Kim received her PhD from the History of Consciousness department at the University of California at Santa Cruz in 2004. Her academic work focuses on contemporary global articulations of indigeneity. Specifically, since 1995, Kim has worked with Warumungu people from Tennant Creek, a remote town in the Northern Territory of Australia, on a range of community projects including: the Mukurtu Wumpurrarni-kari digital archive (www.mukurtuarchive.org), a community history (Anyinginyi Manuku Apparr), producing digital video and audio recordings, and compiling archival data for use in the interpretive displays at the Nyinkka Nyunyu Art and Culture Centre (www.nyinkkanyunyu.com.au).

Her manuscript, Aboriginal Business:Alliances in a Remote Australian Town examines cultural innovation and preservation in practice. Focusing on one community’s interactions with national indigenous policies, international debates concerning intellectual property rights and global shifts in cultural tourism, she traces the emergence of coexisting forms of aboriginality—through material objects, cultural discourses, and unexpected alliances. In Fall 2005, her article, "Gone Digital: Aboriginal Remix and the Cultural Commons" was published in the International Journal of Cultural Property. In 2006 she published "Tracking Properness: Repackaging Culture in a Remote Australian Town" in Cultural Anthropology and "Changing the Default: Taking Aboriginal Systems of Accountability Seriously" in the World Anthropologies Network (an online journal)

Kim’s research interests include global issues such as sovereignty, land rights, museum studies, cultural tourism, intellectual property rights and digital "remix" as they mutate and mingle with indigenous communities. Most recently she has been following the "free culture" movement as it has spread across college campuses and the lingering effects of its single-minded focus on what counts as culture (digital music mainly) and who "owns" that culture (i.e.-nobody, that is it should be "free").

For more info check out Kim's blog: www.kimberlychristen.com