(Cultural) Anthropology

Dr Michael Pickering has worked extensively with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander organizations, State and Territory Heritage Agencies, and museums across Australia. Dr Pickering moved to the National Museum of Australia as the Director of the Repatriation Program in 2001, later taking on the role of Head of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Program, from 2004 to 2011. He then moved to the Research Centre. From 2013 to 2014 he was the Acting Head of the Australian Society and History Program. In 2015 he took up the position as Head of Research Centre. From 2018 to 2022 he was the Senior Repatriation Advisor at the National Museum of Australia. He now works as an independent heritage researcher.

Dr Pickering is an Honorary Associate Professor with the Department of Museum and Heritage Studies at the Australian National University, an Honorary Professor with the Global Station for Indigenous Studies and Cultural Diversity, Hokkaido University, Japan, and a Partner with the Centre for Australian Studies, Cologne University, Germany. Dr. Pickering is collaborating closely with Prof. Adone and team.

Dr Pickering is on the editorial boards of the journals ‘Museum Management and Curatorship’ and ‘Museums and Social Issues’.  He is an ‘Expert Examiner’ under the Australian Protection of Moveable Cultural Heritage Act 1986.

He has a wide range of research interests and has published articles on topics ranging from material culture, cannibalism, settlement patterns, museum exhibitions, museum ethics, workplace health and safety, and repatriation.

Research Field(s)

Repatriation, Cannibalism, museum management of Indigenous cultural heritage, Hunter-gatherer settlement patterns.

Her research focuses on oral history and cultural change of indigenous communities in Australia, New Zealand and Samoa, as well as the colonial history of Oceania. She was Visiting Fellow at the Research School of Pacific Studies at the Australian National University, Canberra. In 2004, she received her Ph.D. She conducted several ethnological research trips to Australia, New Zealand, Samoa, and Hawai’i, where she worked with people from Indigenous cultures. She has worked with these communities to repatriate Ancestral Remains from the (SES) and has ongoing work on provenance research as well as restitution and repatriation. Dr. Scheps-Bretschneider is collaborating closely with Prof. Adone and team.

Before joining Heidelberg University in 2014, he was Postdoctoral Fellow of the Graduate School Society and Culture in Motion, Martin Luther University of Halle-Wittenberg (Germany) and Marie Skłodowska-Curie Fellow of the Social Policy Research Centre at the University of New South Wales (Australia). Dr. Wergin’s work is located at the intersections of heritage, culture and ecology.

He has published widely on diverse topics such as music, tourism, heritage, environmental activism, resource exploration, as well as more general theoretical aspects of anthropology and transcultural studies research in Australia and elsewhere. Among others, he is author of Der Ruf des Schneckenhorns: Hermann Klaatsch (1863-1916). Ein Heidelberger Wissenschaftler in Nordwestaustralien (with Corinna Erckenbrecht, HeiUP 2018), co-editor of Musical Performance and the Changing City (with Fabian Holt, Routledge 2013) and the Special Issue “Materialities of Tourism” (with Stephen Muecke, Tourist Studies 2014). In his current project, he examines the restitution of artefacts and repatriation of human remains as transcultural processes of connectivity and healing. Dr. Wergin is collaborating closely with Prof. Adone and team.

Her work sits at the intersection of cross-cultural approaches to environmental resource management, cultural heritage and disaster mitigation (including flooding, invasive species incursions and loss of biodiversity) with a focus on tech-mitigation approaches such as genetic engineering/synthetic biology as well as nature-based solutions. Kirsty is currently a Research Fellow with the School of Culture, History and Language and the Institute of Climate, Energy and Disaster Solutions at the Australian National University (ANU). She is also a Visiting Scientist with the Water Security Program of the Australian Government’s Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO). Her current research considers how water cultural values of Aboriginal peoples from the Bundjalung Nation inform relationships with, care for, and flood mitigation attitudes about the Richmond River catchment in New South Wales, Australia. Kirsty has also worked with Traditional Owners, Indigenous scientists, Traditional Authorities and other knowledge holders within the Central Australian, Pilbara, Top End and Torres Strait regions of Australia and in the Akwamu Traditional Area of Ghana.