Series 599 - Harold Brookfield papers, field diaries, photographs and aerial photographs

Identity area

Reference code

AU ANUA 599

Title

Harold Brookfield papers, field diaries, photographs and aerial photographs

Date(s)

  • 1958 - 1990 (Creation)

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Series

Extent and medium

2 m (4 type 1, 1 type 10, 1 type 5 box, 5 albums)

Context area

Name of creator

(1926 - 2022)

Biographical history

Professor Harold Brookfield was a British and Australian geographer with interests in rural development, family farming, land use and society in developing countries. He completed a BA and PhD at the London School of Economics. He was briefly a lecturer in Geography and Birkbeck College, London and Lecturer in Charge at the Department of Geography, University of Natal where he began engaging with development and social justice issues in South Africa and Mauritius. After three years, he moved to Australia to join the University of New England and in 1957 joined the Research School of Pacific Studies at the Australian National University where he spent most of his academic career. He spent two periods at the Geography (later Human Geography) Department in RSPAS – the first from 1957 to 1969, and then again from 1982 until his retirement in 1991, at one point becoming the Head of the Human Geography Department and Acting Director of the School.
Brookfield conducted field work in Papua New Guinea, the New Hebrides, New Caledonia, the Solomon Islands, Bougainville and the Philippines. His interests focussed on Papua New Guinea where he conducted fieldwork in the highlands and collaborated with anthropologists from the Research School. In the 1970s his work extended to smaller islands of the Caribbean and the smaller eastern islands of Fiji. His work largely focused on the relationship between humans and their landscapes, particularly as this was understood through the lens of agricultural production. His work on agricultural intensification, land use and land degradation, and the impact of El Nino events was ground-breaking and innovative.

Content and structure area

Scope and content

The collection includes fifty field notebooks, as well as research notes, correspondence, offprints, photographs, negatives and aerial photographs related to his research in the Pacific region, including the countries - Papua New Guinea and Bougainville, Solomon Islands, Vanuatu (formerly New Hebrides), New Caledonia, Fiji and The Philippines. The photographs in this collection have not been listed. They can be found in box 6 (1 Type 5 box) and in boxes 7 - 10 (4 grey albums).

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Conditions governing access

Researchers must sign an access agreement.

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Dates of creation revision deletion

Created by Christine Bryan on 13 August 2015; updated by Christine Bryan on 31 January 2017. Updated by C. Ziegler on 10 February 2023.

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