Philip Jones and Anna Kenny - Australia's Muslim Cameleers: pioneers of the Inland 1860 - 1930s
Philip Jones is a historian interested in the Australian frontier, and in the artistic and cultural activity engendered by it. Before writing his doctorate on the history of ethnographic collecting he completed a law degree and majored in French history at the University of Adelaide. Appointed curator in the Anthropology Department at the South Australian Museum in 1984, he was a contributor to Peter Sutton’s seminal Dreamings: the art of Aboriginal Australia (1988). Philip has curated a number of ethnographic and historical exhibitions, and designed the concept for the South Australian Museum’s Aboriginal Cultures Gallery.
Since 1985 he has undertaken fieldwork with Aboriginal communities in southern and central Australia. He is currently involved in a site-recording project with Aboriginal people of the Birdsville region.
Dr Philip Jones
Anna Kenny is an anthropologist based in Alice Springs, Central Australia. She has conducted field research with Indigenous people since 1991 involving media, land and native title claims, mining and sacred site protection. She is particularly interested in the socio-cultural history and ethnology of Inland Australia and began researching the heritage and legacy of the Muslim cameleers at the beginning of 2001. She has written about Indigenous cultures, multicultural society and the intellectual history of Central Australia. Anna is currently working on a book and film on Carl Strehlow and producing a documentary on Australian Muslim explorers and pioneers.
Dr Anna Kenny
Photo by Shane Mulcahy
Australia's Muslim Cameleers: pioneers of the Inland 1860 - 1930s
Between 1870 and 1920 as many as 2000 cameleers and 20,000 camels arrived in Australia from Afghanistan and northern India. Australia’s Muslim Cameleers is a rich pictorial history of these men, their way of life and the vital role they played in pioneering transport and communication routes across outback Australia’s vast expanses. Many of the images and artefacts in this fascinating account are published here for the first time, and the book contains a biographical listing of more than 1200 cameleers.
Australia's Muslim Cameleers: pioneers of the Inland 1860 - 1930s is published by Wakefield Press
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