Petronella Vaarzon-Morel (MA Indiana University) is a sociocultural anthropologist with over 40 years’ experience working with Indigenous peoples in Central Australia. Her research focus is on Indigenous relations with country, the environment and material culture. Of particular interest are issues of invasiveness, human-animal relations, and ontological and other challenges for Indigenous people engaged with Australian settler society. Petronella has been active in expanding anthropological discussions of Indigenous rights and in developing new approaches to repatriation of cultural materials. She has conducted research on, and prepared reports for 15 Aboriginal land rights and native title claims across Australia and has also undertaken numerous cross-disciplinary and community-driven projects. From 2015–2019 Petronella was Research Associate at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music, The University of Sydney, on the ‘Central Land Council Cultural Media Project’, and is currently Honorary Research Associate with the university. In 2020 she published Archival Returns: Central Australia and beyond (Barwick, J. Green & P. Vaarzon-Morel (eds.), Sydney University Press. The book explores the strategies and practices by which Indigenous cultural heritage materials can be returned to their communities of origin, and the issues this process raises for communities, as well as for museums, galleries, and other cultural institutions.
Petronella Vaarzon-Morel
Global Lecturer
Indigenous Australia, personhood, multispecies ethnography, Indigenous ecological knowledge, new media, visual and sound cultures, memory, Indigenous land tenure, ethnographic mapping and cartography, ethno-history, colonization and change, social justice
Petronella’s research interests are currently focussed on Indigenous song, memorial commemorations, and a Warlpiri cultural mapping project. This collaborative project employs mapping methodologies and digital technologies that reflect and record Indigenous knowledge and senses of place while facilitating inter-generational knowledge transfer. Petronella is also undertaking research for a native title claim involving Warlpiri and Anmatyerr people in Central Australia.
2021 Vaarzon-Morel, P. ‘Engaging religiosities: Relationality, co-existence and belonging among Lander Warlpiri, Central Australia’. In Francoise Dussart and Sylvie Poirier (eds.) Contemporary Indigenous Cosmologies and Pragmatics. Edmonton: The University of Alberta Press. (In press).
2021 Vaarzon-Morel, P, Barwick. L. and J. Green, ‘Sharing and storing digital cultural records in Central Australian Indigenous communities’. In ‘Storing and sharing: Everyday relationships with digital materials’, H. Horst, J. Sinanan and L. Hjorth (eds.), special issue, New Media & Society, 23(4): 692–714.
2021 Vaarzon-Morel, P, ‘The silence of the donkeys: sensorial entanglements between people and animals at Willowra and beyond’. In ‘Sense‐making in a more‐than‐human world’, N. Fijn and M. Kavesh (eds.), special issue, The Australian Journal of Anthropology 32(1): 114–131.
2020 Vaarzon-Morel, P. and Kelly, L. ‘Enlivening people and country: The Lander Warlpiri cultural mapping project’. In Linda Barwick, Jennifer Green and Petronella Vaarzon-Morel (eds.) Archival Returns: Central Australia and beyond, pp. 111–138. Sydney: Sydney University Press. (First published online 2019 in Language Documentation and Conservation Special Publication 18. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press).
2020 L. Barwick, J. Green & P. Vaarzon-Morel (eds.). Archival Returns: Central Australia and beyond. Sydney: Sydney University Press. First published online 2019 in Language Documentation and Conservation Special Publication 18. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press.
2020 Barwick, L., Green, J., Vaarzon-Morel, P. and Zissermann, K. ‘Conundrums and consequences: Doing digital archival returns in Australia’. In Linda Barwick, Jennifer Green and Petronella Vaarzon-Morel (eds.) Archival Returns: Central Australia and beyond, pp. 1–28. Sydney: Sydney University Press. (First published online 2019 in Language Documentation and Conservation Special Publication 18. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press).
2020 Vaarzon-Morel, P. ‘Sutton’s model of underlying and proximate customary title and the Lander Warlpiri region’. In Julie D. Finlayson and Frances Morphy (eds.) Ethnographer and Contrarian: Biographical and anthropological essays in honour of Peter Sutton, pp. 213–231. Adelaide: Wakefield Press.
2018 Vaarzon-Morel, P. ‘Reconfiguring relational personhood among Lander Warlpiri’. In Diane Austin-Broos and Francesca Merlan (eds.) People and Change in Indigenous Australia, pp. 81–96. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press.
2017 Vaarzon-Morel, P. ‘Alien relations: Ecological and ontological dilemmas posed for Indigenous Australians in the management of “feral” camels on their lands’. In Francoise Dussart and Sylvie Poirier (eds.). Entangled Territorialities: Negotiating Indigenous lands in Australia and Canada, pp. 186–211. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.
2017 Vaarzon-Morel, P. & Wafer, J. ‘ “Bilingual time” at Willowra: The beginnings of a community-initiated program, 1976–1977’. In Brian Devlin, Nancy Devlin and Samantha Disbray (eds.) History of Bilingual Education in the Northern Territory: People, programs and policies, pp. 35–47. Singapore: Springer.
2016 Vaarzon-Morel, P. ‘Continuity and change in Warlpiri practices of marking the landscape’. In William Lovis and Robert Whallon (eds.) Marking the Land: Hunter-gatherer creation of meaning in their environment, pp. 201–230. United States: Routledge Studies in Archaeology.
2016 Vaarzon-Morel, P. Invited response to ‘CRUISING’ by artist Chris Barry for the exposition TRACES. In Mick Douglas (ed.), Performing Mobilities. Melbourne: RMIT University, School of Architecture & Design.
2014 Vaarzon-Morel, P, ‘Pointing the phone: transforming technologies and social relations among Warlpiri’. In ‘Communication technology and social life: Transformation, continuity, disorder and difference’, J.P. Marshall and T. Notley (eds.), special issue, The Australian Journal of Anthropology 25(2): 239–255.
2012 Vaarzon-Morel, P. and Edwards, G. ‘Incorporating Indigenous perceptions of introduced animals in resource management: insights from the feral camel project.’ In ‘Indigenous land and sea management in remote Australia’, E. Ens (ed.), special issue, Ecological Management and Restoration 13(1): 65–71.
2012 Vaarzon-Morel, P. ‘Camels and the transformation of Indigenous economic landscapes’. In Natasha Fijn, Ian Keen, Christopher Lloyd and Michael Pickering (eds.) Indigenous Participation in Australian Economies 11: Historical engagements and current enterprises, pp. 73–95. Canberra: ANU E-Press.
2012 Vaarzon-Morel, P. ‘Intertwined anthropologies’. Invited comment on Trigger, D. ‘Anthropology Pure and Profane: The politics of applied research in Aboriginal Australia’. Anthropological Forum 22(1): 82–84.
2012 Vaarzon-Morel, P. ‘TJAMPIJINPA, Martin (‘Stumpy’)’. In Nolan, M. (gen. ed.) Australian Dictionary of Biography: Volume 18 1981–1990, L–Z, pp. 512–13. Australian National University. Carlton: Melbourne University Press.
2010 Vaarzon-Morel, P. ‘Changes in Aboriginal perceptions of feral camels and of their impacts and management’. The Rangeland Journal 32(1): 73–85.
2009 Vaarzon-Morel, P. and Gabrys, K. ‘Fire on the horizon: Contemporary Aboriginal burning issues in the Tanami Desert, central Australia’. GeoJournal 74(5): 465–476.
2008 Edwards, G.P., Allan, G.E., Brock, C., Duguid, A., Gabrys, K. and Vaarzon-Morel, P. ‘Fire and its management in central Australia’. The Rangeland Journal 30(1): 109–121.
2008 Vaarzon-Morel, P. Key stakeholder perceptions of feral camels: Aboriginal community survey. DKCRC Report 49. Alice Springs: Desert Knowledge Cooperative Research Centre. Available at: https://www.nintione.com.au/resources/nol/chapter-5-key-stakeholder-perceptions-of-feral-camels-aboriginal-community-survey/
2007 Rosewarne, C., Vaarzon-Morel, P., Bell, S., Carter, E., and Liddle, M. ‘The historical context of developing an Aboriginal community-controlled health service: A social history of the first ten years of the Central Australian Aboriginal Congress’. Aboriginal Health and History 9(2): 114–143.
Cultures and Contexts: Indigenous Australia, CORE-UA 9536.SY1 (Fall 2020).
Anthropology of Indigenous Australia, ANTH-UA 9037-SY1 (from Fall 2013 to Spring 2020).
Indigenous Australian Art: An Analytical and Cultural Survey, ANTH-UA 9038.SY1 or SCA-UA 9836.SY1 (from Fall 2015 to Spring 2020).