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Professor Fiona Magowan

Image: Fiona Magowan

BA Hons (Nottingham), MSt, (Oxford), DPhil (Oxford)

Professor of Social Anthropology

Director of Research, Anthropology and Ethnomusicology Research Cluster

Tel: + 44 (0) 28 9097 3740
E-mail: f.magowan@qub.ac.uk

Office: 14UQ.202

Fiona Magowan was educated at the universities of Nottingham and Oxford in Music and Social Anthropology and awarded a D.Phil at Oxford in 1995. She held lectureships in Anthropology at Manchester University (1993-96) and Adelaide University, South Australia (1996-2003) before coming to Queen’s University in 2003. She has been Vice-President of the Australian Anthropological Society 2000-2002 and Chair of the Anthropological Association of Ireland (2006-08). She is currently a member of the Royal Irish Academy's National Committee for Social Sciences and Chair of the Music and Gender Symposium of the International Council for Traditional Music.

Research Interests

Her research interests span issues of movement, music and the senses in anthropology and ethnomusicology. She has conducted fieldwork on religion, ritual and Christianity amongst Yolngu in north east Arnhem Land since 1990 with regular return trips over eighteen years, most recently to research cultural tourism in 2006, mission history in 2008 and movements in art and aesthetics 2010. Her book, Melodies of Mourning, shortlisted for the 2008 Stanner Award, examines Yolngu sensory awareness of the Northern Territory environment through music and dance and women's emotions in ritual performance. She has also carried out consultancies on town infrastructure and customary marine tenure in far north Queensland and north east Arnhem Land, respectively. In recent years, she has worked on senses of musical healing and culture in Northern Ireland and has conducted an ESRC funded project on senses of risk among drivers, pedestrians and other road users. She currently holds two RCUK funded projects: Moving aesthetics: translocal and transnational spiritualities in Australian Aboriginal art (HERA 2010-2012 as CI with Dr. Maruska Svasek, PI) and The Domestic Moral Economy: An Ethnographic Study of Values in the Asia-Pacific (ESRC 2011-2015 with Professor Karen Sykes, Manchester University and Professor Chris Gregory ANU).

 

Books

2010 (with H. Donnan) The Anthropology of Sex. Oxford: Berg. [link]

2009 (co-ed.) Transgressive Sex: Subversion and Control in Erotic Encounters. Oxford: Berghahn. [link]

2007 Melodies of Mourning: Music and Emotion in Northern Australia. Oxford : James Currey Publishers.

2005 Landscapes of Indigenous Performance (ed. with K. Neuenfeldt) Canberra : Aboriginal Studies Press.

2001 Telling Stories: Indigenous life Narratives, Memory and History: Aotearoa/New Zealand and Australia , (ed.with Bain Attwood).Melbourne : Allen and Uwin.

 

Select chapters and articles

2007 ‘Globalisation and Indigenous Christianity: Translocal Emotions in Australian  Aboriginal Christian Song’, Identities: Global Studies in Culture and Power, Vol 14 no. 6: 459-83. 

2009 'A sung heritage: An ecological approach to rights and authority in intangible cultural heritage in Northern Australia', in M. Langfield, M. Nic Craith and W. Logan (eds), Cultural Diversity, Heritage and Human Rights: Intersections in Theory and Practice. London: Routledge

2007 This is Our Story: Performing, Recording and Archiving Yolngu Cultural Heritage. In M. Nic Craith and U. Kockel (eds.) Cultural Heritages as Reflexive Traditions. London: Palgrave Macmillan.

2005 ‘Playing With Meaning: Perspectives on Culture, Commodification and Contestation around the Didjeridu’, Yearbook for Traditional Music, Vol.37: 80-102.

2005 ‘Drums of Suffering in Belfast’s European Capital of Culture Bid: John Blacking on Music, Conflict and Healing’ In V. Rodgers and D. Symons (eds) The Legacy of John Blacking: essays on music, culture and society. Perth : UWA Press. Pp. 56-78.

2005 ‘Experiencing Spirit: Religious Processes of Interaction and Unification in Aboriginal Australia ’ In P. Brock (ed.) Indigenous Peoples and Religious Change. Leiden, Boston : Brill.

Queen's Teaching Award

In 2007, Professor Magowan was the first recipient of a Queen's University Teaching Award in the School of History and Anthropology.  For further information on the award see links below.

http://www.mediator.qub.ac.uk/ms/streams/awards2007/Fiona_MBR_Broadband_Stream_16_9.wmv  

http://www.mediator.qub.ac.uk/ms/streams/awards2007/Fiona_384K_Stream.mov

Teaching

Expressive Cultures: Sound, Text and Image ESA1001

Dissertation Preparation ANT2030

Performance, Power and Passion ESA2003, 3003

Sex and Gender: Anthropological Perspectives SAN2020 SAN3030

 

Current PhD Supervisions

(First supervisor)

Hilary Foye: Christianity, Conflict and Community: Expressions of Faith, Emotion and Personhood in the Contemporary Church. 

Theodore Konkouris:  Nganaw: Heroes, Gunpowder, Cassettes and Taperecorders: Production, Distribution and Transmission of a Musial Tradition in Mali West Africa 

Jaime Rollins-McColgan: Parading Identity, Memory and Commemoration in Northern Ireland

(Second supervisor)

Elina Rowley: The Management of Shark Populations in Townsville, Qld. Australia

Renato Castro: Picturing the past: Technologies of musical knowledge in nineteenth century Rio de Janeiro 

Bea Prentice: Latin Oxford: Dominance, Power and Gender Roles Dancing Salsa          

PhDs Completed in last five years (First Supervisor)

Julissa Ossorio-Bermudez (2011) Negotiating Gender among Muslim Girls through Popular Music in Northern Ireland.

Gordon Ramsey (2010) Music, Emotion and Identity in Ulster-Scots Communities.

Sally Walmsley-Pledl (2007) Playing A-Part Together: Negotiating Participation, Practice and Meaning in Voluntary Music Associations in East Bavaria.

Jonathan McIntosh (2006) Meaning through Tradition: Children's Practice and Performance of Dance, Music and Song in South-central Bali.

 

Relevant website addresses

Royal Irish Academy Committee for Social Sciences http://www.ria.ie/committees/socialscience/new.html

Anthropological Association of Ireland: http://www.anthropologyireland.org/index.htm

International Council for Traditional Music: http://www.ictmusic.org/ICTM/

 

Select journal articles
http://www.atsis.uq.edu.au/ajie/docs/20012912235.pdf#search=%22Waves%20of%20Knowing%3A%20Polymorphism%20%22