Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies

The Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies (AIATSIS), established as the Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies (AIAS) in 1964, is an independent Australian Government statutory authority. It is a collecting, publishing, and research institute and is considered to be Australia's premier resource for information about the cultures and societies of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.

The institute is a leader in ethical research and the handling of culturally sensitive material. The collection at AIATSIS has been built through over 50 years of research and engagement with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities and is now a source of language and culture revitalisation, native title research, and Indigenous family and community history. AIATSIS is located on Acton Peninsula in Canberra, Australian Capital Territory.

History

The proposal and interim council (1959–1964)

In the late 1950s, there was an increasing focus on the global need for anthropological research into 'disappearing cultures'. This trend was also emerging in Australia in the work of researchers of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, leading to a proposal by W.C. Wentworth MP for the conception of an Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies (AIAS) in 1959.<!---there is more to be had from this source - no time now--->

The proposal was made as a submission to Cabinet, and argued for a more comprehensive approach by the Australian Government to the recording of Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and cultures.

In 1960, a Cabinet sub-committee assessed the proposal and formed a working party at the Australian National University (ANU) to consider the viability of the proposal. One of their first actions was to appoint W.E.H. Stanner to organise a conference on the state of Aboriginal Studies in Australia, No Aboriginal people were present at the conference.

The Interim Council consisted of 16 members and was chaired by Deputy Vice-Chancellor of the ANU, Professor A. D. Trendall, under an Act of Parliament in June 1964. The mission of the Institute at that time has been described as "to record language, song, art, material culture, ceremonial life and social structure before those traditions perished in the face of European ways".

This notion is also reflected in the Institute's official functions, as recorded in the Reading of the Bill in Parliament. These were: