Biography
Melinda Hinkson is an Associate Professor of Anthropology. She has wide ranging interests in the faultlines of settler colonial Australia, the governance of indigenous difference, displacement and placemaking practices, and the challenges of coexistence. Much of Melinda's work is informed by long standing research relationships with Warlpiri people of Central Australia as well as an abiding interest in visual culture.
Prior to joining Deakin University in late 2015, Melinda lectured in social anthropology and interdisciplinary visual culture studies at the Australian National University.
Read more on Melinda's profileResearch interests
Between 2014 and 2018 I was the recipient of an Australian Research Council Future Fellowship for a project entitled ‘Place and Displacement in Aboriginal Australia: A Warlpiri Visual Cultural Enquiry’. This research explored intersections between modes of governance, forced and voluntary displacement, cultures of seeing, and creative placemaking in central Australia and beyond. The first stage of this research was published as Remembering the Future: Warlpiri Life Through the Prism of Drawing (Aboriginal Studies Press, 2014) and an associated exhibition for the National Museum of Australia. The second phase resulted in an ethnography of displacement, See How We Roll: Enduring Exile Between Desert and Urban Australia (Duke University Press, 2021).
I have published widely on the complex cultural politics of the Northern Territory Intervention and co-edited (with Jon Altman) two books examining its wide-ranging ramifications, Coercive Reconciliation: Stabilise, Normalise, Exit Aboriginal Australia (Arena Publications, 2007) and Culture Crisis: Anthropology and Politics in Aboriginal Australia (UNSW Press, 2010).
I have undertaken research on the lifework of celebrated Australian anthropologist WEH Stanner and co-edited (with Jeremy Beckett) An Appreciation of Difference: WEH Stanner and Aboriginal Australia (Aboriginal Studies Press, 2008).
My book Aboriginal Sydney: A Guide to Important Places of the Past and Present (Aboriginal Studies Press, 2001) is an accessible and engaging cultural history as well as a usable guidebook.
From 2021 a new research direction sees me examining transformations in people / place relationships in north-western Victoria. I am exploring shifting farming and food production practices, and ideas for regional revitalisation against the pressing backdrop of climate change.
Affiliations
Director, Institute for Postcolonial Studies
Teaching interests
I welcome enquiries from prospective higher degree students on any aspect of my research interests.
Knowledge areas
Anthropology of Aboriginal Australia
Visual anthropology and visual culture studies
Mediations of social life
Postcolonial placemaking
History of Australian Anthropology
Professional activities
Fellow, Australian Anthropological Association
Fellow, American Anthropological Association
Fellow, European Association of Social Anthropologists
Member, Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies
Convening Editor, Postcolonial Studies
Arena Publications Editor
Editorial board member: Visual Studies (UK), Visual Ethnography (Italy), Australian Aboriginal Studies, The Australian-Pacific Journal of Anthropology
Projects
Australian Research Council Future Fellowship: 'Place and displacement in Aboriginal Australia: A Warlpiri Visual Cultural Enquiry' FT130101280
Publications
Contesting rural Australia in the time of accelerating climate change
Melinda Hinkson
(2022), Vol. 95, pp. 50-57, Journal of Rural Studies, Amsterdam, The Netherlands, C1
See how we roll : enduring exile between desert and urban Australia
Melinda Hinkson
(2021), Durham. NC., A1
Melinda Hinkson
(2021), Vol. 13, pp. 55-60, Anthropology Now, London, Eng., C1
Lurching between consensus and chaos: shades of populism in Australian Indigenous Affairs
Melinda Hinkson, Jon Altman
(2019), Vol. 18, pp. 74-96, Democracy's Paradox: Populism and its Contemporary Crisis, New York, N.Y., B1
Locating a zeitgeist: Displacement, becoming and the end of alterity
M Hinkson
(2019), Vol. 39, pp. 371-388, Critique of Anthropology, London, England, C1
Imaging crisis in Indigenous Australia and Canada: towards an analysis of neoliberal primitivism
M Hinkson, L Fullenwieder
(2019), Vol. 34, pp. 164-181, Visual studies, Abingdon, Eng., C1
M Hinkson
(2018), pp. 3207-3216, The International Encyclopedia of Anthropology, Sussex, UK, B1
In and out of place: ethnography as 'journeying with' between central and South Australia
M Hinkson
(2018), Vol. 88, pp. 254-268, Oceania, Chichester, Eng., C1
Shifting Indigenous Australian realities: dispersal, damage, and resurgence: introduction
M Hinkson, E Vincent
(2018), Vol. 88, pp. 240-253, Oceania, Chichester, Eng., C1
Turbulent dislocations in Central Australia: exile, placemaking, and the promises of elsewhere
Melinda Hinkson
(2018), Vol. 45, pp. 521-532, American ethnologist, Washington, D.C., C1
At the edges of the visual culture of exile: a glimpse from South Australia
M Hinkson
(2017), pp. 93-104, Refiguring techniques in digital visual research, Cham, Swizerland, B1
'We have always moved around'. Backstories on Warlpiri mobility and media
M Hinkson
(2017), pp. 19-38, Bush mechanics: from Yuendumu to the world, Mile End, S. Aust., B1
Beyond assimilation and refusal: a Warlpiri perspective on the politics of recognition
M Hinkson
(2017), Vol. 20, pp. 86-100, Postcolonial studies, Abingdon, Eng., C1
M Hinkson
(2017), Vol. 23, pp. 879-881, International journal of heritage studies, Abingdon, Eng., C1
Pictures for our time and place: reflections on painting in a digital age
M Hinkson
(2016), pp. 37-57, Imaging identity: media, memory and portraiture in the digital age, Acton, A.C.T., B1
'That photo in my heart': remembering Yayayi and self-determination
M Hinkson
(2016), Vol. 27, pp. 386-397, Australian journal of anthropology, London, Eng., C1
Imaging identity: media, memory and portraiture in the digital age
M Hinkson
(2016), Acton, A.C.T., A7
Remembering the future : Warlpiri life through the prism of drawing
M Hinkson
(2014), Canberra, ACT, A1-1
Warlpiri drawings : Remembering the future
M Hinkson
(2014), National Museum of Australia, Canberra, J1-1
Back to the future: Warlpiri encounters with drawings, country and others in the digital age
M Hinkson
(2013), Vol. 54, pp. 301-317, Culture, theory and critique, Abingdon, Eng., C1-1
Image-encounters with the techno-mediated other: Regarding post-election Iran on Youtube
M Hinkson
(2012), Vol. 16, pp. 131-143, Angelaki: journal of the theoretical humanities, Abingdon, Eng., C1-1
Culture crisis: anthropology and politics in Aboriginal Australia
J Altman, M Hinkson
(2010), Sydney, N.S.W., A1-1
Seeing more than black and white: picturing Aboriginality at Australia's National Portrait Gallery
M Hinkson
(2010), Vol. 49, pp. 5-28, Australian humanities review, Acton, A.C.T., C1-1
Australia's Bill Henson scandal: notes on the new cultural attitude to images
M Hinkson
(2010), Vol. 24, pp. 202-213, Visual studies, Abingdon, Eng., C1-1
The intercultural challenge of Stanner's first fieldwork
M Hinkson
(2005), Vol. 75, pp. 195-208, Oceania, Chichester, Eng., C1-1
Introduction: conceptual moves towards an intercultural analysis
M Hinkson, B Smith
(2005), Vol. 75, pp. 157-166, Oceania, Chichester, Eng., C1-1
What's in a dedication? On being a Warlpiri DJ
M Hinkson
(2004), Vol. 15, pp. 143-162, Australian journal of anthropology, Chichester, Eng., C1-1
Encounters with Aboriginal sites in metropolitan Sydney: a broadening horizon for cultural tourism?
M Hinkson
(2003), Vol. 11, pp. 295-306, Journal of sustainable tourism, Abingdon, Eng., C1-1
M Hinkson
(2002), Vol. 16, pp. 201-220, Continuum: journal of media & cultural studies, Abingdon, Eng., C1-1
Funded Projects at Deakin
Australian Competitive Grants
Place and displacement in Aboriginal Australia: a Warlpiri visual cultural enquiry
A/Prof Melinda Hinkson
ARC Fellowships - Future Fellowships
- 2017: $87,641
- 2016: $446,958
Other Funding Sources
Feeding the Crisis: Global Food Supply Chains in a World on the Edge
A/Prof Victoria Stead, A/Prof Melinda Hinkson, Prof Jon Altman
Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia ASSA Workshop Program grants
- 2021: $9,000
Supervisions
David Brown
Thesis entitled: Digital government: ideology and new forms of power
Doctor of Philosophy, School of Humanities and Social Sciences
Sofya Shahab
Thesis entitled: Weaponising Affect: The turbulent displacements of heritage destruction in Iraq and Syria
Doctor of Philosophy, School of Humanities and Social Sciences