Reflexive Ethnographic Practice: Three Generations of Social Researchers in One Place

Putting the anthropological imagination under the spotlight, this book represents the experience of three generations of researchers, each of whom have long collaborated with the same Indigenous community over the course of their careers. In the context of a remote Indigenous Australian community in northern Australia, these researchers—anthropologists, an archeologist, a literary scholar, and an artist—encounter reflexivity and ethnographic practice through deeply personal and professionally revealing accounts of anthropological consciousness, relational encounters, and knowledge sharing. In six discrete chapters, the authors reveal the complexities that run through these relationships, considering how any one of us builds knowledge, shares knowledge, how we encounter different and new knowledge, and how well we are positioned to understand the lived experiences of others, whilst making ourselves fully available to personal change. At its core, this anthology is a meditation on learning and friendship across cultures. 

Amanda Kearney is Matthew Flinders Fellow and Professor of Indigenous and Australian Studies at Flinders University, Australia.           

John Bradley is Associate Professor and Deputy Director of the Monash Indigenous Centre at Monash University, Australia.