Career paths of UWA anthropology graduates
UWA ANTHROPOLOGY GRADUATES IN THE WORK FORCE
Research Officer
Combined Universities Centre for Rural Health
Geraldton, WA.
To develop my interests further, I am currently completing a Masters in Applied Anthropology at Northern Territory University. The dissertation topic addresses the cultural and political struggles experienced by rural communities in the face of changes to health service delivery. In June, I shall be leaving CUCRH to pursue rural health from a different perspective. I start a PhD in sociology/anthropology at the Centre for Social Research at Edith Cowan University. The focus of the research is a sociological analysis of factors affecting the wellbeing of general practitioners and their families in rural and remote Western Australia.
Senior Research
Fellow
Centre for Anthropological Research, UWA.
I started working on my Honours in 1975. In 1990, I was awarded my PhD. It sounds like a long time spent studying, but I’ve held a lot of positions along the way. I’ve been a sexual assault counsellor, a tutor, and a lecturer. I helped to set up a program to enable Aboriginal communities to access the resources of AIATSIS (the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies). I was senior anthropologist at an Aboriginal land council for a few years. Now I’m back at the Anthropology Department at UWA working as a senior research fellow in the Centre for Anthropological Research.
The
research I’ve conducted for my degrees is the reason I’ve been able
to obtain all of the above positions. My Master’s was a study of the
victim’s experience of the aftermath of rape, which was central to
my work as a sexual assault counsellor. My PhD was an analysis of
the Nyungar kinship system and its relation to the social identity
of Nyungar people. My knowledge of Aboriginal people living in towns
and citieshas lead to all my other positions. I’ve been working in
native title since 1997. As well as playing a part in the process
of enabling Aboriginal people to regain some of their rights in their
land, I’ve been able to pursue my research interest in Nyungar culture,
which is complex and fascinating.
Project consultant
Cybersearch Pty Ltd
Perth, WA
Prior to finishing my PhD in anthropology, focusing on the economic culture of the new middle class in Indonesia, I was employed full-time as a marketing representative for a Sydney-based financial services firm. They needed someone on the ground to help them to support their product in WA and manage their client relationships. This was a welcome opportunity to earn an income while I was completing my PhD. One thing led to another and I was soon in Sydney assisting the same company to establish their research arm. My background in research was an obvious strength here, but I also pursued training in a post-graduate diploma in applied finance and investment to give me the vocational skills required to work as a financial analyst.
My financial analysis skills and experience, coupled with my broad research and systems analysis skills from my anthropological training, subsequently led me into a strategy consulting career. While my financial skills are useful, I find that my background in anthropology allows me to bring a special perspective to solving strategic analytical problems. My clients and colleagues have found my skills of particular value in the areas of market and industry analysis; research and analysis of broad trends and drivers across social, technological, environmental, economic, and political issues; formulation of models to explain complex systems; and an ability to listen and understand different points of view, and identify blind-spots based on different sets of assumptions (cultural or otherwise). At a more practical level, particular skills, such as knowing how to conduct survey, interview, and participant observation research always come in handy.
Research Officer
Pilbara Native Title Office
Tom Price, WA
During my years as an undergraduate I usually spent the summer vacation lazing about on the beaches, reading and generally getting very bored. Life got a bit more exciting whilst doing fieldwork in the Aboriginal fringe camps around Darwin for my PhD thesis. During the steamy wet season I lived with my new friends under tarpaulins, cooking on an open fire under the flightpath of the Darwin airport. Now, as Dr Day, this summer has been the most exciting of my long life (I was a very mature age student).
In November I began work with the Pilbara Native Title Service as a Research Officer in the modern little mining town of Tom Price. From an office I share with a receptionist and an Aboriginal Liaison Officer, I research native title claims for local tribal groups. This has involved interviewing Aboriginal people, field trips, attending meetings in Karratha, Port Hedland and as far south as Meekatharra and even archival research in Perth. During the annual ‘Law time’ I have been privileged to be an honoured guest at three of the many ‘meeting camps’ held in the Pilbara.
Graduate Program
Department of Immigration
Canberra, ACT
Having completed an Honours' degree in Sociology-Anthropology at LaTrobe University in 1995, I was at a loose-end as to what to do regarding a career. I was very interested in studying anthropology at a postgraduate level, and subsequently applied to several universities in Australia. I was accepted into the University of Melbourne and the University of Western Australia, both offering full scholarships. Ultimately, I was attracted to UWA not simply because of the pleasant climate of Perth (although it was a factor), but more so because of the reputation of Dr Greg Acciaioli. I found the academic and social climate at UWA pretty exceptional, and very conducive to the interplay of ideas. I spent all of 1997 in Indonesia doing language study with ACICIS, with a small language school, and on my own.
This time was both personally fascinating and intellectually challenging, and I would recommend it to anyone considering fieldwork in a country whose language they cannot speak fluently. I returned for research in 1998-9. This was also a challenge, primarily as a result of the political and economic situation in various parts of the country. It was doubly difficult as the crisis led to most of my subjects (backpackers on the island of Lombok) leaving the country. Necessity is the mother of invention and innovation, and with a little alteration, and some backpackers returning, the project was saved. I am sure my supervisors were a little concerned at times, but it all worked out in the end.
Returning to Australia was a rude shock, partly because I arrived back from steamy Java to gloomy Perth in the middle of July. It was a shock also because I had to face writing a 100,000 word dissertation, and the reality of needing to look for work. A trip to the career advisor was a great investment of an hour. The advisor suggested options I was not even aware of. I had my heart set on a career in academia, but the reality was that very few, if any, get to pursue that option. The nature of higher education institutions, funding arrangements, and the conditions of employment, make academia a more difficult and far less attractive career than it once was. The career counsellor suggested, amongst other things, the Public Service.
I first thought that the words 'anthropologist' and 'Public Service' were incompatible. For me the Pubic Service elicited images of middle-aged men in brown cardigans, forms, forms, forms, and tea breaks that last all day. Upon closer investigation I realised that it is actually quite a bit different - I have yet to see my first cardigan. For someone trained in anthropology, with a second language, and a desire to spend more time overseas, the Department of Foreign Affairs, and the Department of Immigration seemed like logical options. There are many more besides with an international flavour, including the Australian Customs Service, Austrade, Ausaid, the Department of Industry, Tourism and Resources, and the Department of Education.
After applying to most of the ones that sounded interesting, I was accepted into the graduate programme of the Department of Immigration. Despite the bad press the Department has received in the last couple of years, there are a lot of very interesting and fulfilling jobs. Since arriving I have worked on passport fraud, building maintenance, and business migrant issues. I am currently working with a special tourism program with China, travel agents in the Middle East, the development of electronic visas and Internet lodgement options. While sometimes anthropology seems a long way away, at other times the training and theoretical perspectives that undergraduate and postgraduate study of anthropology have given me are of great value. Whenever I am dealing with interaction between peoples from different countries and cultures (which is what immigration is all about) anthropology is always in the forefront of my mind. The lesson I have learnt in the last two years is that you don't need to be employed as an anthropologist to be an anthropologist.