Alan Rumsey, BA, MA, PhD (Chicago)
Senior Fellow, Department of Anthropology
Email: alan.rumsey@anu.edu.au
Biographical Statement
I am currently heading an interdisciplinary research project entitled
'Chanted tales from Highland New Guinea: a comparative study of oral performance traditions and their role in contemporary land politics'. Other ongoing projects include studies of infant and child language socialization, and of electoral and local politics, all in the Ku Waru region of Highland Papua New Guinea.
Research Interests
Melanesia; Aboriginal Australia; discourse; social identity; linguistic anthropology; indigenes and the state.
Key Publications
- The articulation of indigenous and exogenous orders in Highland New Guinea and beyond. Australian Journal of Anthropology 17(1):47-69, 2006.
- Language, desire and the ontogenesis of intersubjectivity. Language and Communication 23:169-18, 2003.
- (ed. with James Weiner) Emplaced Myth: Space, Narrative, and Knowledge in Australian Aboriginal and Papua New Guinea Societies, Honolulu, University of Hawai'i Press, 2001.
- (with Francesca Merlan) Ku Waru: Language and Segmentary Politics in the Western Nebilyer Valley, Papua New Guinea, Cambridge University Press, 1991 (Paperback edition 2006).
- Chanted tales in the New Guinea Highlands of today: a comparative study. In Stewart, P. J. and A. Strathern (eds.) Expressive Genres and Historical Change: Indonesia, Papua New Guinea and Taiwan, Aldershot, Ashgate Publishing, Pp. 41-81, 2005.
- 'Agency, personhood and the 'I' of discourse in the Pacific and beyond', Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, 6, 101-115, 2000.
Career Highlights
Lecturer and Senior Lecturer, Department of Anthropology, University of Sydney, 1979-1995; Co-editor, review editor and editorial board member, Oceania 1985-; Advisory Editor, Current Anthropology 2000-2002; Editorial board member, Journal of Linguistic Anthropology, 1999-; Anthropological Consultant to Northern Land Council, 1980-1993, and to the Kimberley and Kamali Land Councils, 1998-2002; 'elected to Australian Academy of the Humanities, 2004.
