I completed my doctorate in anthropology at the University of New Mexico in 1975, on the basis of research conducted in North American plains Native American and settler communities.

Shortly thereafter, in 1976, I was awarded a research grant from the (then) Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies, an exceptional research opportunity which allowed me to spend most of 1976-9 in northern Australia, laying the foundation for my enduring association with that region, concern with Australia’s indigenous-nonindigenous relations, as well as with wider indigenous issues. In 1981-3 my husband Alan Rumsey and I conducted a first period of fieldwork together in the Highlands of Papua New Guinea, and our involvement continues to this day, with research emphases on segmentary sociality, warfare and peace-making, exchange, language and politics, and, most recently, language socialization.

Additionally, in 1999, and in keeping with family circumstances (young children) at that time, I began field research in Southern Germany on transformations in farming, rural conditions, occupation and government measures to mitigate the impacts of change. This research association also continues, and has developed into contacts with other European locations and institutions (in Spain, Italy and France) concerning questions of agrarian transition, social change and conflicts over homely belonging in various locations (including, most recently, ones of intensive tourist visitation). I remain committed to ethnographic fieldwork in these areas.

Social transformation, social theory

Kinship, gender, person

Indigeneity, local and global

Development