Dr Sam Harper on Kimberley Rock Art, Collaboration, and the Next Generation of Researchers
Dr Sam Harper is an archaeologist and rock art specialist with over 15 years of experience in archaeology and heritage management. Based at the Centre for Rock Art Research + Management at UWA, she holds the Rock Art Australia Kimberley Research Fellowship, established through Rock Art Australia’s partnership with The University of Western Australia to advance research and training in Kimberley rock art.
As RAA Research Fellow, Dr Harper leads interdisciplinary research in the Kimberley exploring how rock art reflects environmental change, cultural continuity, and biodiversity through time.
In a conversation with Rock Art Australia, Dr Sam Harper shares her vision for the Rock Art Australia Kimberley Research Fellowship, reflecting on her enduring connection with Rock Art Australia and how collaboration, mentorship, and community partnerships are helping uncover Australia’s deep human history.
RAA: With your new role as the Rock Art Australia Research Fellow at UWA, what are your main expectations for the project? What objectives would you like to achieve, and what do you anticipate might be some of the highlights of your research?
Sam: I am very excited to be launching into this Rock Art Australia Research Fellowship, and very grateful for the opportunity to build a research program and strengthen community collaborations over the next five years.
I will be focused on collaborative two-way research, conservation and management, and I hope to deliver a phase two research program with Balanggarra that builds upon the legacy of the Kimberley Visions project and continues focused work in the Cockburn Ranges and other priority areas.
One major objective that I would like to facilitate with Balanggarra is development of their cultural database to incorporate this and other legacy data into a functional system for land management and research. In harnessing this dataset into a cohesive portal, and building on previous investment, I see great potential for new multidisciplinary research initiatives to answer community concerns and priorities, and answer some big questions around how rock art maps narratives across country, and the agentic role of rock art in managing changing climates through time.
Through this work and continued engagement in the NE Kimberley, I am keen to develop broader working relationships and networks, bringing along students and colleagues to play in role in strengthening a Kimberley-focused research hub.
Let’s see what highlights come out of this journey – hopefully plenty of time spent on Country with people, and sharing new research alongside community in culturally safe ways that celebrates the strength and power of Kimberley rock art.
RAA: Your connection with Rock Art Australia began early in your career, through the Kimberley Visions and Rock Art Dating projects, and later through a research grant for your work in the Cockburn Ranges. How has this ongoing relationship influenced your development as a researcher?
Sam: After finishing my PhD , which looked at coastal Pilbara rock art, landing a position on the Kimberley Visions project really changed the direction of my research career.
Stepping into the project with Balanggarra, and working closely with the Rock Art Dating project as well, was very fun – the teams together numbered sometimes over 40 researchers camped out on Country with Balanggarra and Kwini mob. My previous Kimberley experience had been a legal internship during my undergraduate years based in Kununurra for 6 weeks with Miriuwung Gajerrong Corp as part of the Aurora project, and we’d ventured as far as El Questro one weekend for one of the staff birthday celebrations – so a pretty limited exposure.
Camping out on the Drysdale or over at Oomarri, getting in and out of choppers daily, surveying across sandstone country, and working with such a diverse group of specialists, was such a great privilege, and getting to do that for another four field seasons had a huge impact on the kind of research I want to do.
Most importantly – working with people on their Country, bringing together different skillsets to answer big rock art questions through deep time, and more recent questions around how cross-cultural interactions are marked in the landscape – through rock art and also through other kinds of material culture that get stored in these places.
The support of RAA has facilitated these bold projects and time spent in the field, as well as focusing on how we disseminate and share research to broader audiences, and the importance of translating specialist information into accessible material that brings along the broader public.
RAA: This fellowship builds on the partnership between Rock Art Australia and UWA. How important are collaborations like this in advancing scientific research and supporting community-led projects in the Kimberley?
Sam: Having attended my first Rock Art Australia SAC workshop in 2013, in the first year of my PhD studies at UWA, and working alongside Peter Veth and Joakim Goldhahn in their tenures as RAA Kimberley Rock Art Chairs, I have been witness to the strength of the RAA and UWA partnership for over a decade now.
Having the Centre for Rock Art Research + Management at UWA was what originally drew me over to the west, to work with some of the nation’s best rock art researchers and be part of a team that leads world-class research.
Combining this team with RAA supported research projects shows a strong partnership with research success, and strong outputs around time spent on Country for researchers and community members.
Looking at the Visions project as an example, that RAA supported collaboration led to four PhDs out of UWA covering diverse research questions, and over 20 publications advancing research in fields of archaeo-morphology, contact studies, rock art style, environmental change, and human-animal relationships.
RAA: Your work brings together archaeological science and Indigenous knowledge. How do these two ways of knowing come together in meaningful and respectful ways in your research?
Sam: Working with one of the globe’s oldest living cultures, as someone trained in archaeology and rock art research, brings together different knowledge systems that together can create much greater benefit, and more profound understanding.
In my research, I aim to setup programs that are built out of listening to community to answer research questions that promote Indigenous knowledge and leadership, are of benefit, and include training and intergenerational knowledge transfer as key outputs. What this looks like is spending time at meetings to chat about priorities – and for the Cockburn Ranges project this came about through an impending tenure change, with the Ranges proposed as a co-managed National Park with DBCA, and the need for mapping of cultural sites in light of potential increased tourism, and threat management.
The training component comes through having both senior and junior Ranger teams involved in fieldwork, who will be responsible moving forward for managing that land, and communication through reporting back and involving community in that knowledge generation. Through that project, more questions have arisen as information is shared – how were these Ranges used as refuges with the arrival of pastoralism; how does rock art show differences in which family and language groups used which Range? And in this way, that ongoing conversation allows research to build in ways that is responsive, and ensures a constant feedback loop.
RAA: Rock Art Australia relies on philanthropic and donor support to fund collaborative science. From your perspective as a researcher in the field, what difference does this support make to the scope and impact of your work?
Sam: Undertaking fieldwork in the Kimberley is expensive – and so relies on funding models that celebrate and support these kinds of research projects with community to be undertaken.
Whilst there are various national and state-based funding schemes available, these are highly competitive, and where linkage partners are in support of well-developed programs, there is a greater likelihood the work can get done.
RAA’s support for research is then of key importance, with their philanthropic network, to be able to make these research developments.
RAA: Looking ahead, what inspired you to pursue this path in rock art research, and what goals or outcomes are most important to you, particularly in mentoring the next generation of researchers and contributing to lasting knowledge?
Sam: I love stories and visual narrative, and the rich information that is embedded by Aboriginal people within their rock art, is what drew me to this specialty within Archaeology.
In working across Australia’s northwest with communities and having the privilege to spend time documenting rock art, thinking about human creativity and communication, and tying that into management strategies that strengthen community, I have felt incredibly lucky. I get to work with amazing colleagues and have fun clambering around the rocks, it is the best.
I am excited by the current generation of rock art researchers around the country, and by the intelligence, compassion, and culturally aware generation that is coming through as undergraduate students now.
I am keen to see this network strengthened through sparking interest in both undergraduate teaching, and through school incursions locally and in community, hoping to spark those thoughts and questions – that will lead to a long journey of thinking about how we understand the role of rock art as part of the human story.
