Thesis Title:

Entangled places: interactional histories in the western
Simpson Desert, northern South Australia

Supervisor: Ann McGrath

A Visiting Fellow in the Australian Centre for Indigenous History, Ingereth Macfarlane has been the Managing Editor of Aboriginal History journal since 2001. She is currently completing research for a PhD on the 'long term history' of the interactions of people and places in the western Simpson Desert, northern South Australia. She has been working with members of the Irrwanyere Aboriginal Corporation who speak for that country. These histories juxtapose textual, pictorial, oral, and archaeologically informed material and spatial evidences as a way to articulate the complex interactions which produced particular places through time. Ingereth also works as a consultant in "contact" or interactional colonial archaeology and history, and as a consultant editor. Previously, she worked as a project archaeologist with National Parks and Wildlife in Tasmania, as a consultant public archaeologist, and as a tutor in the Department of Archaeology, University of Southampton and the Department of Archaeology and Anthropology, ANU. She holds a Bachelor of Arts (First Class Honours) from the Australian National University (1983-87) and a Master of Arts (with Distinction) in Archaeological Method and Theory from the University of Southampton, UK, (1993-94). She has received the following prizes and awards: D.A. Casey Prize in Prehistory, Australian National University (1983); Vacation Scholarship, Archaeology Branch, Queensland State Government (1984); Peter May Prize in Prehistory, Australian National University (1987; shared); and Commonwealth Scholarships Commission Commonwealth Scholarship tenable at the University of Southampton, UK, 1995-99.

Areas of Research

• contact history
• contact archaeology
• spatial history
• material history
• Simpson Desert

Publications

• 2005 (Ed) Many Exchanges: Archeology, history, community and the work of Isabel McBryde Aboriginal History Monograph No. 11
• 2005 "A water history of the western Simpson desert, South Australia", in 23¡ South: archaeology and environmental history of southern deserts, M.A. Smith and P. Hesse (eds), National Museum of Australia, Canberra
• 1990 "An Aboriginal Archaeological site survey of the King River valley". Unpublished report to the Hydro Electric Commission, Tasmania.
• 1991 "A predictive Aboriginal archaeological site survey of the Telecom Optical Fibre Cable route from Katherine to Tennant Creek and Threeways to Camooweal". Unpublished report to Telecom Australia National Heritage Studies, Hall, ACT.
• 1992 "A regional survey of the Aboriginal archaeological resources of North-west Tasmania". Occasional Publication, Department Parks, Wildlife and Heritage, Hobart.
• 1994 "Re-orientating Australian Aboriginal environmental archaeology". M.A. thesis, Department of Archaeology, University of Southampton, UK.

Work in progress

• Entangled places: Interactional histories in the western Simpson Desert, northern South Australia", PhD thesis, History Program, ANU