Professor Jon Charles Altman (born 8 September 1954) is a social scientist with a disciplinary focus on anthropology and economics. He is an emeritus professor of the Australian National University currently affiliated to the Regulatory Institutions Network (RegNet), College of Asia and the Pacific, ANU. He was the founding director of the Centre for Aboriginal Economic Policy Research (CAEPR) at the

Australian National University The Australian National University (ANU) is a public research university located in Canberra, the capital of Australia. Its main campus in Acton encompasses seven teaching and research colleges, in addition to several national academies and ...

(1990 to 2010) and then a research professor there until 2014 when he retired. He is a Fellow of the

Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia The Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia (ASSA) is an independent, non-governmental organisation devoted to the advancement of knowledge and research in the social sciences. It has its origins in the Social Science Research Council of Austr ...

and an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Society of New Zealand. From 2008 to 2013 he was an

Australian Research Council The Australian Research Council (ARC) is the primary non-medical research funding agency of the Australian Government, distributing more than in grants each year. The Council was established by the ''Australian Research Council Act 2001'', ...

Australian Professorial Fellow. In late 2015 Altman moved to Melbourne to take up an appointment from 1 February 2016 as research professor at the Alfred Deakin Institute for Citizenship and Globalization at Deakin University.

Early life

Altman was born in Haifa, Israel and attended school in New Zealand. In 1973 he completed a BA in Economics and Philosophy at the

University of Auckland , mottoeng = By natural ability and hard work , established = 1883; years ago , endowment = NZD $293 million (31 December 2021) , budget = NZD $1.281 billion (31 December 2021) , chancellor = Cecilia Tarrant , vice_chancellor = Dawn ...

and went on to complete a MA (Hons) in Economics. Altman relocated to Australia in 1976.

Career

In his early career Altman sought to examine Indigenous disadvantage from an economic rather than the then dominant social welfare perspective and to place Indigenous economic development issues in a comparative international context. Between 1978 and 1982 Altman completed a PhD in anthropology at the

. He used ethnographic methods and comparative analysis from the field of

economic anthropology Economic anthropology is a field that attempts to explain human economic behavior in its widest historic, geographic and cultural scope. It is an amalgamation of economics and anthropology. It is practiced by anthropologists and has a complex re ...

to examine Aboriginal ways of living at remote outstations on Aboriginal-owned land. He undertook fieldwork amongst the

Kuninjku The Bininj are an Aboriginal Australian people of Western Arnhem land in the Northern Territory. The sub-groups of Bininj are sometimes referred to by the various language dialects spoken in the region, that is, the group of dialects known as Bi ...

people in Western Arnhem Land. Throughout the 1980s he undertook a series of research projects about Indigenous engagement with new industries including mining, tourism, and the visual arts. He collaborated with

Chris Gregory Christopher A. Gregory is an Australian economic anthropologist. He is based at Australian National University (ANU) in Canberra, and has also taught at University of Manchester- where he was made Professor of Political and Economic Anthropology. H ...

, an anthropologist at the Australian National University, to theorise and document this methodology. In 1990, Altman established the Centre for Aboriginal Economic Policy Research (CAEPR) at the

as a multidisciplinary centre to enhance Australia's capacity to undertake social sciences research about the economic situation of Indigenous people. He was director of the centre from 1990 to 2010. Since 2001, he has focused his research on the hybrid economy framework and theory that encompasses the intercultural nature of Aboriginal livelihood approaches particularly in remote regions, the articulations between customary, market and state sectors of remote Aboriginal economies. Since 2006, Altman shifted his intellectual focus to political ecology and critical development studies. He has been an outspoken critic of policies of the Australian government in Indigenous affairs, labelling them "neoliberal assimilation" and "neo paternalist". Since the 2007

Northern Territory National Emergency Response The Northern Territory National Emergency Response, also known as "The Intervention" or the Northern Territory Intervention, and sometimes the abbreviation "NTER" (for Northern Territory Emergency Response) was a package of measures enforced by ...

, he has co-edited two books with his partner, anthropologist Melinda Hinkson, criticising the intervention.Altman, J.C. and Hinkson, M. (eds) 2010. Culture Crisis: Anthropology and Politics in Aboriginal Australia, UNSW Press, Sydney, pp. xvi & 288. Altman was made a Member of the Order of Australia (AM) in the 2017 Australia Day Honour's list for significant service to tertiary education as a researcher and administrator, and to the social sciences and Indigenous economic policy.

2017 Australia Day Honours The 2017 Australia Day Honours were announced on 26 January 2017 by the Governor General of Australia, Sir Peter Cosgrove.Australian social scientists 1954 births Living people University of Auckland alumni Australian National University alumni Members of the Order of Australia