News edition for 24 August 2026. Added to Nungya on 22 October 2026 as part of our retrospective news archive. Reporting reflects information available by the edition date.
A place-name record can tell us about a landscape. It can also tell us about the people and institutions deciding which knowledge to write down.
In a State Library of Queensland feature published on 4 June, Dr Rose Barrowcliffe examines correspondence from a 1923–24 survey of Aboriginal place names. The 2026 Monica Clare Research Fellow encountered the 290-page record at Queensland State Archives.
Her questions focus partly on officials who supplied little or no information. Some claimed there were no Aboriginal place names in their districts, while others said there was nobody to ask. Barrowcliffe considers those responses alongside the many Aboriginal names still present across Queensland.
The research looks at the relationship between the place-name project and the system of officials who controlled Aboriginal people’s lives. It asks how those relationships shaped what was collected, recorded or overlooked.
This earlier research update offers a useful invitation to read an archive critically. An official record is evidence, but its silences and assumptions need attention too.
For anyone interested in the names of familiar towns and landscapes, the feature provides historical context and a substantial bibliography for further reading.
