Donald Thomson's Material Culture Collection From Arnhem Land

Donald Thomson was an anthropologist, biologist and photographer who worked with Aboriginal people in Arnhem Land, the Western Desert and southeast Australia. This project examines and documents items of material culture he collected from Arnhem Land from 1935-1937 and 1942-1943. His collections include over 2,500 photographs and 5,000 objects. During this project, fieldwork was undertaken in many of the places Thomson visited including Maningrida, Ramingining, Elcho Island, Gapuwiyak and Yirrkala.

Type

Collection

Title

Collection Type

Dataset

Access Privileges

Digital Humanities Hub

Significance Statement

Donald Thomson played a crucial role in solving the Caledon Bay crisis in Arnhem Land, in 1932-33. During his time in Arnhem Land he formed strong relationships with Yolngu people, which enabled him to collect rich, valuable data during his time in the area. He was also a talented photographer, who managed to capture and produce photographic material in places ill-equipped at the time for image-work. His material culture collection deserves attention for these reasons, as it grew out of and was informed by his close relationships with the people he worked with.

Brief Description

This collection contains material from a project involving the documentation of items of material culture collected by Donald Thomson from Arnhem Land from 1935-1937 and 1942-1943.

Full Description

Contact Email

louise.hamby@anu.edu.au

Contact Address

Research School of Humanities and the Arts The Australian National University Acton 0200 Australia

Fields of Research

160104 - Social and Cultural Anthropology; 210204 - Museum Studies; 16 - STUDIES IN HUMAN SOCIETY

Keywords

Material culture; Museum Collections; History of Collections; Anthropology; Australian Aborigines

Date Coverage

Date To 1943

Date From 1935

Geospatial Location

Location Value Arnhem Land, NT, Australia

Location Type text

Year of data publication

2013

Publisher for Citation

The Australian National University Data Commons

Publications

Identifier Value 0908290217

Publication Reference

Publication Title Hamby, L, 2005, 'The First Biographer of Baskets', In N. Peterson and B. Rigsby (eds), "Donald Thomson: The Man and Scholar", pp 71-84, The Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia, Canberra

Identifier Type isbn

Identifier Value 10.1111/j.1835-9310.2007.tb00083.x

Publication Reference

Publication Title Hamby, M 2007, 'A Question of Time: Ten Canoes', Australian Journal of Anthropology, The, vol. 18, no. 1, pp. 123-126

Identifier Type doi

Identifier Value 9781845206185

Publication Reference

Publication Title Hamby, M 2007, 'Wrapt with String', Textile: the journal of cloth and culture, vol. 5, no. 2, pp. 206-229.

Identifier Type isbn

Identifier Value 10.1386/sac.1.2.127_1

Publication Reference

Publication Title Hamby, M 2007, 'Thomson Times and Ten Canoes', Studies in Australasian Cinema, vol. 1, no. 2, pp. 127-146.

Identifier Type doi

Identifier Value 978-1-4419-8221-6

Publication Reference

Publication Title Allen, L, Hamby, L 2011, 'Pathways to Knowledge â research, agency and power relations in the context of collaborations between museums and source communities', Byrne, S.; Clarke, A.; Harrison, R.; Torrence, R. (eds.), "Unpacking the Collection" in One World Archaeology series, pp 209-229, Springer, London

Identifier Type isbn

Rights held in and over the data

The copyright for the material this collection is based upon is not held by The Australian National University as such to utilise the items in this collection permission must be sought from the original copyright holders. Please email the contact person to gain further information about obtaining permission to utilise parts of this collection.

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Identifier: anudc:3282

Status: Published
Published to:

Australian National University
Australian National Data Service