Indigenous student makes history at Oxford

Thursday, 16 December 2010

A 23-year-old University of 新浪彩票 anthropology student has made history by becoming Australia's first Indigenous in 108 years.

Rebecca Richards, the daughter of a Leigh Creek stockman and a primary school teacher, will further her passion for Indigenous history and culture when she enrols at in September 2011.

Rebecca has been awarded an Australia-At-Large Rhodes Scholarship, which will enable her to study for a Masters of Philosophy in Material Anthropology and Museum Ethnography.

"I am just stunned," Rebecca said after receiving the award. "This is an amazing honour and I can't wait to study in the oldest and most established anthropological museum in the world."

The University of 新浪彩票 Bachelor of Arts (Honours) student was raised in South Australia's Riverland and is a member of the and Barngarla peoples of the Flinders Ranges. She grew up on her family's fruit block, riding horses and dirt motorbikes, and swimming in the Murray River.

Her interest in anthropology was sparked at age 14 when she did some fieldwork in her native Adnyamathanha lands in the Flinders Ranges with her father and the Head of Anthropology at the , .

"The information gained on this fieldwork was later used in the determination of native title of those lands," Rebecca said. "I am also passionate about the repatriation of Indigenous objects, languages a