A study of travel writing in Australian colonial history. Travel writing is a key mechanism by which readers learn about other peoples and cultures, a genre that is crucial to the formation of identities, ideologies, and ideas. Australian travel writing provided foundational texts for those emigrating to the colony. This project positions Australian texts within an international comparative sphere. It will advance the understanding of colonial culture in Australia, and of the perceptions and val ....A study of travel writing in Australian colonial history. Travel writing is a key mechanism by which readers learn about other peoples and cultures, a genre that is crucial to the formation of identities, ideologies, and ideas. Australian travel writing provided foundational texts for those emigrating to the colony. This project positions Australian texts within an international comparative sphere. It will advance the understanding of colonial culture in Australia, and of the perceptions and values of those who settled colonial Australia. It will make available to Australian and international students and researchers a rich archive of texts that have not been previously mapped. Australians are keenly interested in travel and its literature, and this project brings colonial travel texts to public attention.Read moreRead less
Picturing change: 21st Century perspectives on recent Australian rock art, especially that from the European contact period. Australia, long known for its prehistoric rock art of world heritage value, will now also be known for its unique and diverse body of contact rock art. This project will benefit tourism in remote regions, many of which are or are near World Heritage Areas (eg. Kakadu, Uluru, Blue Mountains). Contemporary indigenous knowledge about important cross-cultural landscapes will ....Picturing change: 21st Century perspectives on recent Australian rock art, especially that from the European contact period. Australia, long known for its prehistoric rock art of world heritage value, will now also be known for its unique and diverse body of contact rock art. This project will benefit tourism in remote regions, many of which are or are near World Heritage Areas (eg. Kakadu, Uluru, Blue Mountains). Contemporary indigenous knowledge about important cross-cultural landscapes will be synthesised along with other new knowledge to assist with the protection of sites, the development of new management plans and applications to place particular groups of sites on a new UNESCO World Heritage rock art list. Aboriginal participants will receive research skills training and both individuals and communities will reconnect to significant remote places.Read moreRead less
Inhumanities: Asylum seeker letters and the precarious 'human' rights of contemporary life narrative. Letters exchanged between asylum seekers and activists between 2001-05 are a powerful repository of cross cultural exchange and political activism in Australia this century, and they offer unique insights into debates about citizenship and national identity in the very recent past. When read as a distinctive genre of life narrative, these letters and the epistolary communities which they engende ....Inhumanities: Asylum seeker letters and the precarious 'human' rights of contemporary life narrative. Letters exchanged between asylum seekers and activists between 2001-05 are a powerful repository of cross cultural exchange and political activism in Australia this century, and they offer unique insights into debates about citizenship and national identity in the very recent past. When read as a distinctive genre of life narrative, these letters and the epistolary communities which they engender are important new resources in current scholarship on human rights and testimony. This project will make a vital and distinctive Australian contribution to debates about representations of the human and the inhuman in contemporary literature.Read moreRead less
Rural women, cross-racial collaboration and life writing in the Country Women's Association of New South Wales, 1956-1996. In an era when race relations in Australia are usually characterised by misunderstanding and conflict, this project brings to light a story of co-operation and hope. Investigating six Indigenous branches of the Country Women's Association in NSW from the 1950s uncovers collaborations between rural Aboriginal and white women that transgressed social barriers and launched two ....Rural women, cross-racial collaboration and life writing in the Country Women's Association of New South Wales, 1956-1996. In an era when race relations in Australia are usually characterised by misunderstanding and conflict, this project brings to light a story of co-operation and hope. Investigating six Indigenous branches of the Country Women's Association in NSW from the 1950s uncovers collaborations between rural Aboriginal and white women that transgressed social barriers and launched two significant Aboriginal matriarchs and authors into their public lives. This timely social and literary history project revalues conservative rural women's writing and activism, contributing to the reconciliation process and to the social health of Australia.Read moreRead less
Lifted from the Ironing Board: The ABC Women's Session, 1935-1973. The Australian Broadcasting Commission (ABC) broadcast radio programs for women from 1936 to 1971. This project provides the first history of these programs. It will document the establishment and decline of the 'Women's Session' during this period via internal ABC correspondence and audience research, scripts and listeners' letters. It will therefore provide a case study of the dynamic relationships between media production, cir ....Lifted from the Ironing Board: The ABC Women's Session, 1935-1973. The Australian Broadcasting Commission (ABC) broadcast radio programs for women from 1936 to 1971. This project provides the first history of these programs. It will document the establishment and decline of the 'Women's Session' during this period via internal ABC correspondence and audience research, scripts and listeners' letters. It will therefore provide a case study of the dynamic relationships between media production, circulation and reception that will contribute to understandings of gender formation through popular culture. It will also forge new ways of understanding how women have contributed to the cultural life of the nation during the twentieth century.Read moreRead less
Cultural maintenance, cultural change: a comparative history of Yiddish Melbourne. Given the aging of the Australian population, immigration remains a vital national concern - indeed, its significance is likely to increase over the coming decades. This context makes clear the national and community benefit of research into the effectiveness of immigration policy and the experience of immigrants. This study will be of particular importance for its innovative approach to evaluation of the success ....Cultural maintenance, cultural change: a comparative history of Yiddish Melbourne. Given the aging of the Australian population, immigration remains a vital national concern - indeed, its significance is likely to increase over the coming decades. This context makes clear the national and community benefit of research into the effectiveness of immigration policy and the experience of immigrants. This study will be of particular importance for its innovative approach to evaluation of the successes and failures of policy, of the factors which facilitate immigrant success, and the adaptation to Australian life of members the second and third generation.
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Confronting Representations: Performing Indigenous Protests. By using performance studies approaches to analyse public political events this work will provide the practical benefit of increasing our understanding of how different cultures interpret and misinterpret each other in public encounters. Examining the dynamics that have and continue to operate between people and social discourses increases our understanding of ourselves as Australians and our ability to interpret ourselves. A further b ....Confronting Representations: Performing Indigenous Protests. By using performance studies approaches to analyse public political events this work will provide the practical benefit of increasing our understanding of how different cultures interpret and misinterpret each other in public encounters. Examining the dynamics that have and continue to operate between people and social discourses increases our understanding of ourselves as Australians and our ability to interpret ourselves. A further benefit is that the project develops an innovative methodology for interdisciplinary research drawing from the fields of performance studies, media studies and cultural studies.Read moreRead less
Aboriginal Femininity and Modern Identity: Gender and Race in the Late Colonial Visual Scene. The project is the first sustained cultural history of Aboriginal femininity in Australian from 1870-1967. It will draw on diverse forms of modern visual culture: painting, black and white drawing, mass commodity spectacle, film and photography, to investigate six modes of production of Aboriginal feminine visibility: the 'primitive' woman in Western exhibiting practices such as colonial museums: the pe ....Aboriginal Femininity and Modern Identity: Gender and Race in the Late Colonial Visual Scene. The project is the first sustained cultural history of Aboriginal femininity in Australian from 1870-1967. It will draw on diverse forms of modern visual culture: painting, black and white drawing, mass commodity spectacle, film and photography, to investigate six modes of production of Aboriginal feminine visibility: the 'primitive' woman in Western exhibiting practices such as colonial museums: the perceived failure of 'Mission Mary' to appear modern; the relation of Aboriginal femininity to imported forms of exoticism; the fetishism of Indigenous women; girl piccaninny kitsch in domestic and tourist ornaments; and the entrance of public Aboriginal women and celebrities into modernity.
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Discovery Indigenous Researchers Development - Grant ID: DI0775822
Funder
Australian Research Council
Funding Amount
$245,000.00
Summary
Elder Assessments of Early Material Culture Collections from Arnhem Land and Contemporary Access Needs to Them among Their Source Communities. There is enormous interest in Arnhem Land about the region's recorded history. In recent years, the return of digital materials from collections worldwide has become a significant and efficacious strategy for stimulating cultural maintenance there. The sense of history that these materials bring is proving invaluable in maintaining well-being and communit ....Elder Assessments of Early Material Culture Collections from Arnhem Land and Contemporary Access Needs to Them among Their Source Communities. There is enormous interest in Arnhem Land about the region's recorded history. In recent years, the return of digital materials from collections worldwide has become a significant and efficacious strategy for stimulating cultural maintenance there. The sense of history that these materials bring is proving invaluable in maintaining well-being and community in Arnhem Land amid the hardships of local life. Informed by custodians of the region's endangered languages and traditions, this project will produce findings of world heritage significance that will articulate the collections access needs of local people. It would be the first ARC project to be led by a Yolngu Elder.Read moreRead less
Building Difference: Architectural Strategies in Colonial Museums. Natural history and ethnology museums built in the 19th century in British imperial territories in Australia, New Zealand, India, and Canada were driven by specific colonising intent. Their architecture reflects the cultural complexities of empire. Using archival sources, the project researches the deployment of metropolitan architectural theory in colonial museum design from the foundation of these institutions to decolonisatio ....Building Difference: Architectural Strategies in Colonial Museums. Natural history and ethnology museums built in the 19th century in British imperial territories in Australia, New Zealand, India, and Canada were driven by specific colonising intent. Their architecture reflects the cultural complexities of empire. Using archival sources, the project researches the deployment of metropolitan architectural theory in colonial museum design from the foundation of these institutions to decolonisation and institutional modernisation in the mid-20th century. It examines how architectural strategies were exploited and inflected by different local conditions, to produce a sophisticated investigation of the architecture of empire.Read moreRead less