This year marks the 50th anniversary of anthropology at UWA and the 30th anniversary of the Berndt Museum of Anthropology. The occasion was recently marked by a two day symposium (Anthropology in the West: 1956-2006, 7th-9th of December). This was an opportunity to celebrate and reflect on the history of the discipline group and the direction it will take in the future.
The symposium attracted a number of prominent anthropologists from Australia, including Howard Morphy; Diane Austin-Broos; Bob Tonkinson and Peter Sutton (all of which have contributed greatly to research on Aboriginal-Australia over the last four decades) as well as some international speakers such as Erich Kolig (Otago, NZ); Lamont Lindstrom (Tulsa, Oklahoma.) and Alan Peterson (Plymouth, UK).
The symposium was very much focused on the legacy of Ronald and Catherine Berndt, both of whom established the Department of Anthropology in 1956. The stated aim was to convey something of the foundation and growth of anthropology in Western Australia, in particular through the eyes of some of the early students (including a prominent Malaysian scholar – Hood Salleh - who was an international student at UWA during the early 1960s). Many of the presentations, in fact, demonstrated the centrality of the Berndts in this process of this growth and expansion of the discipline here in WA.
A special edition of Participant Observer (the anthropology and sociology postgraduate student newsletter) was also created to mark this special occasion.