Teaching and research

The Anthropology museum collection is unique in part because of Brisbane’s position as Australia’s gateway to the Pacific. The bulk of the collection represents a time of great transformation in the lives of colonised peoples. There were many colonial business interests that took Queenslanders to the ‘South Seas’ and many Pacific peoples who have made Queensland their home. The Queensland labour trade was one facet of this migration.

The uniqueness of the Anthropology Museum collection also resides in its academic aspect. UQ staff and students have added to the collection of founder Dr L. P. Winterbotham.  This aspect gives the collection a different flavour to that of a state museum.

The Anthropology Museum offers the potential for projects by people seeking to investigate their own cultural heritage and for academic projects both at UQ and elsewhere.

Research approaches based on the collection

Materiality

Museum objects with their material presence offer evidence of cultural and social change, often evidence that cannot be obtained from other sources. Why is an object made from these particular materials and not some others? Where did the materials come from, were they traded in? Is the object a prototype? Why are there so many examples of one type of objects in the collection? When a small scale society changes from using sculpture locally for religious purposes to saleable works how do material changes manifest social change? How does its materiality manifest its agency?

Collectors

Secondly there are projects that begin with the collector - UQAM has some large collections that were donated by one individual. What was the role of this person in the world? How did they collect and what were they trying to represent through their collection? What kind of relationships did the collection embody?

Cultural heritage

Museum collections contain things from the past that have outlived everyone originally connected with them. Contemporary things collected now will do the same. The museum is a  fieldwork site that can provide living people to participate in the past which in turn offers the potentials for knowledge and cultural renewal and the material for new creative projects alongside formal and informal research.

Visual Culture

The photographic collection of more than 6500 images offers manifold rich seams for research aside from merely offering contextual historical information that can in itself be invaluable.

• Who were those in the photograph, how can we trace an individual’s identity?
• Who was the photographer?
• What relationship did the parties have?
• What kind of circulation did the image have?
• What role might it now play in the community where it was created?

The Museum collection is an important source of cultural heritage for many individuals and communities. Scholarly academic researchers and students, native title, family history researchers and other interested members of the public are welcome. We also provide information, loans and reproduction of photographic material for exhibitions locally, nationally and internationally.

Unfortunately due to social distancing restrictions the Museum cannot take volunteers at this time.

The UQ Anthropology Museum houses a significant collection of ethnographic material, including many photographs. The majority of the Collection was created by, or concerns, Aboriginal Australian culture groups and individuals and diverse Pacific peoples.

Volunteering provides an opportunity for experiences working with collections, research and documentation

The Museum has a number of publications available for purchase. Please see below or Available publications (PDF, 106KB) for full publication details. If you would like to make an order please contact us.

Exhibition publications can be purchased online.

Cultural & Historical Records of Queensland

Series editor: Peter K. Lauer

• Number 1 The Simpson Letterbook – transcribed by Gerry Langevad (1979)
• Number 2 Illustrated catalogue of Aboriginal artefacts held in The University of Queensland Anthropology Museum – compiled by Lindy Allen (1980)
• Number 3 Annotations to Publications by W.E. Roth – complied by Lindy Allen and Bernice Borey (1984)

Occasional Papers in Anthropology    

Series editor: Peter K. Lauer

• Number 1 (1973) 
• Number 2 (1973)
• Number 3 Pottery Traditions in the D’Entrecasteaux Islands of Papua (1974)
• Number 4 (1975)
• Number 5 Bow and Arrow Census in a West Papuan Lowland Community: A New Field For Functional-Ecological Study (1975)
• Number 6 (1976)
• Number 7 Field Notes from the D’Entrecasteaux and Trobriand Islands of Papua (1976)
• Number 8 Fraser Island (1977) 
• Number 9 Readings in Material Culture (1978)
• Number 10 (1980) 
• Number 11 Australia and her Neighbours: Ethnic Relations and the Nation State (1982)
• Number 12 Over the Edge: Functional analysis of Australian stone tools (1984)

Tempus

Series editors: Leonn Satterthwait and Jay Hall

• Volume 1 Plants in Australian Archaeology (1989)
• Volume 2 Problem Solving in Taphonomy – Archaeological and Palaeontological studies from Europe, Africa and Oceania (1990)
• Volume 3 Quinkan Prehistory – The archaeology of Aboriginal art in southeast Cape York Peninsula, Australia (1995)  [OUT OF PRINT]
• Volume 4 Archaeology of Northern Australia (1996)
• Volume 5 Issues in Management Archaeology (1996)
• Volume 6 Australian Archaeology `95: Proceedings of the Australian Archaeological Association Annual Conference (1996)
• Volume 7 Barriers, Borders, Boundaries: Proceedings of the 2001 Australian Archaeological Association Annual Conference (2002)
• Volume 8 An Archaeology of Gariwerd: From Pleistocene to Holocene in Western Victoria (2005)