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Books > History > Australasian & Pacific history
This book explores the dynamics of Anglo-Australian cricketing
relations within the 'British World' in the late nineteenth and
early twentieth centuries. It explores what these interactions can
tell us about broader Anglo-Australian relations during this period
and, in particular, the evolution of an Australian national
identity. Sport was, and is, a key aspect of Australian culture.
Jared van Duinen demonstrates how sport was used to rehearse an
identity that would then emerge in broader cultural and political
terms. Using cricket as a case study, this book contributes to the
ongoing historiographical debate about the nature and evolution of
an Australian national identity.
During 1928-9 the renowned anthropologist Raymond Firth visited
Tikopia, a small island in the east of Solomon Islands, for the
first time. This book takes the collection he made as its subject,
and explores how through its acquisition, Firth ceased to be a
stranger and became a respected figure incorporated into Tikopia
society. The objects were originally viewed by Firth as data in a
scientific record of a culture, and evidence challenging the belief
that complex economic transactions could only take place in a
recognizable market economy. Elizabeth Bonshek, however, revisits
the collection's documentation and the ethnography of Tikopia with
a different intent in mind: to highlight the social relations the
collecting process illuminates and to acknowledge Tikopia voices,
past and present. She argues that Firth downplayed the impact of
contact with outsiders - whalers, traders and missionaries calling
for the abandonment of the Work of the Gods - yet this context is
vital for understanding why local people actively contributed to
his collecting and research. She follows the life of the collection
after leaving the island in institutions that attributed different
meanings to its significance, in a failed repatriation request and
in a new role in the transmission of 'cultural heritage' along with
Firth's writings. She concludes that Firth's exchanges of objects
with other high-ranking men were culturally appropriate to the
social values dominant in that time and place. Indeed, she suggests
that while Firth was acquiring Tikopia artefacts, the Tikopia were
perhaps acquiring him. On what ethical and economic terms does an
anthropologist acquire other people's things? Collecting Tikopia
deftly applies the insights of contemporary material culture
studies to a historically important case. Bonshek coaxes
ethnographic documents and museum artefacts to reveal how objects
both materialize cultural identities over time and mediate social
relations across worlds of difference. Professor Robert Foster,
University of Rochester, President of the Society for Cultural
Anthropology. Richly supported by documentation this skilful and
insightful analysis reveals the complexity of cross-cultural
interactions and highlights important concerns for the
interpretation and management of cultural heritage in museum
'treasure places' worldwide. Dr Robin Torrence, Senior Principal
Research Scientist, Anthropology Research, Australian Museum.
Anzac Labour explores the horror, frustration and exhaustion
surrounding working life in the Australian Imperial Force during
the First World War. Based on letters and diaries of Australian
soldiers, it traces the history of work and workplace cultures
through Australia, the shores of Gallipoli, the fields of France
and Belgium, and the Near East.
This book explores the emergence of 'Australasia' as a way of
thinking about the culture and geography of this region. Although
it is frequently understood to apply only to Australia and New
Zealand, the concept has a longer and more complicated history.
'Australasia' emerged in the mid-18th century in both French and
British writing as European empires extended their reach into Asia
and the Pacific, and initially held strong links to the Asian
continent. The book shows that interpretations and understandings
of 'Australasia' shifted away from Asia in light of British
imperial interests in the 19th century, and the concept was adapted
by varying political agendas and cultural visions in order to reach
into the Pacific or towards Antarctica. The Making and Remaking of
Australasia offers a number of rich case studies which highlight
how the idea itself was adapted and moulded by people and texts
both in the southern hemisphere and the imperial metropole where a
range of competing actors articulated divergent visions of this
part of the British Empire. An important contribution to the
cultural history of the British Empire, Australia, New Zealand and
Pacific Studies, this collection shows how 'Australasia' has had
multiple, often contrasting, meanings.
Offering new historical understandings of human responses to
climate and climate change, this cutting-edge volume explores the
dynamic relationship between settlement, climate, and colonization,
covering everything from the physical impact of climate on
agriculture and land development to the development of "folk" and
government meteorologies.
World War II was a watershed event for the people of the former
Japanese colonies of Micronesia. The Japanese military build-up,
the conflict itself, and the American occupation and control of the
conquered islands brought rapid and dramatic changes to Micronesian
life. Whether they spent the war in caves and bomb shelters, in
sweet potato fields under armed Japanese guard, or in their own
homes, Micronesians who survived those years recognize that their
peoples underwent a major historical transformation. Like a
typhoon, the war swept away a former life. The Typhoon of War
combines archival research and oral history culled from more than
three hundred Micronesian survivors to offer a comparative history
of the war in Micronesia. It is the first book to develop Islander
perspectives on a topic still dominated by military histories that
all but ignore the effects of wartime operations on indigenous
populations. The authors explore the significant cultural meanings
of the war for Island peoples, for the events of the war are the
foundation on which Micronesians have constructed their modern view
of themselves, their societies, and the wider world. Their
recollections of those tumultuous years contain a wealth of detail
about wartime activities, local conditions, and social change,
making this an invaluable reference for anyone interested in
twentieth-century Micronesia. Photographs, maps, and a detailed
chronology will help readers situate Micronesian experiences within
the broader context of the Pacific War.
Southern Anthropology, the history of Fison and Howitt's Kamilaroi
and Kurnai is the biography of Kamilaroi and Kurnai (1880) written
from both a historical and anthropological perspective. Southern
Anthropology investigates the authors' work on Aboriginal and
Pacific people and the reception of their book in metropolitan
centres.
Spanning four centuries and vast space, this book combines the
global history of ideas with particular histories of encounters
between European voyagers and Indigenous people in Oceania (Island
Southeast Asia, New Guinea, Australia, New Zealand, and the Pacific
Islands). Douglas shows how prevailing concepts of human
difference, or race, influenced travellers' approaches to
encounters. Yet their presuppositions were often challenged or
transformed by the appearance, conduct, and lifestyle of local
inhabitants. The book's original theory and method reveal traces of
Indigenous agency in voyagers' representations which in turn
provided key evidence for the natural history of man and the
science of race. In keeping with recent trends in colonial
historiography, Douglas diverts historical attention from imperial
centres to so-called peripheries, discredits the outmoded
stereotype that Europeans necessarily dominated non-Europeans, and
takes local agency seriously.
This edited collection invites the reader to enter the diverse
worlds of Australia's migrant and minority communities through the
latest research on the contemporary printed press, spanning the
mid-nineteenth century to our current day. With a focus on the
rare, radical and foreign-language print culture of multiple and
frequently concurrent minority groups' newspaper ventures, this
volume has two overarching aims: firstly to demonstrate how the
local experiences and narratives of such communities are always
forged and negotiated within a context of globalising forces - the
global within the local; and secondly to enrich an understanding of
the complexity of Australian 'voices' through this medium not only
as a means for appreciating how the cultural heritage of such
communities were sustained, but also for exploring their
contributions to the wider society.
Daisy Bates, amateur anthrolopogist and officially designated
"Protector of Aboriginies" was well qualified to write this classic
on the Aboriginals of Australia.
Found in Translation is a rich account of language and shifting
cross-cultural relations on a Christian mission in northern
Australia during the mid-twentieth century. It explores how
translation shaped interactions between missionaries and the
Anindilyakwa-speaking people of the Groote Eylandt archipelago and
how each group used language to influence, evade, or engage with
the other in a series of selective "mistranslations." In
particular, this work traces the Angurugu mission from its
establishment by the Church Missionary Society in 1943, through
Australia's era of assimilation policy in the 1950s and 1960s, to
the introduction of a self-determination policy and bilingual
education in 1973. While translation has typically been an
instrument of colonization, this book shows that the ambiguities it
creates have given Indigenous people opportunities to reinterpret
colonization's position in their lives. Laura Rademaker combines
oral history interviews with careful archival research and
innovative interdisciplinary findings to present a fresh,
cross-cultural perspective on Angurugu mission life. Exploring
spoken language and sound, the translation of Christian scripture
and songs, the imposition of English literacy, and Aboriginal
singing traditions, she reveals the complexities of the encounters
between the missionaries and Aboriginal people in a subtle and
sophisticated analysis. Rademaker uses language as a lens, delving
into issues of identity and the competition to name, own, and
control. In its efforts to shape the Anindilyakwa people's beliefs,
the Church Missionary Society utilized language both by teaching
English and by translating Biblical texts into the native tongue.
Yet missionaries relied heavily on Anindilyakwa interpreters, whose
varied translation styles and choices resulted in an unforeseen
Indigenous impact on how the mission's messages were received. From
Groote Eylandt and the peculiarities of the Australian
settler-colonial context, Found in Translation broadens its scope
to cast light on themes common throughout Pacific mission history
such as assimilation policies, cultural exchanges, and the
phenomenon of colonization itself. This book will appeal to
Indigenous studies scholars across the Pacific as well as scholars
of Australian history, religion, linguistics, anthropology, and
missiology.
A study of women's access to equal pay and opportunity in the
Australian public service. An examination of the public service
reveals shifting perspectives on gender, class, and political
hegemony. This digital edition was derived from ACLS Humanities
E-Book's (http: //www.humanitiesebook.org) online version of the
same title
The Australian Aborigines first arrived on the continent at least
60,000 years ago. They almost certainly landed on the northwest
coast by sea from the nearby islands of the Indonesian archipelago.
That first arrival may have been replicated many times over. The
following exploration and settlement of a vast and varied continent
was a venture of heroic proportions. The new settlers had reached
southern Tasmania, the point farthest from the original landfall at
least 30,000 years ago. By the early 17th century, when the first
European seafarers arrived in Australian waters, the Aboriginal
nations were living in every part of the continent, having
colonized the tropical rainforests of the north, the vast arid
deserts of the interior, and the cool and damp woodlands of the
southeast. The Historical Dictionary of Australian Aborigines
relates the history of Australia's indigenous inhabitants from
their arrival on the continent 60,000 years ago to the centuries
long European colonization process starting in the 1600s to their
role in today's Australia. This is done through a chronology, an
introductory essay, an extensive bibliography, and over 300
cross-referenced dictionary entries on significant persons, places,
events, institutions, and aspects of culture, society, economy, and
politics. This book is an excellent access point for students,
researchers, and anyone wanting to know more about Australian
Aboriginal peoples.
In this work, Buschmann incorporates neglected Spanish visions into
the European perceptions of the emerging Pacific world. The book
argues that Spanish diplomats and intellectuals attempted to create
an intellectual link between the Americas and the Pacific Ocean.
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