Dario has followed an unusual path from Palermo, Sicily, to Pacific History at the ANU. A solid grounding at high school in classical history, philosophy and literature led him first to a BA at the University of Palermo, where his thesis in the History of Religions program was on “Medea’s Myth: Identity and Alterity in Ancient Greece”. Combining his historical and anthropological interests, he then took a Masters degree in Cultural Anthropology, Ethnology and Linguistics at Ca’ Foscari University in Venice. Archival and library research for his thesis on “The Goaribari Affair: Violence and Knowledge in Colonial Papua” brought him (self-funded) to the ANU for two months in 2009, and the experience convinced him that he wanted to return here for his PhD. He was able to win a highly competitive International Postgraduate Research Scholarship (IPRS) and returned to Canberra early in 2012 to begin his PhD on the historicity of Kerewo-speakers of Goaribari (Dopima) Island in Gulf Province, Papua New Guinea. After a first year spent combing all of the possible archival sources in Australia, he plans to spend 12 months from early next year working with Kerewo people at Dopima and in Port Moresby.
[Dario is working with Dr Chris Ballard and Dr Bronwen Douglas at the ANU.]
