Articles by: Melinda Hinkson

Author Biography:

Melinda Hinkson is a social anthropologist, executive director of the Institute of Postcolonial Studies and an Arena Publications Editor. In March 2023 she appeared as an expert witness for the Parumpurru (Justice) committee of Yuendumu at the coronial inquest into the death of Kumanjayi Walker.

The Voice: Dark Fault Lines Unfold

Arena Online

Melinda Hinkson

12 Oct 2023

The government that brought us the referendum has not assumed the courageous leadership that would be vital to refocusing the community at large, helping us to see things differently.

The Kumanjayi Walker Inquest: Bodycam, fear and the unmaking of intercultural relations

Arena Quarterly no.14

Melinda Hinkson

Jun 2023

The quest to understand the death of Kumanjayi Walker has progressively opened out to reveal a wider plain of consequence. Withdrawal, disengagement, lack of trust, betrayal.

Rupture in Remote Australia

Arena Quarterly no.13

Melinda Hinkson, Jon Altman

Mar 2023

Australians are being asked to vote in support of the constitutional establishment of an Indigenous Voice to Parliament while the work of successive governments, Coalition and Labor alike, has been complicit in the killing of First Nations people.

Reimagining Regional Relationships

Arena Quarterly no. 4

Lauren Rickards, Melinda Hinkson

Dec 2020

…wheat exists in the world not only as a plant, a seed or even a material such as flour, but as ‘futures’ and other fictions traded on the Chicago Stock Exchange…

For Djab Wurrung trees and country

Arena Online

Melinda Hinkson

5 Nov 2020

In nearly all cases where states require associations of traditional connection to be publicly performed in order to be recognised, the persons called upon and authorised to perform them have had their associations fractured by colonial dispossession.

Stop Press: Farewell to Arena Printing

Arena Quarterly no. 3

Guy Rundle, Melinda Hinkson, Simon Cooper

Sep 2020

Title: Stop Press Standfirst: Farewell to Arena Printing Authors: Guy Rundle, Melinda Hinkson, Simon Cooper Bios: Guy Rundle, Melinda Hinkson and Simon Cooper are Arena Publications Editors. In the early 1990s Melinda and Guy ran presses for Arena Printing. GRAB: Everyone who spent any substantial time on the letterpress machines—elegant Italian behemoths purchased when the industry as a whole began switching over to offset printing—had a moment when they felt like giving it all up.…

"Review(s) of: Roger Sandall's Films and Contemporary Anthropology: Explorations in the Aesthetic, the Existential and…

Informit: To let things live: Anthropology, images and the breach of distance [Book Review]

Arena Quarterly no. 3

Melinda Hinkson

Sep 2020

PDF available from Informit

Review(s) of: Roger Sandall's Films and Contemporary Anthropology: Explorations in the Aesthetic, the Existential and the Possible, by Lorraine Mortimer, Indiana University Press, 2019; Phone and Spear: A Yuta Anthropology, by Miyarrka Media, Goldsmiths Press, 2019.

"In April of this year, Arena said farewell to our most recent city centre, a…

Informit: Stop press

Arena Quarterly no. 3

Guy Rundle, Melinda Hinkson, Simon Cooper

Sep 2020

PDF available from Informit

In April of this year, Arena said farewell to our most recent city centre, a former warehouse on Kerr Street, Fitzroy. It's the third city centre we've had since we established our first on Brunswick Street, North Fitzroy, in 1983. But the 2020 farewell had far greater significance, since it marked the conclusion of our active involvement with printing, both of our own publications and commercially, through a full-service firm. That would have been the…

Three Shots

Arena Magazine no. 163

Melinda Hinkson, Thalia Anthony

Dec 2019

The death of Kumanjayi Walker—the Northern Territory as police state

"The death of Kumanjayi Walker - the Northern Territory as police state 'Three shots were…

Informit: Three shots

Arena Magazine no. 163

Melinda Hinkson, Thalia Anthony

Dec 2019

PDF available from Informit

The death of Kumanjayi Walker - the Northern Territory as police state 'Three shots were fired.' The acting deputy police commissioner of the Northern Territory thrust three fingers into the air as he addressed the crowd of grieving and angry residents who gathered on the Yuendumu basketball courts two days after Kumanjayi Walker had been shot and killed by police.

"Review(s) of: This land is our land: An immigrant's Manifesto, by Suketu Mehta, (Jonathan Cape,…