Dr Mary Anne Jebb

Dr Mary Anne Jebb
Current projects: Lowitja History: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health research in practice, Serving Our Country: a history of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in defence of Australia
Position: 
Research Fellow.
Email: 
Maryanne.Jebb@aiatsis.gov.au

Mary Anne Jebb joined AIATSIS in 2014 as a Research Fellow.

Current research focus

Dr Jebb's current research focus is on the ARC Linkage project 'Serving Our Country: a history of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in the defence of Australia' (2014–16) with a particular focus on northern Australia and gendered experiences of wartime for Aboriginal people and communities. She is also working on a research project 'Singing the Train' which is a research, recording and exhibition project withn the Wangka Maya Pilbara Aboriginal Language Centre, Revolutions Transport Museum and AIATSIS, based on an historical song in the Pilbara.

Mary Anne Jebb joined AIATSIS in 2014 as a Research Fellow. She is a historian whose PhD integrated oral historical and ethnographic research methods with written documentary textual analysis to uncover histories of a region of Australia where few people recorded their experiences in writing. It was published as Blood, Sweat and Welfare in 2002, for which it received the Keith Hancock History Award.

She has held academic lecturing and research positions at Murdoch University, Notre Dame (Fremantle), the University of Western Australia and the Australian National University, with many years living and working in remote regions of Western Australia. Her research creates contemporary historical recordings and products for preservation with AIATSIS, as well as drawing on AIATSIS heritage collections for collaborative history productions. She has a particular interest in concepts of curating your own history and evaluating the impacts of digital history technologies like sound recordings, film, photographs, exhibitions and web based archives on Indigenous peoples' histories.

Academic training

Bachelor of Arts, History, Communication Studies and Sociology, Honours in History, Murdoch University.
PhD Murdoch University (History).

Interest areas

History, oral history, film, biography, exhibition production, digital histories, repatriation of heritage materials and digital archive development.

Awards

  • 2012 Museums Australia Award for Best Australian Exhibition (MAGNA Award) (Curator) and Museums Australia Award for Best Permanent Exhibition (Curator) Burlganyja Wanggaya: 'Old People Talking'
  • 2009 Shortlisted for the Western Australia A Premiers Award, (Mowanjum).
  • 2009 Special Commendation Margaret Medcalfe Award (Mowanjum).
  • 2009 Janet Holmes a Court Residential Fellowship Manning Clark House.
  • 2004 WK Hancock History Award (Blood Sweat and Welfare).
  • 2003 Shortlisted New South Wales Premier's History Award (Blood Sweat and Welfare).
  • 2002 Shortlisted for the Queensland Premier's Literature Award (non-fiction award  — Blood Sweat and Welfare).
  • 2002 Shortlisted for the Victorian Premier's Book Award (Nettie Palmer Prize — Blood Sweat and Welfare).
  • 2002 Shortlisted for the Western Australian Premier's Book Award (Blood Sweat and Welfare).
  • 2001 Australian History Association Centenary of Federation Publication Award.
  • 2000 Western Australian History Foundation Publication Award.
  • 1996 Shortlisted for the West Australian Premier's Award (Emerarra)

Previous positions

Panel member of the Indigenous Community Stories (Film Grants), board member of the Studies in Western Australia History Journal (UWA), visitor to the School of History at the Australian National University, external member of the Digital Humanities Research Group at the University of Western Sydney.

Publications 

Books

  • Jebb, M.A., 2008, Mowanjum 50 Years: A Community History, Mowanjum Aboriginal Community.
  • Jebb, M.A., 2002, Blood, Sweat and Welfare: A History of White Bosses and Aboriginal Workers, UWA Press.
  • Jebb, M.A., 1996 Editor, Emerarra: A Man of Merarra, Magabala Books, Broome.
  • Articles, exhibitions select reports
  • 2014 (In Press) 'First Encounters: Contact histories in Jack wherra's carved visual narratives' in Ian McLean Ed. Indigenous contemporary art: Negotiating intercultural differences, Cambridge Scholars Publishing.
  • 2012, 'That Deadman Dance and Shaking Hands', Aboriginal History, vol. 36, pp. 237–239.
  • 2012, website, 'John Mulvaney: reflections on Arnhem Land history'. Mulvaney reflections page located on the Australian National University website.
  • 2012, 'Exhibition — Burlganyja Wanggaya: Old People Talking' Carnarvon Western Australia.
  • 2011 with Layman, L. etal 'The East Perth Power Station History'
  • 2011 'It was just like a reserve in the city: Aboriginal Histories of East Perth around the Power Station', Lenore Layman Ed. Powering Perth: A History of the East Perth Power Station, Black Swan Press, pp.38–62.
  • 2010 with Bill Bunbury Noongar Voices of the central eastern Wheatbelt 3 part social history Sound production, with booklet, broadcast ABC National September 2010.
  • 2009  with Leah Umbagai Jigeengadi: Sustainable Harvesting of Bush Materials for Commercial Products, Mowanjum Aboriginal Community.
  • 2009 'Bungarun', Historical Encyclopedia of Western Australia, pp. 154-155, 2009.
  • 2007 with Allbrook, M., 'First Contact' in (eds) D. Gare and D. Ritter, Making Australian History; Perspectives on the past Since 1788, Thomson Learning, pp. 78-87.
  • 2006 'Jack Wherra's boab nut carving; A Cross-Cultural History', Royal West Australian Historical Society Journal, vol.12, Pt 6, pp.696-715.
  • 1992 with Anna Haebich, 'Across The Great Divide'; Gender Relations On Australian Frontiers', in Kay Saunders and Raymond Evans (eds) Gender Relations In Australia: Domination And Negotiation, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, pp. 20-35.
  • 1984 'The Lock Hospitals Experiment: Europeans, Aborigines and venereal disease', in R. Reece and T, Stannage (eds) European-Aboriginal Relations in Western Australian History, Studies in West Australian History, vol. 8, pp. 68-86.
  • 2010   with Allbrook, M., 'Indigenous Historical Significance of the Kimberley region' for proposed national heritage listing, Unpublished report, DEWA.
  • 2004 with Allbrook, M., Implementation of Native Title Agreements, NNTT. 
  • 2004 with Allbrook, M., Consulting Citizens: Engaging with Aboriginal Western Australians, WA Govt. 
  • Whispering In Our Hearts, 2002  Directed by Mitch Torres, researched Mary Anne Jebb, Ronin Films. 
  • with Blundell, V., 'Elkin Umbagai', 2002 Australian Dictionary of Biography.  
  • 1996, 'George Dinah',  Australian Dictionary of Biography.