SSSWARM Seminar Series | Ethnography in the archive: listening, being, and doing in archival collections

Hosted by Sydney Staff & Student Workshops on Anthropology, Research, and Methods (SSSWARM) and the School of Social and Political Sciences.

Speaker: Henrietta Byrne (University of Sydney)

This presentation utilises reflections from Henrietta’s 2021 doctoral fieldwork to explore how anthropologists can bring ethnographic attention to archival materials. As part of her study on the legacies of nuclear testing on Anangu lands and peoples, she spent time in the National Archives of Australia (NAA) and Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies (AIATSIS) archives, examining documents from the 1984 Royal Commission into British Nuclear Testing. She considers how archives can be rich sites for ethnography and how anthropologists can engage with colonial archival collections without upholding their epistemic power.

Contact Michael Edwards with any questions about the SSSWARM Seminar Series: michael.edwards@sydney.edu.au

For more info on SSSWARM: https://sophiechao.wixsite.com/ssswarm