Knowing the Kimberley Rock Art – Alliances of circulating references
The ancient rock paintings of the Kimberley Region in Northwest Australia are a precious part of the Aboriginal living cultural heritage. Today these artistic manifestations, the most prominent rock figures among them are Gwion Gwion and Wandjina paintings, again receive much attention from scholars, economics and the media due to the pressing interests in the region expressed (1) by multinational industries in search for natural resources, (2) by Native Title claimants to the land of the Kimberley, and (3) a growing tourism industry.
A wide network has been established around the Kimberley Rock Art contesting the tensions between preservation and industrialization of the region and its heritage. This research analysis how knowledges about and with Aboriginal Rock Art are established, constructed and negotiated between different Actors within the alliances around the rock paintings. The diverse Actors, such as archaeologists, tourists and indigenous and non-indigenous local community members form a network in which strategies of knowledge production and knowledge exchange are established. Following these chains of references which connect the various Actors will lead to an analysis of how they have established diverse collaborations and engagements with the local environment and heritage sites of the Rock Art. The focus of analysis lies on stakeholders and cultural brokers and their understanding of Aboriginal Rock Art and the negotiation of borders between ‘lay’ and ‘scientific’ knowledge. The networks, and the webs of meanings they generate will be analyzed regarding the notion of place. This notion is characterized by the experiences it affords and the activities in which the Actors engage, based on the intimate relationality between components enfolding within the landscape. The objective is, by the means of ethnographic fieldwork, to look at the various understandings of rock paintings and how these are linked to wider socio-economic and cultural issues. The intentional and the reflexive aim of desires surrounding the transcultural heritage are analyzed in light of the perception of the Rock Art in projects of political self-constitution, as well as for pragmatic economic and scientific aims. All of which will be considered due to their embeddedness in normative, political, scientific and social contexts. In addition, the labeling of this transcultural heritage as art implies approaches from aesthetics, form and materiality.
Contact
Juliane Heinze (geborene Breitfeld)
Transcultural Studies
Universität Heidelberg
Marstallstr. 6
69117 Heidelberg
Telefon: 06221/ 5478 56
Fax: 06221/ 5478 62
juliane.breitfeld@uni-heidelberg.de
Formation
since August 2019
position at the ethnographic museum Grassi Leipzig, Staatliche Kunstsammlung Dresden (wissenschaftliches Volontariat)
December 2014
Ph.D. position at the Transcultural Studies, University of Heidelberg
November 2014
Graduation Master of Arts in Social and Cultural Anthropology
M.A. Thesis:
Subjektivierung im Künstlersein: Kolumbianische Künstler und ihre Lebensweltgestaltung (Subjectification through being an artist: Colombian artists and their composing of lifeworlds)
October 2012 – November 2014
Master’s Program in Social and Cultural Anthropology at the Martin Luther University Halle
September 2012
Graduation Bachelor of Arts in Social and Cultural Anthropology
B.A. Thesis:
Transgression in rituellen und symbolischen Kontexten am ethnografischen Beispiel der Nahua und Yukatan Maya (Transgression in ritual and symbolic contexts using the ethnographic example of the Nahua and Yucatan Maya)
October 2009 – September 2012
Undergraduate Studies in Social and Cultural Anthropology at the University of Leipzig
September 2007 – May 2009
Voluntary Service in an NGO in the United Kingdom, Denmark and Mozambique
June 2007
Graduation secondary school St. Augustin Grimma, major subjects History and German
Field Research
August – September 2013
Pereira, Colombia
Ethnographic Fieldwork: Subjektivierungsprozesse und Lebensweltgestaltung im Künstlersein (Subjectification and the composing of lifeworlds through being an artist)
- PROMOS scholarship from the DAAD (German Academic Exchange Office) –
July – September 2012
Pereira, Colombia
Internship at the foundation Fundasan: Emprendimiento y Desarrollo Comunitario (Entrepreneurship and Communal Development)
- Travel Grant from the DAAD (German Academic Exchange Office) –
September – October 2011
South Carolina and Louisiana, USA
Group Research: Afro-Americans in the US-South
Interdisciplinary Study Trip of the Social and Cultural Anthropology and the American Studies Departments, University of Leipzig
Dezember 2014 – April 2019
