The Library is pleased to announce that the recipient of the 2025 Fryer Fellowship is Rosita Henry. Rosita will use the fellowship to work on a project entitled 'Kiap (Re)collections: Patrol Officers as Political Educators for PNG Independence'.
Fellowship project
Rosita's fellowship project will explore the rich archival collections held in the Fryer Library, in conjunction with a living heritage of oral history among the last generation of patrol officers (kiaps) who were in the employ of the Australian administration during its final years in Papua New Guinea (PNG).
Focusing on the last decades before Independence (16 September 1975), the project will investigate the efforts of the kiaps to prepare the rural population for citizenship in the soon to be independent nation-state.
Rosita's research will draw upon various archival collections held in the Fryer Library, including:
- Papua New Guinea Association of Australia Papers
- Jack Keith Murray Papers
- John Joseph Murphy Papers
- Ivan F. Champion Papers
- Arthur Power Lyons Papers
- Mitch Thompson Papers
- Peter Pinney Papers
- Lloyd C. Yelland Papers
- Robert Furlong Papers
- Anne McCosker Papers
- Ralph Thomas Gore Papers.
Rosita will present the results of her research through talks, publications and social media.
Rosita Henry
Rosita is currently Professor of Anthropology at James Cook University. Her research concerns relationships between people and places across Australia and the Pacific as expressed through cultural festivals, the political economy of public performances, cultural heritage, land tenure conflict and the relationship between Indigenous peoples and the state.
About the Fryer Fellowship
The annual Fryer Library Fellowship encourages scholars to visit UQ and use the rare and special collections in the Fryer Library at UQ for a research project in areas including:
- Australian literature
- Australian theatre
- Indigenous studies
- Queensland architecture
- art and design
- Australian history and political culture
- women’s studies
- refugee studies.
