Jon Altman
Jon Altman is Director of the Centre for Aboriginal Economic Policy Research at The Australian National University, Canberra. He has a disciplinary background in economics and anthropology. Professor Altman has undertaken research in the Maningrida region and with the Bawinanga Aboriginal Corporation since 1979 on a diversity of issues, including the customary economy, resource management, land rights and the outstations movement, the arts industry, and the Community Development Employment Projects scheme. His current research focuses on the Indigenous hybrid economy in the tropical savanna, and the potential of equitable payment for environmental services delivered to provide viable livelihood options for Indigenous people.
Manuhuia Barcham
Manuhuia Barcham is the former Director of the Centre for Indigenous Governance and Development at Massey University, New Zealand, and is now a Director of Synexe, a private sector research and consulting firm. He has field experience in eastern Indonesia, Melanesia, Australasia, eastern Polynesia and North America. A key practical goal of his work is to explore how indigenous and introduced governance structures and processes can come together constructively so as to maximise their developmental utility for local communities.
Sarah Holcombe
Sarah Holcombe is a social anthropologist and Research Fellow at the National Centre for Indigenous Studies at The Australian National University. Prior to this she was a Postdoctoral Fellow and Research Fellow at the Centre for Aboriginal Economic Policy Research (CAEPR) on two Australian Research Council projects: ‘Indigenous community organisations and miners: partnering sustainable regional development?’ and the ‘Indigenous Community Governance Project’. The research in the latter project was also supported by the Desert Knowledge Cooperative Research Centre (CRC) as part of the ‘Sustainable Settlements’ research program. In her later period at CAEPR Dr Holcombe also held the position of Social Science Coordinator for the Desert Knowledge CRC. She has a balance of applied and academic anthropology, having worked earlier for the Central and Northern Land Councils as a regional staff anthropologist.
Janet Hunt
Janet Hunt is a Fellow at the Centre for Aboriginal Economic Policy Research at The Australian National University where she manages the Indigenous Community Governance Project. She has worked for many years in international development with a particular focus on non-government organisations (NGOs), gender and development, and the Pacific and South East Asia regions. She was Executive Director of the Australian Council for Overseas Aid, the peak body of international development NGOs, from 1995–2000. Since 1999 she has worked with a range of local and international NGOs in East Timor. She has published about education, aid and development, East Timor, and Indigenous governance; and has lectured in international and community development at RMIT and Deakin universities. Her most recent book, co-authored with four others, is International Development: Issues and Challenges, published by Palgrave in 2008.
Bill Ivory
Bill Ivory is a PhD scholar with Charles Darwin University/Menzies School of Health Research in Darwin, Northern Territory (NT). He has a background in anthropology and community development. Bill has worked in Indigenous affairs since 1972 with the NT and Commonwealth Governments. He graduated from the Australian School of Pacific Administration in 1972, and since then has been involved primarily as a field operative with projects in remote community contexts. Bill has a special interest in the sphere of Indigenous economic development. During the late 1990s he was a ministerial adviser to the NT Minister for Aboriginal Affairs. Since 2002, he has worked intensively in the Port Keats region in the northwest of the NT, with a specific focus on Indigenous leadership development.
Christina Lange
Christina Lange has worked with Aboriginal organisations and government agencies for over 20 years, predominantly in the areas of native title, social justice and capacity development. Christina is an accredited trainer and assessor, and uses this qualification in her work with organisations to develop their capacity in governance and strategic planning. Christina has an honours (first class) degree in anthropology from The University of Western Australia (UWA), and is currently undertaking PhD research on a postgraduate award from UWA. Her research on governance and service delivery in remote Western Australia is supported by the Indigenous Community Governance Project, on which she is a research collaborator.
Frances Morphy
Frances Morphy is a Fellow at the Centre for Aboriginal Economic Policy Research (CAEPR) at The Australian National University. An anthropologist and linguist, she has worked with Yolngu people of northeast Arnhem Land over a period of nearly 35 years. She is editor of Agency, Contingency and Census Process: Observations of the 2006 Enumeration Strategy in Remote Australia (CAEPR Monograph No. 28, ANU E Press, 2007), which reports on her research with other CAEPR colleagues on the 2006 Census, and co-editor of The Social Effects of Native Title: Recognition, Translation, Coexistence (CAEPR Monograph No. 27, ANU E Press 2007), which includes a chapter in which she reflects on the response of the Yolngu applicants to their involvement in the Blue Mud Bay native title claim.
Will Sanders
Will Sanders joined the staff of the Centre for Aboriginal Economic Policy Research at The Australian National University (ANU) in 1993, having previously undertaken research and taught in three other departments of the ANU. Will's disciplinary training is in politics and public administration. He has, over the last 25 years, worked on many aspects of Australian Indigenous affairs policy, from housing, employment and inclusion in the social security system, to local government, inter-governmental relations and elections.
Benjamin Smith
Benjamin Richard Smith is currently Honorary Visiting Fellow at the University of Manchester and Visiting Fellow at the Centre for Aboriginal Economic Policy Research (CAEPR). His research interests include the social effects of customary land claims, the relationship between Indigenous Australians and the state, and the intercultural character of contemporary Indigenous life-worlds. He has carried out both academic and applied research with Aboriginal people in Cape York Peninsula and other locations across northern Queensland. His recent publications include The Social Effects of Native Title: Recognition, Translation, Coexistence (CAEPR Research Monograph No. 27), co-edited with Frances Morphy. He is currently working on a book, Between People, Between Places: The Grounds of Sociality in Central Cape York Peninsula.
Diane Smith
Diane Smith is an anthropologist with over 35 years field and research experience with Indigenous Australian communities and organisations in remote, rural and urban locations across Australia. Along with Mick Dodson, Jon Altman and Will Sanders she is a chief investigator on the Indigenous Community Governance Project and has undertaken related field-based case studies in West Arnhem Land and Newcastle, and research analysis of Western Australian, Northern Territory and Australian government policy and funding frameworks. She has carried out applied research and published widely on issues including Indigenous poverty, the socioeconomic status of families and households, the Community Development Employment Projects scheme, family welfare and community participation agreements, Indigenous land tenure systems, land rights and native title, resource development agreements and royalty associations, representative Indigenous organisations, regional and community governance, and evaluation of changing government policy and funding arrangements in Indigenous affairs. Diane has been a member of the National Native Title Tribunal; is a member of the New South Wales Indigenous Dispute Resolution Reference Group; and has sat on numerous Indigenous organisational reviews and inquiries over the last three decades. She is currently a Visiting Fellow at the Centre for Aboriginal Economic Policy Research, and a principal consultant with Westbury Smith and Associates.
Kathryn Thorburn
Kathryn Thorburn is a PhD scholar on the Indigenous Community Governance Project at the Centre for Aboriginal Economic Policy Research, The Australian National University. Her disciplinary background is in geography and politics. Her PhD will examine the governance practice of two Indigenous organisations: one in Fitzroy Crossing, the other based at Kupartiya around 120 kilometres to the east of Fitzroy Crossing. Both are situated in the West Kimberley. As part of the doctoral process she spent 2005–2006 living in and around Fitzroy Crossing, and working with communities associated with each organisation.