In his career he has moved between Museums and Universities: researching and curating collections, and organising exhibitions. He has conducted extensive fieldwork with the Yolngu people of Northern Australia, and collaborated on many films with Ian Dunlop of Film. He has published widely in the anthropology of art, aesthetics, performance, museum anthropology, Aboriginal social organization, the history of anthropology, visual anthropology and religion. Howard's main fieldwork has been with the Yolngu people of northeast Arnhem Land (Yirrkala) beginning in 1974-76, with subsequent research visits continuing to the present. He has also worked among the Ngalakan people of the Roper Valley, in 1980-81 and again in 1998. In 1983 he spent 6 months in Darwin researching the public response to Aboriginal art. In 1988 he spent two months in the field in Central Arnhem Land (at Ramingining and Maningrida). From 2001-2005 directed a joint archaeological anthropological research project on resource use and social organisation in Blue Mud Bay, Northern Australia. The team comprised two archaeologists, two anthropologists a marine ecologist and a linguist. As a result of that he has worked with others to develop methodologies for the mapping of cultural data. In recent years the focus of his researched has moved to museum collections and the development of the concept of the relational museum. His current research projects include: 1) collaborative research with the British Museum, the National Museum of Australia and a number of Indigenous communites to develop mechanisms for linking source communities to distributed collections 2) researching (with Professor Aaron Corn) the local and global impact of the Aboriginal Artists Agency.
