Franca TAMISARI

Franca Tamisari, coordinator of the MA in 'Cultural Anthropology Ethnology and Anthropological Linguistics' (ACEL) in the Dept. of Humanities, was granted an MA and PhD in Social Anthropology at the London School of Economics and Political Science in 1994 and has carried out research in Northeast Arnhem Land, Northern Territory, Australia from 1990. More recently she also carried out research in North Queensland, and in the Lagoon of Venice.  She also taught Cultural Anthropology in the Dept. of Anthropology, University of Sydney (1996 -2001), and at the School of Social Science, University of Queensland (2002-2005). 

Her main research areas include: Australian Indigenous cosmologies and onto-epistemologies; the anthropology of art and performance (with a focus on  the political and aesthetic dimension of ritual and on dance and performative practices in local and intercultural contexts); bicultural education (development and integration of Indigenous pedagogy in compulsory schooling); the repatriation of Indigenous cultural heritage; anthropology of tourism; history of colonial, postcolonial and neocolonial relations in Australia; methodologies of the anthropological encounter (politics of representation, personal acquaintance). Recently, she started an ethnographic research on the ecological knowledge of fishermen and hunters in the Venice Lagoon. 

Among her national and international publications: 'Enacted Relations. Performing Knowledge in an Australian Indigenous Community' (Berghahn Books 2024); La danza dello squalo. Relazionalità e performance in una comunità yolngu della Terra di Arnehm (CLEUP 2018); La sfida dell'arte indigena australiana. Tradizione, innovazione e contemporaneità (Jaca Book 2007); and the journal articles: ' “Creating your vision and understanding” The musical legacy of Wirrinyga Band within and beyond Northeast Arnhem Land' (L’Uomo. Società, tradizione, sviluppo 2021);  'Il dolore del lutto e il potere della danza. Continuità e innovazioni culturali nei riti indigeni australiani' (2019 Jaca Book); 'A space and time for a generation to react: The Gattjirrk Cultural Festival in Milingimbi' (Oceania 2016).