Professor Rosita Henry is an anthropologist whose research concerns the political economy of public performances, cultural festivals, heritage claims and disputes, land tenure conflict and the relationship between Indigenous peoples and the state. In that regard, she has worked, and continues to work, on a number of related research projects, with particular ethnographic focus on peoples and societies in the tropical north of Australia and in Papua New Guinea.

Teaching

• AN1001: Anthropology: Cultural Diversity in Global Perspective (Level 1; TSV)
• AN2106: Anthropology of Violence: The State, Politics and Citizens (Level 2; TSV)
• AN3008: Myth, Ritual and Religion (Level 3; CNS & TSV)
• AN4007: Ethnographic Research Methods (Level 4; CNS & TSV)

Interests

Research

• Cultural festivals in Australia and the Pacific: I collaborated with Barbara Glowczewski (CNRS) and Marcia Langton (University of Melbourne), to establish in 2003 a French/Australian network: Strategies of Communication: Cultural festivals and New Technologies. The key outcome of this collaboration was the book Le Défi Indigène, Entre Spectacle et Politique (2007), which has since been updated and published in English by Bardwell Press, Oxford as The Challenge of Indigenous People: Spectacle or Politics? (2011). For the past 4 years I have been a member of Pacific Alternatives, a major research programme involving an international network of researchers working on political innovation and heritage in Oceania, led by Professor Edvard Hviding and funded by the Norwegian Research Council through the University of Bergen. My project within this programme was entitled Intangible cultural heritage and the innovative politics of cultural festivals in Australia and the Pacific. I am continuing to do research on the Festival of Pacific Arts and the Laura Aboriginal Dance and Cultural Festival (although currently unfunded) and did fieldwork in July 2012 in the Solomon Islands (self-funded).
• Objects of Possession: Artefact Transactions in the Wet Tropics of North Queensland: I am the team leader of this ARC Discovery project, conducted in collaboration with Associate Professor Russell McGregor, Dr Michael Wood, Dr Shelley Greer, Professor Ton Otto and Dr Maureen Fuary. The project concerns ethnographic collecting in the Wet Tropics of North Queensland and contemporary Indigenous engagement with the ‘artefacts’ collected. We seek to explore the diverse ways in which Aboriginal peoples, collectors and museums have expressed their interests and property rights and values in the collected artefacts.
• Place Value, Agency and Social Change in Western Highlands, PNG: I am in the process of researching and writing a biographical ethnography on politics and changing values of land in Papua New Guinea, focusing on the life of a woman of the Western Highlands, Maggie Wilson.
• Cosmo-Political Landscapes (Cape York-Torres Strait): I am collaborating on a project (currently unfunded) led by Dr Shelley Greer and Dr Susan McIntyre- Tamwoy aiming to understand historical cosmo-political landscapes in the borderlands between Australia and Papua New Guinea. We are focusing on mainland (Australian Aboriginal) contributions to networks of trade and exchange through Cape York-Torres Strait, and how these have changed as a result of colonization processes and climate change.
• Planning for Later Life among Papua New Guineans in North Queensland. ARC Discovery project. The study is being conducted with Dr Michael Wood, James Cook University, and Professor Karen Sykes, University of Manchester, England. The study will contribute to our understanding of the importance of intergenerational kinship relations in the care of the elderly.

Experience

• 1992 to 2013 - Anthropologist, James Cook University (Townsville)

Fellowships

• Research Fellow, The Cairns Institute
• Fellow, Australian Anthropological Society

Memberships

• Member, Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies

Other

• 2013 - President Emerita, Australian Anthropological Society
• 2011 to 2012 - President, Australian Anthropological Society

These are the most recent publications associated with this author. To see a detailed profile of all publications stored at JCU, visit ResearchOnline@JCU. Hover over Altmetrics badges to see social impact.

Journal Articles

• Henry R and Vávrová D (2016) An extraordinary wedding: some reflections on the ethics and aesthetics of authorial strategies in ethnographic filmmaking. Anthrovision, 4 (1). pp. 1-19
• Henry R (2016) From flame to fame: transformation of firesticks to art in North Queensland. Memoirs of the Queensland Museum, Cultural Heritage Series, 10. pp. 59-76
• Cooper T, Furtado A, Henry R and Crayn D (2015) Analysis of the chloroplast genome of a coffee relative from northern Australia. Acta Horticulturae, XXIX. pp. 177-182
• Greer S, Henry R and Mcintyre-Tamwoy S (2015) Mainland magic: interpreting cultural influences across Cape York–Torres Strait. Quaternary International, 385. pp. 69-78
• Henry R (2015) Double displacement: Indigenous Australians and artefacts of the Wet Tropics. Anthropological Forum, 25 (4). pp. 370-383
• Henry R and Foana'ota L (2015) Heritage transactions at the Festival of Pacific Arts. International Journal of Heritage Studies, 21 (2). pp. 133-152
• Mcintyre-Tamwoy S, Greer S and Henry R (2015) Last days on Pabaju: a stone arrangement on Albany Island Cape York Peninsula, Queensland, Australia. Quaternary International, 385. pp. 79-87
• Aaberge B, Barnard T, Greer S and Henry R (2014) Designs on the future: Aboriginal painted shields and baskets of tropical North Queensland, Australia. Etropic: electronic journal of studies in the tropics, 13 (2). pp. 56-74
• Glowczewski B, Henry R and Otto T (2013) Relations and products: dilemmas of reciprocity in fieldwork. Asia Pacific Journal of Anthropology, 14 (2). pp. 113-125
• Henry R, Otto T and Wood M (2013) Ethnographic artifacts and value transformations. HAU: Journal of Ethnographic Theory, 3 (2). pp. 33-51

Book Chapters

• Henry R (2015) State effects and festival performances: Indigenous Australian participation in the Festival of Pacific Arts. In: Pacific Alternatives: cultural politics in contemporary Oceania. Sean Kingston Publishing, Canon Pyon, UK, pp. 27-45
• Henry R (2013) Being and belonging: exchange, value, and land ownership in the Western Highlands of Papua New Guinea. In: Possession and Ownership: a cross-linguistic typology. Explorations in Linguistic Typology. Oxford University Press, Oxford, pp. 274-290

Current and recent Research Funding to JCU is shown by funding source and project.

Advisory Accreditation: I can be on your Advisory Panel as a Primary or Secondary Advisor.

These Higher Degree Research projects are either current or by students who have completed their studies within the past 5 years at JCU. Linked titles show theses available within ResearchOnline@JCU.

Current

• Luksave em bikpla samting!' Witnessing violence; in Papua New Guinea (PNG) (PhD , Secondary Advisor)
• A Study of the Historical, Socio-Cultural and Aesthetic Dynamics of the Spanish Bullfighting (PhD , Secondary Advisor)
• The Late Howard Mcnickle (Masters , Secondary Advisor)
• Medical Pluralism in Public Health in Australia (PhD , Advsor Mentor)
• Bridging the Divide in Heritage? Archaeology, Heritage Management and the Sepon Gold & Copper Mine, Lao PDR (PhD , Associate Advisor)
• Time, Place, Memory and Identity in the literature of Australian South Sea Islanders. (PhD , Associate Advisor)
• Kuku Yalanji Artefacts and Traditional Knowledge in the Past and the Present (PhD , Associate Advisor)
• Articulating Country (PhD , Primary Advisor)
• The Movement of Things - The Lives and Relationships of Eighteenth Century Polynesian Artifacts from HMS Pandora (PhD , Primary Advisor)
• Clinical Culture and Moral Reasoning: The Ethics of End-of Life Decisions. (PhD , Secondary Advisor)
• A Grammar of Meriam Mir (PhD , Secondary Advisor)
• Evaluating and Comparing Empowerment and Participation of Women for Community Development and Social Change in Mine and non-Mine Communitites in Papua New Guinea. (PhD , Secondary Advisor)
• Image-ining Modernity: A Comparative Collaborative Ethnography of Future-Making Through Experimental Video Arts in Australia and Benin. (PhD , Secondary Advisor)
• Art and Identity: Aboriginal Rock Art and Dendroglyphs of Queensland’s Wet Tropics (PhD , Secondary Advisor)
• Deaths out of Custody (PhD , Secondary Advisor)
• Recasting the Past: Modern Cultural Heirs of Ancient Civilizations (PhD , Secondary Advisor)
• The functions and contents of the Spindle Whorls in Thai Prehistory with the particular reference to the site of Ban Non Wat (PhD , Secondary Advisor)

Completed

• Hunters and Collectors: Misappropriation and Misrepresentation of Indigenised Motifs on Domestic Home Wares and Souvenirs: An Analysis of the Glenn Cooke Collection.;; (2014, Masters , Secondary Advisor)
• Framing Culture: Indigenous Fine Art in Far North Queensland. (2014, PhD , Secondary Advisor)
• Cultural negotiations in transnational knowledge: cases of clinical psychology from the Malay Archipelago and beyond (2015, Masters , Associate Advisor)
• 'I'm white, she's black, so what'? : telling stories of gender, race and interracial romance in Australia (2015, Masters , Primary Advisor)
• The British acquisition of New Holland: a residuum of allodial sovereignties? (2015, PhD , Primary Advisor)
• Coral, culture, and climate change: 'facts that matter' for the atoll island community of Moch, Chuuk, Federated States of Micronesia (2015, PhD , Primary Advisor)
• Il y a beaucoup d'histoire ici: histoire, mémoire et subjectivité chez les habitants aborigènes de Palm Island (Australie) (2012, PhD , Primary Advisor)
• Men bathe upstream, women bathe downstream: gender, natural resource management and development in rural Solomon Islands (2016, PhD , Primary Advisor)
• Rimbunan Hijau: The Quest for Power, Capital and Culture. An Anthropological Study of a Sino-Malaysian Corporation (2017, PhD , Secondary Advisor)
• Who cares? Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health care choices and access barriers in Mount Isa (2012, PhD , Primary Advisor)
• From a distant shore: practices of place-making and belonging among Tokelau migrants in North Queensland (2013, PhD , Primary Advisor)
• People-Centered Innovation in Cultural Heritage Communication (2013, PhD , Secondary Advisor)
• Culture, economy and identity: a study of the Oraon ethnic community in the Barind region of Bangladesh (2015, PhD , Primary Advisor)