First Knowledges / Innovation - Ian J McNiven and Lynette Russell
Innovation: Knowledge and Ingenuity by Ian J McNiven and Lynette Russell
The First Knowledges series offers an introduction to Indigenous knowledges in vital areas and their application to the present day and the future. Exploring practices such as architecture and design, land management, botany, astronomy and law, this book series brings together two very different ways of understanding the natural world: one ancient, the other modern. The seventh book focuses on innovation.
First Nations Australians are some of the oldest innovators in the world. Original developments in social and religious activities, trading strategies, technology and land-management are underpinned by philosophies that strengthen sustainability of Country and continue to be utilised today.
Innovation: Knowledge and Ingenuity reveals novel and creative practices such as: body shaping; cremation; sea hunting with the help of suckerfish; building artificial reefs for oyster farms; repurposing glass from Europeans into spearheads; economic responses to colonisation; and a Voice to Parliament.
In the first book to detail Indigenous innovations in Australia, Ian J McNiven and Lynette Russell showcase this legacy of First Nations peoples and how they offer resourceful ways of dealing with contemporary challenges that can benefit us all.
Ian J McNiven is Professor of Indigenous Archaeology in Monash Indigenous Studies Centre, Monash University, Melbourne, and a Chief Investigator in the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Australian Biodiversity and Heritage. He is an elected Fellow of the Royal Anthropological Institute, and the
Australian Academy of the Humanities.
Professor Lynette Russell AM is one of Australia's leading historians and an award-winning internationally recognised expert on Indigenous histories. She has published books on museums and museum displays, Aboriginal faunal knowledge, colonial history, and the early Australian whaling industry. She is a Kathleen Fitzpatrick Laureate Professor, and was deputy director of the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Australian Biodiversity and Heritage.
About the series: Each book is a collaboration between Indigenous and non-Indigenous writers and editors; the series is edited by Margo Neale, senior Indigenous curator at the National Museum of Australia.
Titles in the series include:
Songlines by Margo Neale & Lynne Kelly (2020)
Design by Alison Page and Paul Memmott (2021)
Country by Bill Gammage & Bruce Pascoe (2021)
Astronomy by Karlie Noon & Krystal De Napoli (2022)
Plants by Zena Cumpston, Michael Fletcher & Lesley Head (2022)
Law by Marcia Langton and Aaron Corn (2023)
Innovation by Ian J McNiven & Lynette Russell (2023)
Paperback: 240 pages
Dimensions: 20cm x 13cm