Please join us for ANU Anthropology Monday Seminar Series 2021.

Title: Hardness and Housing at a Warlpiri Community

Speaker: Joanne Thurman, Australian National University

Date and Time: 30 August 2021, 3-4 pm (AEST)

Via Zoom: https://bit.ly/2OEVSFr  Meeting ID: 937 9210 4939 / Passcode: 800615

Abstract: When Nakamarra, a Warlpiri resident of Nyirrpi (NT) observed, “They getting really hard with the houses” – what did she mean? In this paper I unpack what it means when Warlpiri people describe someone as being or feeling ‘hard’ and ask how this differs to the ways ‘hardness’ resonates at the Indigenous/non-Indigenous interface of government and community service delivery. I do so by analysing an ethnographic case study of housing upgrades at Nyirrpi, and by linking recent critical insights about housing policy and provision to Warlpiri interpretations of (and resistance to) the relationship between housing and non-Indigenous governance over Warlpiri lives.