HRC 2024 Annual Theme – Time, Place, Everywhen

2024 marks the 50^th year of the ANU Humanities Research Centre (HRC). To celebrate, the HRC is supporting research into different ideas of time and place and paying respect to Indigenous people through the theme of ‘everywhen’

Everywhen brings together a sense of ever-present time with people, culture, law, the landscape and cosmos. While the term is associated with ANU anthropologist W.E.H Stanner, the fusion of time and place has deep origins and broad application.

Via research projects, as well as lectures, advocacy and art, the HRC invites world-class Indigenous and non-Indigenous researchers to showcase the flourishing of the humanities and cognate fields by addressing the following questions and topics.

• How have people from around the world and throughout history integrated time and place?
• How can different conceptions of time and place unsettle practices of assimilation, extraction, and domination?
• Regenerative approaches to knowledge and culture in higher education and the Galleries, Libraries, Archives and Museums (GLAM) sector.
• Everywhen-related examples of art, activism, public engagement and collaboration that advance truth telling, healing and belonging.
• Through studies of language, literature, religion, material culture and history, what can be known and registered about everywhen and what can’t be?
• How can changing ideas of time and place foster creativity and wellbeing?

Feature piece on W.E.H Stanner by Dr Kim Huynh, HRC Deputy Director
"Against “the Great Australian Silence”: The relevance of W.E.H. Stanner to the referendum debate", exceprt below.

"No one has done more to foster understanding and respect between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians. Stanner’s work in the Northern Territory with Wagiman and Ngan’giwumirri people around the Daly River, and with Murrinh-patha people at Port Keats, was marked by empathy, sophistication, and respect. He took on prevailing attitudes and policies of assimilation which sought to erase the heritage of Aboriginal peoples and to make them “un-be”. In coining the phrase “the Great Australian Silence”, Stanner argued that, despite efforts to forget, downplay, and distance the violence and injustice of British colonialism from Australian history, its effects stuck out “like a foot from a shallow grave”. This historical silence needed to be broken, not only as a matter of justice, but because it inhibited all Australians from appreciating the distinctive value of Aboriginal life, culture, and society."  Read the full article.