Anna Cole

Anna Cole was born in south west England to Anglo-Irish/Celtic parents. As a child she migrated with her parents and siblings to live on Nyungar land in Western Australia. She began learning about Indigenous history as a student at the University of Western Australia while involved in activism around a sacred Wagyl water source. Her previous edited collections include, Uncommon Ground: White Women in Aboriginal History (with Victoria Haskins and Fiona Paisley, Aboriginal Studies Press, 2005) and Tattoo: Bodies, Art and Exchange in the Pacific and the West (with Nicholas Thomas and Bronwen Douglas, Duke University Press, 2005). Her co-written film documenting Indigenous debutante balls in urban Sydney, Dancing with the Prime Minister (November Films, 2010), was short-listed for a UN Media Peace Award. She has two young children and lives in the UK, where she teaches post-colonial history and literature at Brighton University.

Ngapartji Ngapartji »

In turn, in turn: Ego-histoire, Europe and Indigenous Australia

Edited by: Vanessa Castejon, Anna Cole, Oliver Haag, Karen Hughes

Publication date: November 2014

In this innovative collection, Indigenous and non-Indigenous scholars from Australia and Europe reflect on how their life histories have impacted on their research in Indigenous Australian Studies. Drawing on Pierre Nora’s concept of ego-histoire as an analytical tool to ask historians to apply their methods to themselves, contributors lay open their paths, personal commitments and passion involved in their research. Why are we researching in Indigenous Studies, what has driven our motivations? How have our biographical experiences influenced our research? And how has our research influenced us in our political and individual understanding as scholars and human beings? This collection tries to answer many of these complex questions, seeing them not as merely personal issues but highly relevant to the practice of Indigenous Studies. I think this rich collection will become a landmark text and a favourite within Australian scholarship. I am keen to see it published so that I can recommend it to others — Professor Emerita Margaret Allen, Gender Studies and Social Analysis, University of Adelaide The idea was to explain the link between the history you have made and the history that has made you — Pierre Nora

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