Prof Claire Smith

Professor Claire Smith
Phone: +61 8 82012336
Email:
Location: Humanities (107)
Postal address: GPO Box 2100, Adelaide 5001, South Australia

Biography

Claire Smith has produced nine books (authored, co-authored and co-edited) and more than 40 refereed articles, in English, Spanish, Catalan and Japanese. A former Fulbright Fellow with the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History, she has lectured for brief terms at universities in South Africa and the USA, including a one-year post at Columbia University in New York.  She has raised over $1.8 million in funding for humanities research projects, including two Fulbright grants and six Australian Research Council grants.

Claire Smith is the twice-elected President of the World Archaeological Congress (2003-08; 2008-13). In this capacity she has built global research capacity through establishing the Archaeologists without Borders and Global Libraries Programs and by initiating five new international book series.

Qualifications

1996 Doctor of Philosophy. University of New England, Australia.
Title of thesis: Situating Style: an ethno-archaeological study of social and material context in an Australian Aboriginal artistic system.

1990 Bachelor of Arts, First Class Honours, University Medal, University of New England, Australia.
Title of thesis: Designed Dreaming: assessing the relationship between style, social structure and environment in Aboriginal Australia.

Honours, awards and grants

2010  Elected Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of London.
2008  Archaeologist of the Year for 2008. International Institute of Anthropology, Utah, USA.
2006  National Carrick Award for Teaching and Learning in Higher Education, Team Category (with H. Burke).
2004  Vice-Chancellor's Award for Teaching, Flinders University, Team Category (with H. Burke).
2003  White Bequest for an Archaeological Publication, Australian Academy of Humanities.
2000-01  Australian Fulbright Postdoctoral Fellowship (two awards given nationally across all disciplines at this level).
1999  Prince of Wales Award, Queen's Trust for Young Australians.  With Lester Rigney, Yunggorendi First Nations Centre, Flinders.
1994-97  Australian Research Council Postdoctoral Fellowship.
1996  David Phillips Memorial Award for a postgraduate thesis in Aboriginal studies.
1994  Northern Territory History Award.
1993  Judy Ewing Memorial Prize (shared) for personal contribution by a student to the University and wider community, UNE.
1990  University Medal, University of New England.

Key responsibilities

Flinders University
Claire Smith's key responsibilities for Flinders University include undergraduate and postgraduate teaching, postgraduate supervision and university administration.  She is the Honours and Postgraduate coordinator for the Department of Archaeology, and a member of Flinders' University College of Distinguished Educators.

World Archaeological Congress
Claire Smith is President of the World Archaeological Congress. As Chair of the WAC Executive and Council she is responsible for overall direction, leadership and accountability to members.

Membership of Expert Committees
2009-11     Humanities and Creative Arts Panel, College of Experts, Australian Research Council.
2009-         Reference Group, Australian World Heritage Committee.
2010-         Reference Group, Australian Research Collaboration Service.
2010-         World Commission of Anthropologies, American Anthropological Association.

Teaching

Teaching interests

Claire Smith's teaching aims to ensure high professional standards in archaeology and to promote student awareness of social justice issues, especially in Indigenous communities, and ethical globalisation. Her achievements as a teacher lie with her publications, presentations, teaching grants, and the professional opportunities she has facilitated for her students, in Australia, South Africa, New Zealand, Ireland and the USA.  She has a scholarly interest in enhancing teaching through effective use of the Internet.

Books on Teaching
2000     C. Smith Teaching Archaeology in Cyberspace.  Adelaide: Southern Archaeology. ISBN 1 876675 24.
2007      H. Burke and C. Smith Archaeology to Delight and Instruct. Active Learning in the University Classroom. Walnut Creek, CA: Left Coast Press. ISBN-13: 978 1 59874-256-5 (hc) & 978 1 59874-257-2 (pb). 288 pp.

Teaching Awards
2006         $25000    Carrick National Award for Teaching, Team Category (with H. Burke).
2004         $5000      Vice-Chancellor's Award for Teaching, Flinders University, Team Category (with H. Burke).

Conference Sessions on Teaching
July 2005      C. Smith and H. Burke  'Mortimer Wheeler, Lewis Binford, Ian Hodder ...  and you.  Active Learning in Archaeology'. Showcase paper session, Higher Education Research and Development Society of Australiasia (HERDSA) Conference, Sydney.
June 2003          H. Burke and C. Smith 'Teaching Archaeology for Fun'. WAC-5, Washington, D.C.

Conference Papers on Teaching
June 2003   C. Smith and H. Burke 'Becoming Binford: Role-Playing as a Way of Teaching Archaeological Theory and Method'. Washington, DC.
June 2003   C. Smith, A. Warner and S. Ford  'We Are Family: Teaching 'Skin' To Mununga'. Washington, DC.
Jan 1999     C. Smith 'Teaching Archaeology in Cyberspace'. Cape Town, South Africa.
Jan 1999     C. Smith 'Skills for Cyberia: using the Internet to teach archaeology students'. Cape Town, South Africa.
Dec 1998     C. Smith 'Engendering Power Through the Web'. Australian Archaeological Association, Valla, NSW.

Topic Lecturer:

Research and supervision

Research interests

Claire Smith has a broad intellectual vision and an inter-disciplinary approach to research, teaching and public engagement.  She has undertaken collaborative projects with scholars from cultural studies, history, Indigenous studies, anthropology and theology. 

Claire Smith's current research interests include the impact of the Northern Territory Emergency Response on Aboriginal identity in the Barunga region, and an analysis of the possession and distribution of Ngadjuri knowledge, and how this articulates with notions of identity, heritage and land use. The latter project aims to explore how Aboriginal cultural and intellectual knowledge has been reshaped and relocated since initial contact with Europeans, and to understand the process by which some of this knowledge is not available to Ngadjuri people today. The principal innovation of the research is longitudinal mapping of the movement of Indigenous knowledge.

Claire Smith's experience with end-users includes the convening of two high quality, community-based international conferences, 'Indigenous Cultures in an Interconnected World' (1997), and 'Cultural Heritage and Indigenous Cultural and Intellectual Property' (2006), both of which received extensive media coverage, at local, national and international levels.  Her international collaborations include the Intellectual Property Issues in Cultural Heritage project, an international group of archaeologists, Indigenous organizations, lawyers, anthropologists, policy makers, and others which seeks to establish more equitable and successful research and policies through community-based research and the topical exploration of intellectual property issues. In April 2008, this project received an award of $2.5 million from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council's Major Collaborative Research Initiatives program.

Publications

Books
Smith, C.E. and Burke, H.D. (2007). Digging it Up Down Under: A Practical Guide to Doing Archaeology in Australia. New York: Springer.
Book chapters
Smith, C.E. (2008). La supervivencia de las comunidades indígenas / The survival of indigenous communities. In H. Bonet, ed. Mundos Tribales. Una vision etnoarqueologica. Valencia: Museu de Prehistoria de Valencia, pp. 92-107. [online]. Available from: http://www.museuprehistoriavalencia.es/resources/files/Catalogos/Mundos_tribales.pdf.
Smith, C.E. (2008). Panache and protocol in Australian Aboriginal art. In Domingo Sanz, I; Fiore, D; May, S, ed. Archaeologies of Art. Time, place and identity. Walnut Creek, USA: Left Coast Press, pp. 215-241.
Burke, H.D. and Smith, C.E. (2008). Perspectives on the Ancient One. In Heather Burke, Claire Smith, Dorothy Lippert,  Joe Watkins and Larry Zimmerman,, ed. Kennewick Man?: perspectives on the Ancient One. Walnut Creek, California: Left Coast Press, pp. 20-25.
Smith, C.E. and Jackson, G.T. (2008). The Ethics of Collaboration. Whose Culture? Whose Intellectual Property? Who Benefits? In C. Colwell-Chanthaphonh and T. J. Ferguson, ed. Collaboration in Archaeological Practice: Engaging Descendent Communities. Walnut Creek, CA: AltaMira Press, pp. 171-191. [online]. Available from: http://www.newcastle.edu.au/Resources/Institutes/The%20Australian%20Institute%20for%20Social%20Inclusion%20and%20Wellbeing/CV%20Claire%20Smith%20Aprif.
Burke, H.D. and Smith, C.E. (2007). Lectures as usual?  Teaching archaeology for fun. In Heather Burke and Claire Smith, ed. Archaeology to delight and instruct?: active learning in the university classroom. Walnut Creek, California: Left Coast Press, pp. 11-34.
Burke, H.D. and Smith, C.E. (2007). Seven degrees of archaeology, or diverse ways of interpreting the past. In Heather Burke and Claire Smith, ed. Archaeology to delight and instruct?: active learning in the university classroom. Walnut Creek, California: Left Coast Press, pp. 37-44.
Smith, C.E. and Burke, H.D. (2007). The skin game: Teaching to redress stereotypes of Indigenous people. In Heather Burke and Claire Smith, ed. Archaeology to delight and instruct?: active learning in the university classroom. Walnut Creek, California: Left Coast Press, pp. 80-101.
Smith, C.E. and O'Donnell, M.E. (2006). Gender and the Disciplinary Culture of Australian Archaeology. In Sarah Nelson, ed. Handbook of Gender in Archaeology. Berkeley, USA: AltaMira Press, pp. 691-732.
Smith, C.E. and Jackson, G.T. (2005). Living and Learning on Aboriginal Lands: Decolonising Archaeology in Practice. In Claire Smith and H. Martin Wobst, ed. Indigenous Archaeologies: Decolonising Theory and Practice. London, UK: Routledge, pp. 336-349.

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Books
Burke, H.D., Smith, C.E. and Zimmerman, L. (2009). The Archaeologist's Field Handbook.  North American Edition. North American edition. Walnut Creek, California: AltaMira Press.
Smith, C.E. and Burke, H.D. (2007). Digging it Up Down Under: A Practical Guide to Doing Archaeology in Australia. New York: Springer.
Burke, H.D. and Smith, C.E. (2004). The Archaeologist's Field Handbook. Sydney, NSW: Allen and Unwin.
Book chapters
Smith, C.E. and Jackson, G.T. (2008). The Ethics of Collaboration. Whose Culture? Whose Intellectual Property? Who Benefits? In C. Colwell-Chanthaphonh and T. J. Ferguson, ed. Collaboration in Archaeological Practice: Engaging Descendent Communities. Walnut Creek, CA: AltaMira Press, pp. 171-191. [online]. Available from: http://www.newcastle.edu.au/Resources/Institutes/The%20Australian%20Institute%20for%20Social%20Inclusion%20and%20Wellbeing/CV%20Claire%20Smith%20Aprif.
Burke, H.D. and Smith, C.E. (2008). Perspectives on the Ancient One. In Heather Burke, Claire Smith, Dorothy Lippert,  Joe Watkins and Larry Zimmerman,, ed. Kennewick Man?: perspectives on the Ancient One. Walnut Creek, California: Left Coast Press, pp. 20-25.
Smith, C.E. (2008). La supervivencia de las comunidades indígenas / The survival of indigenous communities. In H. Bonet, ed. Mundos Tribales. Una vision etnoarqueologica. Valencia: Museu de Prehistoria de Valencia, pp. 92-107. [online]. Available from: http://www.museuprehistoriavalencia.es/resources/files/Catalogos/Mundos_tribales.pdf.
Smith, C.E. (2008). Panache and protocol in Australian Aboriginal art. In Domingo Sanz, I; Fiore, D; May, S, ed. Archaeologies of Art. Time, place and identity. Walnut Creek, USA: Left Coast Press, pp. 215-241.
Burke, H.D. and Smith, C.E. (2007). Seven degrees of archaeology, or diverse ways of interpreting the past. In Heather Burke and Claire Smith, ed. Archaeology to delight and instruct?: active learning in the university classroom. Walnut Creek, California: Left Coast Press, pp. 37-44.
Smith, C.E. and Burke, H.D. (2007). The skin game: Teaching to redress stereotypes of Indigenous people. In Heather Burke and Claire Smith, ed. Archaeology to delight and instruct?: active learning in the university classroom. Walnut Creek, California: Left Coast Press, pp. 80-101.
Burke, H.D. and Smith, C.E. (2007). Lectures as usual?  Teaching archaeology for fun. In Heather Burke and Claire Smith, ed. Archaeology to delight and instruct?: active learning in the university classroom. Walnut Creek, California: Left Coast Press, pp. 11-34.
Smith, C.E. and O'Donnell, M.E. (2006). Gender and the Disciplinary Culture of Australian Archaeology. In Sarah Nelson, ed. Handbook of Gender in Archaeology. Berkeley, USA: AltaMira Press, pp. 691-732.
Smith, C.E. and Jackson, G.T. (2005). Living and Learning on Aboriginal Lands: Decolonising Archaeology in Practice. In Claire Smith and H. Martin Wobst, ed. Indigenous Archaeologies: Decolonising Theory and Practice. London, UK: Routledge, pp. 336-349.
Smith, C.E. and Wobst, M.H. (2005). Decolonising Archaeological Theory and Practice. In Claire Smith and H. Martin Wobst, ed. Indigenous Archaeologies: Decolonising Theory and Practice. London, UK: Routledge, pp. 5-16.
Smith, C.E. and Wobst, M.H. (2005). The Next Step: Archaeology for Social Justice. In Indigenous Archaeologies: Decolonising Theory and Practice. London, UK: Routledge, pp. 392-394.
Smith, C.E. and Burke, H.D. (2004). Joining the dots: managing the land and seascapes of Indigenous Australians. In Igor Krupnik, Rachel Mason, Tonia Woods Horton, ed. Northern ethnographic landscapes?: perspectives from the circumpolar nations. Washington, USA: Smithsonian Institute, pp. 379-399.
Smith, C.E. and Burke, H.D. (2003). In the Spirit of the Code. In Larry J. Zimmerman, Karen D. Vitelli and Julie Hollowell-Zimmer, ed. Ethical Issues in Archaeology. Walnut Creek, CA: AltaMira Press, pp. 177-197.
Smith, C.E. and Brett, K.L. (2003). From rock art to digital image: Archaeology and art in Aboriginal Australia. In John H. Jameson, John E. Ehrenhard, Christine Finn, ed. Ancient Muses: Archaeology and the Arts. Tuscaloose and London: University of Alabama Press, pp. 136-151.
Smith, C.E. (2001). Indigenous art and culture. In Australia: The Complete Story. Sydney, NSW: Five Mile Press, pp. 174-189.
Refereed journal articles
Smith, C.E. (2012). Wobst and World Archaeology. Archaeologies, 8(3), pp.403-408.
Smith, C.E. (2012). Untitled Publication.
Smith, C.E. (2012). Von Nutzen und Risiken einer Kritischen Archäologie (The Benefits and Risks of  Critical Archaeology). Forum Kritische Archaeologie, 1(1). [online]. Available from: http://www.kritischearchaeologie.de/fka/article/view/13.
Smith, C.E. (2011). Errors of Fact and Errors of Representation: Response to Shepherd and Haberâ?TMs  Critique of the World Archaeological Congress. !Public Archaeology, 10(4), pp.224-235.
Smith, C.E. (2007). Visa stories: human rights, structural violence and ethical globalisation. Archaeologies, 3(2), pp.179-185. [online]. Available from: http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11759-007-9020-1.
Smith, C.E. and Burke, H.D. (2006). Glass Ceilings, Glass Parasols and Australian Academic Archaeology. Australian Archaeology, 62, pp.13-25.
Smith, C.E. and Jackson, G.T. (2006). Decolonising Indigenous Archaeology: Developments from Down Under. American Indian Quarterly, 30(3,4), pp.311-349.
Smith, C.E. (2005). The World Archaeological Congress: Extending the Vision. Archaeologies, 1(1), pp.126-138.
Smith, C.E. and Burke, H.D. (2005). Becoming Binford: Fun Ways of Teaching Archaeological Theory and Method. !Public Archaeology, 4(1), pp.35-49.
Smith, C.E. (2005). Decolonising the Museum: The National Museum of the American Indian in Washington DC. Antiquity, 79(304), pp.424-439.
Refereed conference papers
Smith, C.E. and Burke, H.D. (2005). Mortimer Wheeler, Lewis Binford, Ian Hodder ... and you:  Active learning in archaeology. In Andrew Brew and Christine Asmar, ed. Higher Education in a Changing World: Research and Development in Higher Education. HERDSA Conference 2005. pp. 515-524.
Wobst, M.H. and Smith, C.E. (2003). Unothering Theory and Practice in Archaeology. In Trevor R. Peck. Evelyn Siegfried and Gerald A. Oetelaar, ed. Honouring the Past, Discussing the Present, Building for the Future. 32nd Annual Chacmool Conference. pp. 211-225.
Journal articles
Smith, C.E. (2010). Invited comment on S. Low and S. Merryâ?TMs â?~Engaged Anthropology: Diversity and  Dilemmasâ?TM. Current Anthropology, 51(2).
Domingo, I. and Smith, C.E. (2002). Theoretical Perspectives in Rock Art Research. South African Archaeological Bulletin, 57(176), pp.113-115.
Other public research outputs
Domingo Sanz, I., Burke, H.D. and Smith, C.E. (2007). Manual de campo del arqueologo (Handbook). , pp.1-479.
Smith, C.E. and Ward, G.K. (2000). Indigenous Cultures in an Interconnected World. , pp.1-230.

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Professional and community engagement

Aboriginal Australia
Claire Smith has conducted fieldwork with Aboriginal people in the Katherine East region of the Northern Territory for over twenty years. In 1991, Phyllis Wiynjorroc, the senior traditional owner of Bagula clan lands, gave her son the name Lamjerroc, after Phyllis' father. he Since 1998, Claire has worked closely with the Ngadjuri people of South Australia, who are in the process of returning to country.

Claire has a passionate interest in bringing about sustainable, long-term changes in community attitudes to Aboriginal people, particularly through the school curriculum and through enhancing community appreciation of the unique accomplishments of Indigenous Australians. Claire was the instigator, co-ordinator and principal author of the 200 page submission, A Past for all Australians: Archaeology and Australia's National History Curriculum, a proposal to the Australian Federal government to develop the new national curriculum so that it is more socially inclusive of Indigenous knowledges and achievements.

World Archaeological Congress
As President of the World Archaeological Congress, Claire Smith has led the establishment of a number of projects that build research and teaching capacity in economically disadvantaged countries, including the Global Libraries and Archaeologists without Borders programs. Claire has established five books series for the World Archaeological Congress and is Head Series Editor for the Indigenous Archaeologies Series, published by Alta Mira Press, and the Global Cultural Heritage Manuals series, published by Springer.  Working with Foundation Editors Nick Shepherd (South Africa) and Anne Pyburn (USA), she established the new refereed journal, Archaeologies: Journal of the World Archaeological Congress (ERA Rank A).

Expertise for media contact

  • Aboriginal Studies Indigenous ownership of cultural and intellectual property; protocols for using Indigenous material in multi-media, repaptriation
  • Indigenous Australian Archaeology repatriation; colonisation; ethics; practice; dating; politics, archaeology and social justice
  • Gender Issues gender relations in past and present societies
  • Internet especially in terms of teaching and Indigenous peoples
  • Globalisation and Indigenous Peoples ethics, mining; cultural tourism; the Internet

Subject/s

  • Aboriginal Issues
  • Archaeology
  • Gender studies
  • Globalisation
  • Internet
  • Museums
  • Visual arts


inspiring achievement