Robert Tonkinson (born 1938) is a retired Australian anthropologist. He was born in Perth, Western Australia. He was the Ronald M. Berndt foundation Professor of Anthropology, University of Western Australia, Nedlands, 1963–1981 and Emeritus Professor of Anthropology, University of Western Australia, Crawley, West Australia.
Tonkinson received a Master of Arts for his thesis "Social structure and acculturation of Aborigines in the Western Desert" and a PhD with his thesis "Da:wajil : a western desert aboriginal rainmaking ritual", both from the University of Western Australia.
In 1973–1975, following an assistant professorship at the University of Oregon, Tonkinson and his wife Dr Myrna Tonkinson studied Aboriginal people of the Western Desert under grants from the Australian National University and the Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies.
Myrna Tonkinson was closely associated with the Cobourg Peninsula Land Claim of 1979, with Nicolas Peterson supplying anthropological material in support of the claim.
He was editor of Anthropological Forum from 2000 to 2011.
Publications
Tonkinson, Robert (1973) Aboriginal Victors of the Desert Crusade
Tonkinson, Robert (1991) The Mardu aborigines : living the dream in Australia's desert Holt, Rinehart and Winston Tonkinson, Robert (editor) (2015) The Wentworth Lectures: Honouring Fifty Years of Australian Indigenous Studies