Future Fellowship | Associate Professor Eben Kirksey

COEXISTING WITH CORONAVIRUSES: RETHINKING THE EMERGENCE OF THE PANDEMIC

Coexisting with Coronaviruses: Rethinking the Emergence of the Pandemic. Before COVID-19 disrupted modern life, benign coronaviruses were circulating among people and animals in Southeast Asia. As medical researchers work to control the spread of this infectious disease, multispecies ethnography has a special role to play in generating basic knowledge about coronaviruses. This project aims to understand how interactions between people and multiple animal species generated a virus with pandemic potential. Approaches from science studies and the environmental humanities will generate conceptual innovations related to three themes: viral visibility, coexistence, and pathogen emergence. Innovations in multispecies methods should produce knowledge about viruses with broad benefits that may safeguard future health.

DECRA | Associate Professor Shiri Krebs

REGULATING PREDICTIVE TECHNOLOGIES FOR PREVENTIVE COUNTERTERRORISM

This project aims to improve the legal regulation of predictive technologies for preventive counterterrorism measures. The project expects to generate new knowledge in counterterrorism law and policy using doctrinal, comparative, and empirical methods. In particular, the project collects data on the United Nations Security Council’s resolutions mandating collection, sharing, and use of predictive technologies to strengthen global counterterrorism, and examines how these resolutions influence security and human rights in Australia and its security partners. Expected outcomes include recommendations for improving the laws governing the use of predictive technologies and strengthening security, individuals’ human rights, and the rule of law.

DECRA | Dr Earvin Cabalquinto

EXPLORING THE DIGITAL DIVIDE IN THE AGEING MIGRANT’S PERSONAL HOME

This project aims to investigate the experiences of ageing migrants in accessing and using digital communication technologies in their personal home settings. Taking the case of elderly Filipino-Australians, and deploying multi-sited ethnography and visual methods, this project expects to generate new knowledge on the consequences of digital divide on their personal and social wellbeing. Expected outcomes include culturally appropriate recommendations and resource materials to determine and reduce communication barriers for ageing migrants, migrant communities, policy makers, and relevant stakeholders. This should provide significant benefits in enhancing ageing migrants’ connective capacities to navigate a secure digital landscape.

DECRA | Dr Marcus Baynes-Rock

NARRATING THE ROLES OF ANIMALS IN CULTURAL BURNING

This research aims to produce knowledge of the ways in which humans and animals co-construct landscapes via the medium of cultural burning. It will be the first multispecies ethnography of people and animals on Native Title land engaged in landscape modification based on the use of cultural fire. Taking its lead from Indigenous partners this research will develop narratives of how humans, and animals co-construct landscapes via the medium of fire within wider socio-ecological frameworks. These narratives will inform policy and practice with regard to forest management, protection of species, conservation management, bushfire mitigation, promotion of biodiversity, and Indigenous health.

DECRA | Dr Virginie Rey

MUSLIM MUSEUMS: CURATING ISLAM IN MULTICULTURAL SOCIETIES

This project aims to determine how contemporary Muslim communities use museums as a medium to think about and display their collective identities in non-Muslim-majority societies. Drawing on a comparative ethnographic study of Muslim-led museums across Australia, Europe, and North America, the project expects to generate new knowledge about how Muslim communities collect, curate, and exhibit their heritage in a comparative frame. Outcomes include the first transnational study of Muslim museums and a radio documentary on the Islamic Museum of Australia. Anticipated benefits include a greater understanding of the experiences of communities in caring for their heritage and improved competency in displaying multicultural heritage in museums.