that munanga linguist

If you've spent any time on the Stuart Highway north of Mataranka in the last couple of months, you've probably passed some distinctive looking road trains carting iron ore towards Darwin. For the past six weeks, they have been steadily coming out of Northern Territory Iron Ore 's mine which is part of something called the Roper Valley Iron Ore Project . What travellers on the Stuart Highway won't see is what those trucks are starting to do to country 150km east of the main highway. I travel along this road - the Roper Highway - usually twice a week. The reddening of the area near the mine is noticeable. A week ago, I stopped to look at just how much dust was coating the roadside vegetation and the pics I tweeted caught the attention of ABC's Country Hour and the Environment Centre NT.  Took a closer look at what iron ore trucking is doing to this section of the Roper Highway. This is after trucks have only been running for six weeks. See sub-tweets for video @Envi...

The other day a discussion topic came through via email about 'supporting community researchers in the field'. The discussion topic was introduced as: The ways that linguists work with communities is starting to change. The idea of doing research on or in a community is shifting to doing research with the community. The movement towards community-based and participatory fieldwork models in Linguistics mirrors shifts in other disciplines such as health research. Okay, I know the above was just a quick way to introduce the topic but it tapped into a bigger issue and I felt the need to write the following... *steps up on to soapbox*  Disclaimer: I'm not criticising the many of us who do linguistic fieldwork and try our best (often with great success) to increase local involvement, exchange skills and knowledge and so on. Nor am I criticising the organisations who do deliver great training and do great community-based work. Nor am I implying that this is a redundant ...