Stanner Award 2021 finalists announced

The shortlist for the 2021 Stanner Award has been announced. Presented every two years by the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies (AIATSIS), the award is for the best academic manuscript written by an Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander author.

The winner receives $5000 in prize money, a glass sculpture by artist Jenni Kemarre Martiniello, and mentoring and editorial support to prepare the manuscript for publication by Aboriginal Studies Press.

The finalists are:

• Sarah Bourke for ‘Making Cultures Count: Transforming Indigenous health data in Australia’, which tracks the development of the Mayi Kuwayu National Study of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Wellbeing, the first ‘truly empowering national study of health and wellbeing in Indigenous Australia’.
• Josephine Bourne for ‘The Political Ecology of Indigenous Organisations: Translating aspirations, values and principles’, which ‘highlights the knowledge and skills Indigenous peoples have built through the work of politically mobilising First Peoples and building their organisations’ by reflecting on the historical and political context for that Indigenous organisation-building and drawing on the stories of 22 Indigenous organisation leaders to identify emerging themes.
• John Heath for ‘Goori-Bugg Dreaming: Exploring the journey of Charlotte (Birrpai Goori woman) and James Bugg (her English convict husband), and their descendants through to today, with reflection on the law of the seven generations’, an ethnographic work based largely on non-Indigenous historical records, ‘viewed through the Indigenous eyes of a fifth-generation descendant, and enhanced through the input of other descendants, ranging from fourth to seventh generation’.
• Elizabeth McEntyre for ‘But-ton Kidn Doon-ga: Black Women Know Re-presenting the lived realities of Australian Aboriginal women with mental and cognitive disabilities in criminal justice systems’, presented ‘by and with Aboriginal women with mental health and cognitive disability enmeshed in criminal justice systems’ and re-presenting their experiences and lives in their own words and through the lenses of Indigenous critical disability and criminology structure.

The 2021 Stanner Award is judged by academics Bronwyn Fredericks, Tim Rowse and Maggie Walter. For more information about the award, and this year’s shortlisted entrants, see the AIATSIS website.

Category: Awards Local news