Dr Marcus Barber, researching water resources and their uses in northern Australia.

Dr Marcus Barber: facilitating Indigenous involvement in water resource planning for northern Australia

Anthropologist Dr Marcus Barber is assisting Indigenous communities associated with key north Australian rivers to understand and participate in current water planning and allocation processes.

• 5 July 2010 | Updated 14 October 2011

Overview

• Current activities
• Background
• Academic qualifications
• Achievements

Current activities

Dr Marcus Barber is part of an interdisciplinary team of CSIRO staff under the leadership of Dr Sue Jackson. Working with local Indigenous communities, he hopes to develop effective Indigenous responses to the water planning and allocation processes undertaken as part of the National Water Initiative.

Focused on key northern river catchments (the Mitchell River in Queensland, the Roper and Daly Rivers in the Northern Territory, and the Fitzroy River in Western Australia), this project documents the range of ways in which these river catchments and their waters are important to Indigenous residents in these areas.

Dr Barber’s research emphases include Indigenous cosmologies/knowledge related to hydrological and environmental cycles, historical memories of environmental and social change, and the synthesis of the different research outputs emerging from the overall project.

This synthesis will include the attempt to model appropriate aspects of Indigenous Knowledge in ways that aid both comprehension and appropriate action by water planners.

Background

Dr Barber has trained in both the natural and the social sciences. This, combined with extended fieldwork with remote Indigenous communities, gives him good foundations for understanding the relationship between different fields and frameworks of human knowledge.

His primary research interest is in environmental anthropology, particularly human interactions with coastal and aquatic environments, and the way in which water is understood and expressed within indigenous cosmologies.

Dr Barber’s doctoral research supported a successful sea rights case pursued by the people of Blue Mud Bay in northeast Arnhem Land, setting a legal precedent for Indigenous rights to intertidal waters in the Northern Territory.

Academic qualifications

Dr Barber has a:

• Bachelor of Arts from the University of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
• Bachelor of Science (Honours) also from the University of Melbourne
• Doctor of Philosophy from the Australian National University, Canberra.

Achievements

Dr Barber’s interests and expertise in water and climate have led to his membership of the National Climate Change Adaptation College and to his involvement in the UNESCO Expert Advisory Committee on Water and Cultural Diversity.

In 2010 Dr Barber will also be working on a consultancy focused on Indigenous responses to mining dewatering operations in the Pilbara region of Western Australia.

Dr Barber joined CSIRO Sustainable Ecosystems in Darwin from James Cook University (JCU) in Townsville, where he was a Lecturer at the School of Arts and Social Sciences.

He retains an Adjunct status with JCU and is currently co-supervising postgraduate-level anthropology students studying environmental, water and climate-related topics.

Alongside academic teaching at both JCU and the Australian National University, Dr Barber has completed consultancies for the Northern Land Council and the National Museum of Australia, and written an expert report for the Federal Court of Australia.

Find out more about CSIRO Indigenous Engagement.