- Artist: National Museum of Australia
- Copyright: © 2007-2018 National Museum of Australia
Podcasts:
Ian McIntosh examines how Yolngu people negotiated disclosure and concealment in relation to Bayini bark paintings. What did they tell Charles Mountford about it and why? What did they tell other anthropologists and how is that issue significant?
Tony MacGregor examines the 1948 ABC radio feature about the Expedition both as a remarkable contemporary account and as a media object of an emerging form - the radio documentary feature.
Robyn McKenzie examines Fred McCarthy's celebrated collection of Yirrkala string figures as artefacts of cross-cultural exchange, looking at problems of definition, description, interpretation and analysis.
Jon Altman describes transformations in the customary economy of Aboriginal people in western Arnhem Land over 60 years - a comparative analysis made possible because of research undertaken by Frederick McCarthy and Margaret McArthur in 1948.
Gerald Blitner served as a guide and translator for the Expedition. Here, Martin Thomas explores his oral testimony alongside archival evidence, including observations recorded by the Expedition party, to unpack their intercultural exchanges.
Sally K May provides a historical overview of the Expedition, its planning and execution.
Closing remarks from the Barks, Birds and Billabongs symposium.
Adrienne Kaeppler, Curator of Oceanic Ethnology at the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History, provides an overview of the museum's Australian collections, focusing on the Arnhem Land collection which comprises more than 400 artefacts.
Dr Anne Clarke and Ms Ursula Frederick revisit Frederick McCarthy's research in relation to their own more recent analyses of rock art sites on Groote Eylandt, using sites that were not recorded in 1948, and focusing on cross-cultural interaction.
Whereas the 1948 Expedition presented vast collections of plant and animal life classified according to Linnaean taxonomy, Ad Borsboom explores how the Yolngu organise and present knowledge through mythological Dreaming stories.
Kim Beazley situates the 1948 Expedition in the context of postwar international relations.
Charles Mountford lacked formal credentials as an anthropologist or scientist, yet he led the largest and most complex scientific expedition to remote Australia. Dr Philip Jones explores Mountford's contribution and the controversy around his leadership.
Suzy Russell describes the Mountford-Sheard collection at the State Library of South Australia, shares insights recorded by Bessie Mountford in a journal she kept during the Expedition, and considers some Expedition controversies.
Expedition botanist Raymond Louis Specht is interviewed by Martin Thomas.
Mark Jenkins explores the role played by the Expedition's primary American sponsor - National Geographic - and its intrepid representative, Howell Walker.
