Australia, Anthropology in

Abstract

Influenced by scholars in Great Britain and the United States, anthropology was established in Australia in the 1920s. Like other colonized nations, an early emphasis was Indigenous Australian and Melanesian groups. Anthropology in the twenty‐first century is taught at most Australian universities, although federal government funding for the humanities and social sciences is increasingly tight. For these and reasons connected to changing conceptual, methodological, and ethical inquiry, cross‐disciplinary research and public commentary is becoming evident in teaching, practice, and publishing. Research inquiry often continues to emphasize Indigenous Australian groups, especially for collaborative projects concentrated on native title land claims. Foci today have expanded geographically and culturally to migration, refugees, and settler societies; urbanization; the media; environmental anthropology; gender and sexuality; material culture; anthropology at home; and visual anthropology. Education about what anthropology is, and is not, continues, alongside internal debate about the distinctions and commonalties between anthropology and sociology.