Loss and longing for the field during COVID-19 in Australia, and finding it again because “Ngukurr is everywhere”

Loss and longing for the field during COVID-19 in Australia, and finding it again because “Ngukurr is everywhere” Book Section

Negotiating the Pandemic

  • Author(s): Senior, Kate, Chenhall, Richard, Edmonds, Frances
  • Published: 2022
  • Publisher: Routledge
  • ISBN: 1003187463

Abstract: This chapter provides an autoethnographic description and analysis by Kate Senior and her colleagues Richard Chenhall and Fran Edmonds about isolation and longing for the field and how people have negotiated and mitigated these. It describes the restrictions on people’s movements in Australia as a response to COVID-19, and how specifically the closure of state borders has affected not only our ability to undertake fieldwork, but also to maintain contact with people within the field and even to plan for a period where such movement may again be possible. Ngukurr is a remote Indigenous community of around 1,000 people in Southeast Arnhem Land. It was formerly the Roper River Mission and was established in 1908 as the Christian Missionary Society responded to the devastation of the tribes in the region, due to the rapidly expanding cattle industry there. In Melbourne, a visit to Museums Victoria before COVID-19 uncovered a set of flowers made from feathers.

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Suggested Citation
Senior, Kate, Chenhall, Richard, Edmonds, Frances, 2022, Loss and longing for the field during COVID-19 in Australia, and finding it again because “Ngukurr is everywhere”, Book Section, viewed 09 February 2025, https://www.nintione.com.au/?p=29137.

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