Talk:Lester Hiatt

Notes for Article's Upgrade
Find below, information compiled on this talk page, to be re-written as narrative to upgrade the article.

Aboriginal social organisation

 * Hiatt is "..widely credited with having struct the sledgehammer blow to Radcliffe Brown's (once dominant) Australia wide model of local organisation ..


 * Hiatt's classic of 1962 formed a watershed in the development of ideas about [local Aboriginal organisation] by bringing togetyher widespread evidence from different regions [of Australia], and by encapsulating many of the relevant observations of ealier scholars whose findings were incompatible, or only partly compatible, with Radcliffe-Brown's views on Aboriginal local organisation"


 * Hiatt't 1962 paper produced evidence from five regions of Australia where local organisation have been studied since 1930. He did not propose an alternative universal model as a replacement of Radcliffe Brown's...Hiatt said that we need to distinguish 'ritual relationships from economic relationships' [to accurate describe/understand local organisation].  A spiritual link does not automatically imply a material one...


 * Hiatt's 1966 paper replied cogently to a 1965 defence of Radcliffe-Brown's model by Stanner .. showing again how the empirical evidence he had put together countered radcliffe's Brown's generalisations about the horde. He refuted Stanner's suggestion that Hiatt had put forward a new generalisation about Aboriginal local organisation (that is that all groups wandered about in an area regardless of local clan estate attachements). In fact Hiatt did not think all groups conformed to a single general type... Bruceanthro (talk) 07:08, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

History of Australian 'Aboriginalist' Anthropology

 * Les Hiatt has provided a valuable historical analysis of some major topics in Australian social anthropology of the colonial era and up to recent times in his 'Arguements About Aborigines' including a review of the evolution of ideas about local organisation. Bruceanthro (talk) 11:15, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

Chronology of Events
Primary references for this chronology



19311230: born in Gilgandra, New South Wales the eldest son of James Herbert Hiatt and Iris Dare Hiatt (née Clayton) 

????0000': Early years growing up Gilgandra, New South Wales 

19420000-19480000: Hurlestone Agricultural High School 

1949000-19520000: Undergraduate at Sydney University

19530000: Completed Bachelor of Dental Surgery at Sydney University

1953000-1954000: Practiced dentistry in Drummoyne 

19550000: Practiced dentistry at Bourke 

19571100: Submitted Bachelor of Arts (Hons) thesis, entitled 'An analysis of conflict in some areas of Aboriginal Australia' Bruceanthro (talk) 15:06, 16 March 2008 (UTC) 

<li>19580000: Graduated from University of Sydney with a Bachelor of Arts (Hons) degree, majoring in Anthropology </li>

<li>19580000: Australian National University offers Les Hiatt a scholarship.</li>

<li>19590000: Addressed officers at the Australian School of Pacific Administration, Mosman, on Aboriginal leadership, conflict and social control.</li>

<li>19580000-19600000: Early field Trips (with Betty Meehan) around Liverpool River, Arnhem Land. PhD supervisor is John Barnes</li>

<li>1960000: Frank Gurramanmana 'gives' Les 'plays' used many years later in the multimedia project "People of the Rivermouth"</li>

<li>19610000: Completed his scholarship with Australian National University </li>

<li>19620000: Lectured in Anthropology as a Teaching Fellow at University of Sydney </li>

<li>19630000: Lectured in Anthropology as a Senior Tutor and temporary Lecturer at Univeristy of Sydney </li>

<li>19630000: Awarded a Doctorate from the Australian National University for his thesis on the Gidjingali/Maringarr people of northern Arnhem Land </li>

<li>1963000: in Kimberley's, including Broome, Beagle Bay Mission, Derby, and Kalumbaru, with field reports for Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies (prefounding??) </li>

<li>19640000: Awarded Australian National University travelling Scholarship to go to London school of Economics, where he gave a series of postdoctoral seminars on sanctions within the Anthropology Department</li>

<li>19640000: Foundation Member of the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies, formerly Australian Institue of Aboriginal Studies. </li>

<li>19650000: Published his doctorate as a book entitled "Kinship and Conflict" </li>Bruceanthro (talk) 05:55, 14 March 2008 (UTC)</li>

<li>19650000-1966000:Lecturer at University of Sydney </li>

<li>1966000-1967000: President, Anthropological Society of NSW</li>

<li>19660000: At a Sydney University smeinar presented "‘Levi-Strauss and Oedipus Rex’. </li>

<li>19670000-19700000: Senior Lecturer at University of Sydney </li>

<li>19670000-19720000: Co-Editor of Mankind </li>

<li>19680000: New Guinea House of Assembly Election Study 1968. </li>

<li>'''‘Totemism tomorrow: the future of an illusion’, Mankind. </li>

<li>19690000: Visiting Professor, Department of Anthropology, University of Pittsburgh during their Winter Term </li>

<li>19700000: in Ceylon (Sri Lanka) - including 203 pp of field notes </li>

<li>19710000-19910000: Reader at University of Sydney </li>

<li>19720000-19730000: Overseas Fellow, Churchill College, Cambridge </li> Bruceanthro (talk) 06:41, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

<li>19740000-19820000: Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies (AIATSIS formerly AIAS) President and Chairman of Council.</li>

<li>'''19750000": 'Report on 1975 fieldwork among the Anbarra at Kopanga', by Hiatt and Margaret Clunies Ross. </li>

<li>19760000: Chairman, Committee of Inquiry into the Role of the National Aboriginal Consultative Committee. </li>

<li>1978: Presented paper entitled ‘The ideological functions of aboriginal religion’ at the International Conference on Hunters and Gatherers, Paris.</li>

<li>19780000-19850000: Assistant Editor, Oceania </li>

<li>19790000-1980000: Visiting Scholar, Department of Biological Anthropology, Oxford University </li>

<li>19791000' Presents paper at a seminar of the Department of Biological Anthropology, University of Oxford entitled ‘Sexual jealousy, sociobiology, and free choice’. </li>

<li>19800000 Presented a papers at an Oxford Univeristy seminar series on race relations, entitled "Australian Aboriginal Studies" </li>

<li>19820000-19910000 Editor, Oceania Monographs</li>

<li>19820000: President, Section 25, ANZAAS </li>

<li>'''19820500" Gave Presidential address to ANZAAS entitled "'New research perspectives on Aboriginal land tenure: 1971-80'"</li>

<li>19821031:participated in arranging for Rom (ceremonial dances) to be performed at the public opening of AIATSIS at action house, Canberra.</li>

<li>1985000-19910000: Co-Editor, Oceania

<li>19860000-19870000': Visiting Scholar, Max-Planck-Institut, Seewiesen. </li>

<li>19870000: while at Max-Planck-Institut, Seewiesen, wrote papers about "Sticklebacks", "Bluebirds", "Squirrell Monkeys" plus "Gibbons & Chinpanzees"

<li>19880000: Chairman, Fifth International Conference on Hunting and Gathering Societies, Darwin </li>

<li>????0000: Sabbaticals at Oxford University </li>

<li>19890000: Proposed an Australian Branch of the Human Evolution and Behavioural Society. Bruceanthro (talk) 14:35, 16 March 2008 (UTC)</li>

<li>1990000 - 19910000: Visiting Professor of Australian Studies, Harvard University </li>

<li>19910000: Retired from his position at the Univeristy of Sydney</li>

<li>19911210: Farewell Speech given at Dinner, on his retirement from Sydney University</li>

<li>19970000: launch of Scholar and sceptic: Australian Aboriginal Studies in honour of LR Hiatt',</li>

<li>19970000: jointly with Rhys Jones, Betty Meehan and Neville White, Visiting Scholar, Rockefeller Foundation, Bellagio </li>

<li>19980000 - 20080000: Honorary Visiting Fellow of the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies.</li>

<li>'''20021000" - gave a talk at Brunei Unversity about the impact of British colonialism on Aboriginal people, entitled "After the Dreaming". Bruceanthro (talk) 15:38, 16 March 2008 (UTC)</li>

</ul>

Personal Affiliations
Hiatt's "most prolific correspondents" were :

<ol>

<li>John Barnes</li> <li>Mervyn Meggitt</li> <li>Ronald Berndt</li> <li>Maurice Godelier</li> <li>George Munster</li> <li>Rodney Needham</li> <li>Peter Lawrence</li> <li>Betty Meehan</li> <li>Roger Sandall</li> <li>Clive Kessler</li> <li>Graham Pont</li> <li>Michael Taussig</li> <li>Arthur Tuden</li> <li>Hal Scheffler</li> <li>W.E.H. Stanner</li> <li>Mahen Varthianathan</li> <li>Chandra Jayawardena</li> <li>John Bern</li> <li>Kenneth Maddock</li> <li>Derek Freeman</li> <li>Meyer Fortes</li> <li>Frederick Rose</li> <li>Aram Yengoyan</li> <li>Jeremy Beckett</li> </ol>

Bruceanthro (talk) 13:51, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

Institutional Affiliations
????:      Bachelor Dental Surgery (?) - Sydney University

????:      Bachelor of Arts - Sydney University

????:      Doctor of Philosophy - Australian National University

1964:     Fellow of the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland

1970-1991: Reader Anthropology Department, Sydney University

1974:     Fellow of the Academy of the Social Sciences of Australia

????- 2008: Visiting Fellow, AIATSIS

????- 2008: Fellow of the Australian Anthropological Society

Major Publications

 * (1965) Kinship and Conflict: A Study of an Aboriginal Community in Northern Arnhem Land. A.N.U. Press.


 * (1975) Australian Aboriginal Mythology. A.I.A.S.


 * (1978) Australian Aboriginal Concepts. A.I.A.S.


 * (1984) Aboriginal Landowners: Contemporary Issues in the Determination of Traditional Aboriginal Land Ownership.  Oceania Monograph 27 1984


 * (1996) Arguments about Aborigines: Australia and the Evolution of Social Anthropology. Cambridge University Press.

Major Unpublished Reports

 * (????) The Moral Lexicon of the Warlpiri People of Central Australia


 * (????) The Rise and Fall of Daisy O'Dwyer

Other Publications

 * (1988) "On Cuckoldry" Canberra Anthropology Number 11.


 * (2002) People of the Rivermouth: The Joborr Texts of Frank Gurrmanamana. Made in collaboration with Kim McKenzie, Rhys Jones, Betty Meehan, and Betty Ngurraba-ngurraba. National Museum of Australia in conjunction with the Aboriginal Studies Press. Canberra.


 * (2003) "War against Iraq: Interim Reflections on Moral Justifications." Dissent Spring 2003.


 * (2006) "The Prince of Darkness: Machiavelli and the Elders of Zion" in Tatz, C., Arnold, P., and Tatz, S. (eds) Genocide Perspectives III: Essays on the Holocaust and other Genocides. Sydney: Brandl and Schlesinger. Bruceanthro (talk) 04:49, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

Nice article
Well done. Notability is well established, and chronology is impressive. I'm not sure the Frederick Rose mentioned above is either of the ones with bios in Wikipedia. Did Hiatt know Fred Meyers? Just curious.Levalley (talk) 18:23, 9 April 2009 (UTC)