Professor of Anthropology, Anthropology
Director of Research
About
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 (PI), Manchester University and Professor Chris Gregory ANU, CI).
