Marcia Langton

Marcia Langton was born in 1951 to Kathleen (née Waddy) and grew up in south-central Queensland and Brisbane as a descendant of the Yiman and Bidjara nations, both Aboriginal Australian peoples.[1] Her father had no presence in her life.[1] Her mother married Scots-born, ex-Korean War veteran Douglas Langton when Marcia was a year old.[1] She and her mother moved often, without secure housing or employment - she attended 9 primary schools.[2]

She enrolled at the University of Queensland, becoming an activist for Indigenous rights.

While in Japan, Langton learnt about Buddhism, and later became a self-described "lazy Buddhist".[1] Wiradjuri artist Brook Andrew painted Langton in a Buddhist pose.[3][4]

On her return to Australia, Langton studied anthropology at the Australian National University in the 1980s, becoming the first Indigenous honours graduate in anthropology. She then worked with several organisations dealing with Indigenous social and cultural issues and land claims. These included the Australian Film Commission, the Central Land Council (where she was a land claims anthropologist), the Queensland Government and, in the early 1990s, the Cape York Land Council. As a member of the Northern Territory Aboriginal Issues Unit she worked for the 1989 Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody.

In 1995 she moved full-time into university research and teaching. She spent five years as Ranger Professor of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies at Northern Territory University (now Charles Darwin University) in Darwin before moving to Melbourne.

In 2012 she became the patron of the Indigenous Reading Project,[5][6] a charitable organisation that uses digital technology to improve the reading ability of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children.[7][8]

Langton has been on the judging panel for the annual Horne Prize since its inception in 2016.[9]

On 30 October 2019, Langton was announced as a co-chair on the Senior Advisory Group of the Indigenous voice to government, convened by Ken Wyatt, along with by Professor Tom Calma AO. The group consists of 20 leaders and experts from across the country.[10]

Langton is known for her work in several academic fields, linked by a concern for Indigenous rights, justice, and artistic expression. Langton conducts anthropological work to support land claims by Aboriginal peoples and their negotiations with mining companies and the state.

Her 2005 PhD thesis in geography at Macquarie University applies phenomenological theory to the study of Aboriginal peoples of the eastern Cape York Peninsula.[11][12]

She is a frequent media commentator, and serves on various high-level committees on Indigenous issues. These have included the Centre for Aboriginal Reconciliation, the directorship of the Centre for Indigenous Natural and Cultural Resource Management, chair of the Indigenous Higher Education Advisory Council, and chair of the Cape York Institute for Policy and Leadership.

In 2000 she was one of five Indigenous leaders who were granted an audience with the Queen to discuss an apology and Indigenous recognition in the Australian Constitution.[13]

In May 2008, the federal government appointed her to the Native Title Payments Working Group looking into reform of the Australian native title process.[14]

She has argued that settlement with mining companies on Aboriginal land often benefits local interests more than the Australian government, and that the proposed 2010 resource tax on mining in Australia needed a redesign to support Indigenous rights and employment.[15]

In 2017 she campaigned against "environmentalists" thwarting native title reform as part of their case against the Adani Carmichael coal mine.[16] Her criticisms of Indigenous litigants have been rebuffed by another Indigenous lawyer.[17]

Langton was made a member of the Order of Australia in the 1993 Queen's Birthday Honours for "service as an anthropologist and advocate of Aboriginal issues".[18] She was promoted to officer of the Order of Australia in the 2020 Australia Day Honours for "distinguished service to tertiary education, and as an advocate for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people".[19]

Other awards to Langton have included:

• Neville Bonner Award for Indigenous Teacher of the Year, 2002 (jointly with Larissa Behrendt)
• Fellow, Academy of Social Sciences in Australia, elected 2001[20]
• Inducted onto the Victorian Honour Roll of Women in 2001[21]
• Australia's top 100 Intellectuals[22]
• Australia's top 40 public intellectuals[23]
• Fellow of Trinity College (University of Melbourne), elected 2012
• Fellow of Emmanuel College at The University of Queensland, 2016

In 2020, the International Astronomical Union's Working Group for Small Body Nomenclature (CSBN) formally approved the asteroid 1979 ML₁ as 7809 Marcialangton in honour of her efforts to incorporate Aboriginal astronomical perspectives into the Australian National Curriculum.

Notes

References

• "Prof Marcia Langton". Find an Expert. University of Melbourne. 1 January 2019.
• Henningham, Nikki (2 April 2014). "Langton, Marcia". The Encyclopedia of Women and Leadership in Twentieth-Century Australia.
• "Boyer Lectures: 2012". ABC Radio National.
• "Marcia Langton". Marcia Langton (blog). 27 December 2010.
• Rothwell, Nicolas (3 September 2008). "Indigenous insiders chart an end to victimhood". The Australian. Archived from the original on 24 September 2008. About Noel Pearson and Langton.