Modern diplomacy: understanding ceremonial exchange at Indigenous festivals

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This project aims to investigate how ceremonial performance at Indigenous festivals in northern Australia enacts diplomacy between Indigenous and non-Indigenous participants, and between different clan and language groups. The project focuses on festivals in the Top End, 1964-present, using collaborative research with ceremony leaders and a comparative analysis of performance. The project expects to generate knowledge on how the exchange of dance and song in festivals is linked to ceremonies of diplomacy, and how this diplomacy enables intercultural dialogue. Expected outcomes include a mobile song library of archival recordings. Expected benefits include strengthened community efforts to sustain Indigenous song traditions into the future.