Joel Liddle

Research Assistant

Joel Liddle Perrurle is an Arrernte man with family ties to the Mparntwe/Tyuretye, Irlpme and Uremerne traditional estates in central Australia. His mother’s family are non-Indigenous and first arrived in Victoria in 1852. Joel commenced his PhD at the University of Melbourne in 2019. His research focuses on the utility of archival cultural collections and their value in building bilingual and bicultural curriculums for young Arrernte people to promote positive identity and enhanced mental health outcomes.

Joel is a speaker, reader and writer of the Arrernte dialect ‘Ikngerrepenhe’. He is passionate about learning languages and works alongside linguists and other researchers from the region. Joel is currently collaborating on a CoEDL funded ELPIS translation project with Jenny Green (RUIL, Unimelb) and Ben Foley (University of Queensland) to develop voice recognition technology for Arandic Languages. The aim to assist with the transcription of audio recordings of Arandic languages and thus improve community accessibility to important language materials.

Over the last decade Joel worked in a variety of engagement roles throughout remote Australia. He was a language consultant on the Indigemoji project that produced a set of emojis in the Arrernte language. Joel provided consultancy services for Desert Knowledge Australia’s program ‘Codes for Life’, a men’s behavioural and health and wellbeing program run by Aboriginal men across the region.

He has a Bachelors Degree in Sports Science (ACU Melbourne), a Graduate Diploma in Indigenous Knowledges (Charles Darwin University), a Professional Certificate in Indigenous Research (UniMelb), and is affiliated with the Indigenous Data Network (IDN - UoM) and the Strehlow Research Centre in Alice Springs.