Index
Research team
Professor Jon Altman (ANU)
Altman’s contributions to the broad research field of Indigenous economic development have spanned two disciplines, economics and anthropology, and can be summarized as:
A New Disciplinary Field—The Indigenous Economy: In 1979 as a young development economist I co-authored (with J.P. Nieuwenhuysen) the first book The Economic Status of Australian Aborigines on the national situation of Indigenous Australians (republished by CUP in 2006). This study was the first to look at Indigenous disadvantage from an economic rather than social welfare perspective; placed Indigenous economic development in a comparative international context; and was the first to highlight regional diversity and to use census data to differentiate Indigenous from non-Indigenous Australians. These are now all standard research practices.
Integrating the Economic with Australian Social Anthropology: My PhD and postdoctoral research in the early 1980s resulted in the book Hunter-Gatherers Today that brought an economic focus to contemporary Indigenous ethnography, thus linking Australian anthropology to the vibrant international sub-discipline economic anthropology.
Pioneering Culturally-Informed Economic Analysis: In the 1980s and 1990s I completed a number of culturally-informed research projects about Indigenous engagement with new industries (the visual arts, tourism, mining) and new institutions (land rights and native title). I collaborated with colleague C.A. Gregory to theorise and document this methodology in a book Observing the Economy that has been internationally influential in economic and development anthropology.
Integrating the New ‘Hybrid Economy’ Framework and Natural Resource Management: I have focused my recent research effort on the development of a new theoretical approach that integrates the concept of the hybrid economy (with customary non-market sector) with ecological and Indigenous perspectives. It is this new research field that looks to evaluate the conservation value of the Indigenous estate and the role that proper payment for delivery of environmental services can play in alleviating Indigenous poverty that I now seek to develop.
PhD scholar
Dr Esther Charlesworth (RMIT)
Charlesworth has been researching how to improve the general standard of design and construction in remote Indigenous housing systems since 2005 through a grant from the Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute (AHURI). With Fien, she has developed a Design Framework based upon the principles of sustainability. This has been highly commended by State and Territory departments of housing, with Territory Housing (NT) commissioning the further development of an on-line decision support tool based upon the Design Framework, under the leadership of Charlesworth and Fien.
The transition to focussing on Indigenous housing research is a logical one given that Charlesworth is recognised as one of very few international scholars investigating the role of design professionals in community development, particularly following conflict, natural disaster and social marginalisation. Her key contribution to community-based design has been to develop a multi-disciplinary, research-based approach to working with communities in such a way that participatory approaches to design and construction not only lead to reconstruction of the physical environment but also to enhanced social well being and community economic development.
Her research in the field of community-based design has been funded by grants from the Macarthur Foundation (USA), the Aga Khan Trust for Culture (Geneva), The American Federation of University Women and AHURI.
Professor Michael Christie
Christie has been working with Yolngu (Northeast Arnhemland Aboriginal) people and has been a fluent speaker of their languages since 1972. During that time he has maintained an interest in Yolngu philosophy, and its workings in relation to education, the knowledge economy, communication, representation, governance, science, and agreement making.
In the past few years he has been working with the Yolngu Aboriginal Consultancy Initiative, which aims to professionalise Yolngu consultants, and at the same time, develop agreed methodologies whereby cross-cultural agreement making can be conducted in ways consistent with both non-Indigenous Australian and traditional Aboriginal knowledge practices. This work involves examining and reporting on issues of translation, epistemology, ethics, protocols, and research transfer. Successful examples include collaborative agreement making over ‘benefit sharing’ with royalties at Galiwin’ku, technology and remote family-level microbusiness, Aboriginal ‘long-grassers’ living in Darwin’s public spaces, the experiences of Yolngu public servants in the NT, mathematics as a cultural practice in remote communities, and the potentials of digital multimedia for health interpreting,
Professor John Fien (RMIT)
Fien has been researching in the area of remote Indigenous housing systems only since 2005 through a grant from the Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute. With CI Charlesworth, they have developed a Design Framework based upon the principles of sustainability (Fien et al 2008). This has been highly valued by State and Territory departments of housing and their agencies/departments for Indigenous affairs, with Territory Housing (NT) commissioning the development of an on-line decision support tool based upon the Design Framework. This move into Indigenous housing research is a practical application of earlier research on the relationships between institutional frameworks, knowledge systems and sustainable development.
He is one of a small international group of scholars who have developed and refined the scope and rationale, and associated principles and strategies, of capacity building for sustainable development, especially at the community level and for workforce development. This research has been funded through the ARC (11 grants 1996-2009), three CRCs (1999-2003), the Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute, the National Youth Affairs Research Scheme and international bodies such as OECD, UNESCO and WWF.
Professor Ralph Horne (RMIT)
Ralph Horne has research interests in life-cycle and whole-of-life costing methodologies, which go back some 15 years. He has taught and researched the economics of energy and environmental sustainability, with a multi-disciplinary emphasis that includes life cycle analysis, as well as valuation, perception, participation, policy and regulation.
Since arriving in Melbourne to take up the post of Director of the Centre for Design at RMIT University in February 2005, he has been commissioned by the Australian Greenhouse Office, Sustainability Victoria, and a range of local and state authorities involved in housing provision and sustainability outcomes both nationally and in Victoria, South Australia and the Northern Territory. He has also received grants from the Smart Water fund and from several federal departments for a variety of research projects designed to facilitate reductions in water, materials and energy use.
He also leads two ARC Linkage Grant projects entitled ‘Carbon neutral communities- making the transition’, and ‘Lifetime Affordable Housing: Integrating environmental performance and affordability’. Both projects involve an interdisciplinary combination of quantitative and qualitative data collection and analysis, involving environmental performance of technologies, and the social, economic and cultural context of householders, in order to solve complex problems in housing and sustainability.
Dr Andrew Martell (RMIT)
Andrew joined the Centre for Design (CfD) as the Research Fellow for the ARC Linkage ‘More Than a Roof Overhead’ project. He is also finishing his PhD, ‘Eco-Oikos: The Environmental Economics of Recent High-Density Housing in Melbourne’. Through this work he is interested in tracking changes in the physical and spatial characteristics of some recently constructed student housing developments and is examining the differences between owner-occupier and investment-owner priorities, that is, the shift from housing as home to housing as a commodity.
Andrew’s research work at CfD focuses on how procurement, design, and construction methods and life cycle assessments can be used in innovative ways to enhance ‘non-building’ outcomes in remote Indigenous communities.
Professor Ron Wakefield (RMIT)
Wakefield has a track record of conducting research in construction and most recently in the areas of residential construction and use of information technology. For the six years, 1999-2005, Wakefield was one of the leading researchers in the USA on US Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) funded “Industrializing the Construction Site” project. This project studied many aspects of residential construction including design for assembly, panelization processes and use of information technology to integrate the construction processes. In this project he will be acting as a domain expert in property, construction and project management.
Recent work since returning to Australia has focused on Construction Occupational Health and Safety, Building Information Models, Offsite Fabrication and Sustainable Construction and Sustainability education. Funding support for this work has been received from the ARC Linkage program, the CRC – Construction Innovation, the National Science Foundation, the Australian Greenhouse Office, Office of the Federal Safety Commissioner and AusIndustry.
Megan Worthington (RMIT)
PhD scholar
James Harley
Research Consultant
VirginieBranchurt
Research Assistant