Indigenous Astronomy Projects for potential students

 

Ray Norris

 

26 April 2012

Why do Indigenous Astronomy? Four quick answers:

·          To improve our understanding of Indigenous Cultures, and particularly of their intellectual component

·          To help all Australians develop a greater appreciation and understanding of the world’s oldest continuous cultures, by sharing knowledge of the sky.

·          To help share and rebuild cultural information that was lost or damaged by colonisation, while ensuring that traditional owners retain the rights to that knowledge.

·          To understand how many cultures use the sky to inform and build their world view.

 

Caveat:

·          Like all cross-disciplinary studies, it will be hard to make a career in this field. So don't do a PhD in Indigenous Astronomy expecting to walk into a postdoc in the field and then a tenured position. It can be done, but it will be harder than working in a mainstream field such as Astrophysics or Engineering. You are unlikely to make a career out of it, but it can be a rewarding way of learning research techniques, and becoming an expert in your chosen field, prior to staring a career in a field such as teaching, outreach, or Indigenous studies.
 

Enrolment and Funding for PhD students

My employer, CSIRO, is not a University, so my students are enrolled at a University, and co-supervised by a University supervisor and me. In some cases this is a true collaboration involving the student and both supervisors, and in some cases the University supervisor's role is simply to ensure that the student is making good progress, and to act as a link to the University. As I am an Adjunct Professor at the Dept. of Indigenous Studies at Macquarie University, the obvious place to enrol is at Macquarie University (see also http://aboriginalastronomy.blogspot.com.au/)

  

You need to have a first-class honours degree or equivalent to have a good chance of funding, although funding is sometimes available for people with a 2.1

 

If you are an Australian student, you should apply for funding though your chosen University, or, if you haven't yet chosen a University for your funding, talk to me for suggestions.

 

If you are enrolled for a PhD at a non-Australian University, then, if your University supervisor agrees, co-supervision is encouraged if you are interested in the projects listed here. It is also possible to do a PhD jointly through a co-tutelle agreement between your University and Macquarie University. In this case you are jointly funded and supervised by the two Universities, and spend part of your time in each University. See  http://www.international.mq.edu.au/research/cotutelles

 

If you are currently overseas, have a first-class honours degree, and would like to come to Australia to do your PhD, there are a few options for funding. In each case, applications must be submitted through the University, so the first step is to decide on a University and University co-supervisor.

 

"Distance Learning" PhD projects are also possible through the James Cook University Centre for Astronomy

 

 

Indigenous Astronomy PhD Projects

These projects listed here are examples, and can easily be extended to other similar projects (e.g. studying Mars rather than Venus). Feel free to suggest a project not listed here if it falls in the same general area. All projects will require ethics approval and the support and participation of the Indigenous groups concerned. In general, these projects will seek to understand the different aspects of the astronomical component of Indigenous cultures, using

·          Literature (e.g. many accounts from early settlers and explorers are scattered through the literature)

·          Interviewing members of a language group

·          Examining artefacts, such as art or stone arrangements

Our approach is evidence-based and follows a science methodology (i.e. testing hypotheses by making observations) rather than following a humanities approach (e.g. writing a narrative about our interaction with the subject).

 

Project 1: Finding the Astronomy of a Particular Language Group.

There are at least 300 different language groups in Australia, many of whom have an astronomical component in their culture, but few of which are documented. In this project, you will seek to understand the astronomical component of the culture of one or more specific language groups.

 

Project 2: Planets in Indigenous cultures

Venus is extremely important in the culture of the Yolngu people of the Northern territory (where she is called Barnumbirr), and other groups, notably in the "Morning Star ceremony" and in the Barnumbirr song-line. The goal of this project is to map out the extent to which Venus plays a key role in other cultures, and see to what extent the complex motion of Venus and other planets was understood in traditional times.

 

Project 3: Tides in Indigenous Cultures

While Galileo (wrongly) said the tides were nothing to do with the Moon, the Yolngu people correctly ascribed the different tides to the different phases of the Moon. This project will explore how widely this knowledge is found across other Indigenous cultures, and understand the mechanism by which the Moon was thought to control the tides.

 

Project 4: Navigation in Indigenous Cultures

In traditional times, people from many different groups are said to have navigated using a deep knowledge of the sky, together with the oral maps contained in song-lines.

 This project will explore how Indigenous people used the sky to navigate across land and water in traditional times.

 

Project 5: The Indigenous Compass

In some cultures (e.g. Warlpiri) the cardinal points of the compass are embedded deeply in the culture, and have ceremonial and traditional as well as practical significance. Elsewhere in Australia, we find stone arrangements oriented to within a few degrees of cardinal points. This project will explore how Indigenous people determined direction, how they used this knowledge, and why this is significant.

 

 

 

Aboriginal Astronomy Projects for SAO HET607, HET612, & HET619 Students and for other honours and masters students

 

Projects can take a number of forms, depending on your location and circumstances. Note that field trips or ethnographic studies other than those shown are difficult because of the need to obtain ethics clearance and appropriate permissions. However, if you would like to suggest an alternative project, email me and we can discuss it. Each of these projects involves real research, and should result in a paper, or co-authorship on a paper, to be published in a peer-reviewed journal. See http://www.emudreaming.com and http://aboriginalastronomy.blogspot.com/ for more background on Aboriginal Astronomy.

 

Project 1: Mining the literature for Indigenous Astronomy

(suitable for all students, particularly those with good Google skills)

Only in the last 7 years has there been a systematic study of Aboriginal Astronomy. Before then, many individual researchers made valuable contributions to the literature, but most such contributions are thinly scattered through the literature, and many have been effectively lost. This project is to track down and document those contributions, and enter them in a publically accessible database. This project will involve a process of sleuthing and following up promising leads. The students will focus on one particular aspect (e.g. aurorae, planets, etc) and will write a review article on that aspect of Indigenous Astronomy.

 

Project 2: The astronomy of the Sydney Rock Engravings
(Students in the Sydney region only)

Survey a subset of the Sydney Aboriginal Rock Engravings to determine their orientations and whether they may have an astronomical connection. For example, do Emu engravings predominantly face the South, where the Emu in the sky is upright? The project will involve some fieldwork visiting the rock engravings, which can be found from the Royal National Park (south of Sydney) up to the Hawkesbury River (north of Sydney), and as far west as the Blue Mountains. But you may choose to focus on those in your neighbourhood. Extensive guidance will be given in the early stages of the project.

 

Project 3: What my grandfather told me...

(suitable only for students of Aboriginal descent)

Gather astronomical stories from senior members of your community, and compile them into a report of the astronomical heritage of your community, in the context of previous studies of Aboriginal Astronomy. Note that you will need to obtain permission from (a) those who give you the stories, and (b) in some cases, elders of your community.

 

Project 4: Emu in the Sky.

(suitable for all students, particularly those with good Google skills)

Collect from the literature and analyse the traditions relating to the "Emu in the Sky" from across Australia. Which language groups have this tradition? Do they all use the same bit of sky to represent the Emu? Do the stories vary much across Australia?

 

Project 5: Planets

(suitable for all students, particularly those with good Google skills)

In which language groups are planets distinguished from stars? Are there records commenting on their position (e.g. Venus and Mercury never straying far form the sun)?  Was the relative pathway of the planets identified (ecliptic)?  What are their relationship to stars with which they come into close contact (e.g. Mars/Antares, Pleiades, etc)?  Were planetary conjunctions or occultations (e.g. planets passing behind moon) noticed? Was it noted that some planets move in the sky from night to night more quickly than others? Did any groups notice the retrograde motion of Mars? Are there any accounts of seeing the larger Galilean moons (which are just barely visible when furthest from Jupiter by someone with really good eyesight)?  

 

Project 6: Torres Strait & Tiwi Astronomy

(suitable for all students, particularly those with good Google skills)

Most Australian Indigenous Astronomy research so far has focussed on mainland Australia, but we know there is a great deal of astronomy in the culture of the Torres Strait Islanders and of the people in the Tiwi Islands. This project will involve picking one of these two cultures, and searching the academic literature and other sources,  and writing a review of what is known about the Astronomy of that culture.

 

Project 7: Constructing an on-line database of Indigenous Astronomy

(suitable for students with IT expertise sufficient to construct an on-line database)

The literature on Indigenous Astronomy is scattered over many sources, including journals, unpublished manuscripts, and manuscripts which can be viewable only by appropriately authorised people. We wish to construct an online database to make this information as accessible as possible. A preliminary specification is here. Do you have the skills to do this? We'd love you for it! And when it is constructed you'll be a co-author on a peer-reviewed paper describing it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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