R Henry

Biographic Data

ID8715
NAMER Henry
GIVEN NAMESR
FAMILY NAMEHenry
SIGNATUREHENRY R
AFFILIATIONSJames Cook University
ORCID0000-0002-1762-5715
VERIFIEDYes
TOTAL WORKS32
TOTAL CITATIONS54
AUTHOR COUNT32
EDITOR COUNT0
FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR1978
LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR2023
H-INDEX4

  • Narratives of self and other: Auto/ biography in Papua New Guinea

    R HenryCHAPTERCelebrating Indigenous Voice2023

    It is currently a widely held view among scholars in the humanities and social sciences that one of the ways humans construct selfhood is through the stories that we tell about ourselves and about others. Yet, anthropological and linguistic studies on Papua New Guinea (PNG) reveal that, while humans may indeed construct selfhood through narratives, such narratives do not necessarily involve the teller as a character in the story. In other words, …

  • Weedy Life: Coloniality, Decoloniality, and Tropicality

    Open AccessR Henry, Helen Ramoutsaki et al.ARTICLEeTropic electronic journal of…2023Cited by: 2References: 12

    Respect for any form of life entails nurturing all the potentialities proper to it, including those that might be unproductive from the human point of view. Are there lessons to be learnt about decolonisation of the tropics from a focus on ‘weeds’? The contributors to this photo-essay collectively consider here the lessons that can be learnt about the relationship between colonisation and decolonisation through a visual focus on life forms that h…

  • Research, Rituals and Reciprocity: The Promises of Hospitality in Fieldwork

    R Henry, Michael WoodCHAPTERThe Art of Language2022

    In this paper we draw on anthropological and linguistic research concerning Papua New Guinea (PNG), including the work of Alexandra Aikhenvald, to consider hospitality in fieldwork. We look at how fieldworkers and research participants construct and enact obligations and expectations that arise in the field. With reference to our own fieldwork experiences among the Kumula of the Western Province and the Penambi Wia of the Western Highlands Provin…

  • Anthropologists Answer Four Questions about the Pandemic

    Open AccessR HenryARTICLEAmerican Anthropologist2021

    Comparatively speaking, I feel I am living in paradise. The city of Cairns in the tropical north of Australia, where I live and work, to date has had no deaths at all from COVID-19. We have had only fifty-five recorded cases in our region. Yet, in spite of these low numbers, the pandemic has been at the forefront of our lives, impacting work conditions, employment prospects, and social relations. As we increasingly went online, social media began…

  • The Structural Violence of Indigenous Suicide Prevention Policies in Canada

    Open AccessBryce Anderson, G Aikenhead et al.ARTICLEAnthropology in Action2021

    Indigenous peoples in Canada suffer from very high suicide rates of which there are various state-created programmes and efforts to combat. However, the variety of these programmes may be limited in their conceptions of Indigenous suicide. I predicted that by analysing existing suicide prevention policies and frameworks, I would find that they systematically place Indigenous peoples in vulnerable positions through the enforcement of Western ideal…

  • Brideprice and Prejudice: An Audio‐Visual Ethnography on Marriage and Modernity in Mt Hagen, Papua New Guinea

    Open AccessR Henry, Daniela VávrováARTICLEOceania2020

    The relationship between bridewealth and women's autonomy is not only discussed amongst anthropologists, development practitioners and other scholars but also amongst brides themselves. Women continue to embrace such marital exchanges, despite their knowledge of ‘modern’ development discourse about the constraints of the practice on women's status and its links to gender‐based violence. This paper provides a visual exploration of contemporary bri…

  • Planning for later life: Transnational and inter-generational care among Papua New Guineans in Australia

    Open AccessR Henry, Michael Wood et al.ARTICLEGeoforum2020References: 31

  • Aboriginal Artefacts, Collectors and the Wet Tropics: An introduction

    Queensland Museum, Shelley Greer et al.ARTICLEMemoirs of the Queensland Museum,…2016

    This introduction raises issues concerning transactions involving Aboriginal artefacts of the North Queensland Wet Tropics. We highlight relationships between artefacts, persons and place, as well as the importance of understanding the nature of exchange and concepts of ownership in the creation and collection of artefacts

  • An Extraordinary Wedding: Some Reflections on the Ethics and Aesthetics of Authorial Strategies in Ethnographic Filmmaking

    R Henry, Daniela VávrováARTICLEAnthrovision2016Cited by: 3References: 12

    In attempting to create visual narratives, ethnographic filmmakers often face intractable dilemmas of choice, both ethical and aesthetical, in what to sacrifice from many hours of footage of complex socio-cultural practices and performances. How do we author a narrative that can be understood and appreciated by a broader audience without diminishing the integrity of the lifeworld of the characters? How do we convey the intricacies of the social r…

  • Mainland magic: Interpreting cultural influences across Cape York–Torres Strait

    Open AccessShelley Greer, R Henry et al.ARTICLEQuaternary International2015

  • Last days on Pabaju: A stone arrangement on Albany Island Cape York Peninsula, Queensland, Australia

    Open AccessSusan Mcintyre-Tamwoy, Shelley Greer et al.ARTICLEQuaternary International2015

  • Heritage transactions at the Festival of Pacific Arts

    R Henry, Lawrence Foana’otaARTICLEInternational Journal of Heritage…2015Cited by: 4References: 24

    The Festival of Pacific Arts, hosted by a different Pacific Island state once every four years, is a prime site for the reproduction of the global discourse on heritage. Drawing on ethnographic research conducted at the festival, this paper focuses on how the concept of heritage is employed at the festival as both an instrument of statecraft and a tool for the assertion of grass-roots political and economic agency. We conclude that heritage in th…

  • Double Displacement: Indigenous Australians and Artefacts of the Wet Tropics

    R HenryARTICLEAnthropological Forum2015Cited by: 1References: 11

    The history of dispossession of Indigenous Australians as a result of government policies has been well documented. Going beyond this established literature, this paper explores connections between the displacement of Aboriginal people of the rainforest region of North Queensland to reserves and the ethnographic trade in museum artefacts. I provide an analysis of how Aboriginal people and some of their material products were historically sent alo…

  • Designs on the Future: Aboriginal Painted Shields and Baskets Of Tropical North Queensland, Australia

    Open AccessBård Aaberge, Trish Barnard et al.ARTICLEeTropic electronic journal of…2014Cited by: 2References: 13

    Iconic painted shields and baskets made by Aboriginal people of the North Queensland rainforest region have been collected and placed in museums all over the world. We describe the historical ethnographic context of the production and use of these things and explore transformations in their value through time. These things are of value to museums and were of value to the collectors who originally procured them. They were also of value to the Abor…

  • Ethnographic artifacts and value transformations

    Open AccessR Henry, T Otto et al.ARTICLEHau Journal of Ethnographic Theory2013Cited by: 9References: 22

    Transactions of ethnographic artifacts between Indigenous producers, European collectors, museums, and the state create and transform multiple notions of value. In this paper we discuss how an artifact's value is generated and transformed through various transactions linked to the documentation and property claims made by scientific collectors, such as Eric Mjöberg, Herman Klaatsch, and Ursula McConnel. Such artifacts have now entered a new dynam…

  • Relations and Products: Dilemmas of Reciprocity in Fieldwork

    Barbara Glowczewski, R Henry et al.ARTICLECanberra Anthropology2013Cited by: 1References: 19

    The relationship between fieldworkers (anthropologists, archaeologists, linguists, historians) and people we have variously called research participants, informants, consultants, collaborators, teachers and friends, lies at the foundation of productive ethnographic research. While there is a plethora of publications on fieldwork methods and on the art of ethnographic writing, here we specifically focus on the products of field research, both tang…

  • Being and belonging: Exchange, value, and land ownership in the Western Highlands of Papua New Guinea

    R HenryCHAPTERPossession and Ownership2012

    This chapter explores changing concepts of land ownership among speakers of Temboka (Tembagla) in the Western Highlands of Papua New Guinea, in the circumstances of state intervention in transactions concerning land. Particular attention is paid to anthropological debates on property, theories of value and the role of land in how value can be measured and realised in the area. The chapter provides a snapshot of linguistic marking of possession in…

  • Gifts of grief: Performative Ethnography and the Revelatory Potential of Emotion

    Open AccessR HenryARTICLEQualitative Research2012Cited by: 16References: 24

    After participation in the funeral of a beloved friend in the Western Highlands of Papua New Guinea, I was drawn to contemplate the revelatory potential of emotions such as grief. With reference to literature on the anthropology of emotions and the concept of empathy, I consider the relationship between ethnographic knowledge and deep emotional responses in the context of fieldwork. I argue that moments of intense emotional engagement, which many…

  • Performing protest, articulating difference: Environmentalists, Aborigines and the Kuranda Skyrail dispute

    Open AccessR HenryARTICLEAboriginal History Journal2011Cited by: 1References: 5

    During 1993 and 1994 the Cairns to Kuranda Skyrail became a hot political issue in North

  • Artefacts and collectors in the tropics of North Queensland

    Open AccessCorinna Erckenbrecht, Maureen Fuary et al.ARTICLEThe Australian Journal of…2010

    This paper outlines some of the ways early artefact collecting contributed to the definition of the Australian region now known and marketed as the ‘World Heritage Wet Tropics’. While others have collected in this region, we focus on the collecting activities of Hermann Klaatsch and the work of Norman Tindale to explore some factors that contributed to their claims that certain artefacts represent a region and its history. We argue that these und…

  • Connecting the Miles: Introduction

    Jennifer Alexander, R Henry et al.ARTICLECanberra Anthropology2008Cited by: 1

    [Extract] The Asia Pacific Journal of Anthropology (TAPJA) is proud to celebrate the career of Douglas Miles, who pioneered Anthropological studies of Southeast Asia in Australia, through major fieldwork among the Ngadju Dayaks of Borneo (1959-60, 1961-63) and the Yao of Northern Thailand and Laos (1966-69, 1970, 1996-97)

  • A Tulip in Lotus Land: History and Agency in Colonial Sri Lanka

    R HenryARTICLECanberra Anthropology2008Cited by: 1References: 5

    The present paper considers the historical processes and human agency involved in the creation of a particular identity category, the Dutch Burghers of Sri Lanka, by reflecting upon Karl Marx's maxim that ‘People make their own histories, but not just as they please’. I pay homage to the guidance I received from my supervisor, Doug Miles, who enabled me to recognise that people are not so weighed down by colonial pasts that they cease to be creat…

  • Management Speak: Indigenous Knowledge and Bureaucratic Engagement

    Open AccessBabidge, Sally Babidge et al.ARTICLESocial Analysis2007

    In this article we examine the concept of ‘indigenous knowledge’ as it is currently used in resource management discourse. In the process of engaging with government agents and researchers in the bureaucracy of resource management, indigenous knowledge is a powerful concept in the legitimization of local indigenous practice as well as the recognition of resource and socio-environmental management aspirations. Our use of the phrase ‘management spe…

  • Dancing with the Flow: Political Undercurrents at the 9th Festival of Pacific Arts

    Open AccessBarbara Glowczewski, R HenryARTICLEJournal de la Société des…2007Cited by: 4References: 3

    In 2004, the Festival of Pacific Arts, held every four years since 1972, was hosted by the Republic of Palau in Micronesia with its 16 states and population of less than 20,000. An unique system of community organisation, based on Palauan concepts of traditional leadership and hospitality, placed each of the 28 country delegations from all over the Pacific into the care of a Palauan «sister state» and volunteer committees set up according to topi…

  • ‘Smoke in the Hills, Gunfire in the Valley’: War and Peace in Western Highlands, Papua New Guinea

    Open AccessR HenryARTICLEOceania2005

    The paper discusses accounts of recent tribal fighting and peacemaking processes in the Nebilyer Valley, Western Highlands, Papua New Guinea. My analysis is based on interviews conducted in January 2000 with Ganiga, and other peoples, who featured in Connolly and Anderson's film ‘Black Harvest’. I examine different strategies of peacemaking and peacekeeping employed in relation to the Nebilyer war, particularly the efforts of local Christian chur…