Ethnographic evidence, rights and interests, and Native Title claim research

Australia’s Native Titles system brings together a range of sectors and disciplines, including the legal and anthropological professions. While anthropologists’ training may equip them with the relevant skills for undertaking ethnographic research in a community, it is often the anthropologist or the people they propose to carry out field work with who determine the particular issue or topic to be the subject of anthropological enquiry. However, in Native Title matters anthropologists undertake work in a legal context - their research questions are often set by others, and are determined with reference to the evidence required by the Commonwealth Native Title Act 1993 and the courts to support a Native Title claim. This paper discusses the relevance of the Native Title statutory framework to ethnographic research and explores the kind of ethnographic evidence that may be relevant to anthropologists researching Native Title claims in light of the requirements of the Native Title Act and its interpretation by the courts.