Tim Rowse

Professor Tim Rowse is Professorial Fellow with the Centre for Citizenship and Public Policy.

Although much of what he writes can best be described as History, his formal training has been in Government, Sociology and Anthropology. He has taught at Macquarie University, the Australian National University and Harvard University (where he held the Australian Studies chair in 2003-4), and he has held research appointments at the University of Sydney and the ANU. Since the early 1980s, his research has focused on the relationships between Indigenous and other Australians, in Central Australia (where he lived from 1989 to 1996) and in the national political sphere. In the 1990s, this and other interests led him to write two books about the life and works of Dr.H.C.Coombs.

I am interested in the ways that liberal democratic nation-states have responded to the challenge of the Indigenous peoples whose territories they occupy, and in how Indigenous people have adapted to their colonized condition

Area of expertise

Twentieth century Australian history - including government policies towards Aboriginal people, and Aboriginal responses to colonisation (both nationally and with reference to Central Australia); cultural policy; and the history of official statistics.


  • Australian history - particularly the  indigenous, colonial story
  • Australian intellectuals in social science and public policy
  • Comparative settler colonial Indigenous policy

Noteworthy Publications

Divided Nation2007 (with Murray Goot) Divided Nation? Indigenous affairs and the imagined public Carlton (Vic): Melbourne University Press

Nugget Coombs2002 Nugget Coombs: a reforming life Melbourne: Cambridge University Press

Nugget Coombs' Influence2000 Obliged to be difficult: Nugget Coombs' legacy in Indigenous affairs Melbourne: Cambridge University Press

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Selected Publications

Books

2002 Indigenous futures: choice and development for Aboriginal and Islander Australia Sydney: University of New South Wales Press


Chapters in Books
2009 'Indigenous Politics' Chapter 24 of R.A.W.Rhodes (ed) The Australian Study of Politics Palgrave Macmillan 2009, pp.314-324 

2008 'Indigenous culture: the politics of vulnerability and survival' in T.Bennett and J.Frow (eds) The Sage Handbook of Cultural Analysis Los Angeles: Sage, pp.406-426

2008 'A gift of nature? Historical perspectives on Australia's northern border' in P.Lagayette ed Rencontres Australiennes, Paris: Sorbonne, pp.175-195

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Journal articles

2010 (with Len Smith) 'The limits of "elimination" in the politics of population' Australian Historical Studies v.41 (1), pp.90-106. 

2010 ‘The reforming state, the concerned public and Indigenous political actors’ Australian Journal of Politics and History 56(1) March 2010, pp.66-81
2009 (review article) P.Sutton ‘The Politics of Suffering’ Aboriginal History vol 33, pp.234-244

2009 'The Ontological Politics of 'Closing the Gaps' Journal of Cultural Economy, 2(1&2): 33-48. 

2009 'Official Statistics and the Contemporary Politics of Indigeneity' Australian Journal of Political Science 44(2): 193-211.

2009 'The Reconciliation Barometer and the Indigenous Imaginary' Australian Policy Online

2006 ‘The public occasions of Indigenous selves: three Ngarrindjeri autobiographies’ Aboriginal History volume 30, pp.187-207

2004 ‘Indigenous autobiography in Australia and the United States’(opens in a new window) Australian Humanities Review August-October issue

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