NEWS FROM THE DIRECTOROne of the aims of Integrated Human Studies is to understand what it means to be human, and here at the School of Anatomy and Human Biology at UWA a great deal of research is carried out into what humans are and what they do. Increasingly the research takes into account not just scientific aspects but also social and cultural considerations. A recently completed doctorate by Susan Clifford looked into the effects of Fly In Fly Out (FIFO) work practices in the mining industry on health and relationships. This research showed that popular conceptions about the disruptive effects of FIFO are largely overstated, and many men and women enjoy the benefits of good incomes without experiencing bad relationship or health outcomes. A small proportion of employees and partners, however, find FIFO routines stressful, and Susan points out the possible applications of her work in preventing problems or providing appropriate support. A report on her research is available on our website at http://www.ihs.uwa.edu.au/research/mining. Susan is now employed at the Murdoch Children’s Research Institute, located at the Royal Children’s Hospital, Melbourne, researching childhood obesity.
Professor Neville Bruce
Director, Centre for Integrated Human Studies
NEXT SEMINAR: MULTICULTURALISM: SEPTEMBER 9
“What we need is a great big melting pot.”
Australia has boosted its population through immigration, and Australians are peaceful, tolerant people. Has multiculturalism succeeded here, or are there new stresses and considerations? Chair Prof Dennis Haskell introduces Suresh Rajan, President of the Ethnic Communities Council of WA, who will give an overview of multiculturalism in Western Australia; Maria Grade Godinho, who speaks about personal experience of being a migrant to Australia; and Dr Daniel Stepniak, who will speak about legal issues around cultural diversity.The seminar is in Seminar room 1.81 at the School of Anatomy and Human Biology, UWA, at the usual time of 530 – 7 pm.
NOTES FROM THE LAST SEMINAR, TELLING OUR STORY
Professor Carmen Lawrence, chairing the meeting, observed that telling stories is critical to our ability to understand ourselves. The Centre for Integrated Human Studies seminar series, in drawing threads together from different perspectives, created stories that contributed to fuller understanding. The suppression of indigenous stories was a common part of colonial histories, and the topic of the seminar, “Telling our story”, addressed the issue of Indigenous history and culture.
Aileen Marwung Walsh, a history lecturer, explained the origin of her name and talked about her family background and country. She took her grandmother’s name, Marwung, to maintain the connection with the Indigenous side of her family, to balance the Irish side. Members of her family came from wide areas of inland Western Australian, so she simply says she comes from the Nullarbor. Aileen’s PhD research is about the names of Aboriginal people of the nineteenth century. Many Aboriginal names were lost to recorded and oral history when entire families were wiped out in epidemics or massacres. Aileen tracks names and Indigenous family movements through historical colonial records and family documents. Aboriginal people were often given English names by settler families for whom they worked; these names may have been an approximate Anglicisation of their language name, or simply an English name. For example, a man named Cabbage was also known as Gidgup and Macintosh throughout his long life. He worked for the Dempster family and moved with them to Esperance, dying there at the age of 86. This man had eight or nine promised or “inherited” wives, and many children. How English names were acquired is an area of interest. Aileen thought the name “Frying Pan” might have derived from Banjo Paterson’s poem “Frying Pan’s Theology” – but the appearance of the name in records pre-dates the publication of the poem. The name Banjo itself was commonly used by Aborigines, and may be an Anglicisation of an Aboriginal name. The name Sambo was also common, but pre-dates the story “Little Black Sambo”. In fact Sambo is an African day-name that was common among slaves, and still has those derogatory connotations. The literature of the time was clearly a source of names, with many Freddys and Fridays deriving from the Robinson Crusoe character Man Friday, while the Trilbys were inspired by the du Maurier novel Trilby and Topsy came from Uncle Tom’s Cabin. “Skin-the-Goat” comes from a figure from Irish history. Aileen uses literature not only to find the source of Aboriginal names, but also to find out about people’s attitudes of the time, unconsciously revealed by authors. Non contemporaneous fiction, such as Matthew Kneale’s English Passengers (Knopf Doubleday, 2007), could give imaginative insight into historical events and inform research. Aileen finished by saying that Indigenous oral history needed to be written so that it was not lost; and that her research aimed to contextualise the individuals whose names she tracked.
