Analysing Testimonies of Jewish Holocaust Survivors. This project utilises Australia's largest collection of Holocaust videotestimonies, held in Melbourne's Jewish Holocaust Centre (JHC), to examine how socio-cultural factors shaped the widely different experiences of Nazi persecution among Holocaust Jewish migrants to Australia, and how video mediates these experiences. Significant conceptual advances will be made in the study of memory, Holocaust and immigration history, class and identity deb ....Analysing Testimonies of Jewish Holocaust Survivors. This project utilises Australia's largest collection of Holocaust videotestimonies, held in Melbourne's Jewish Holocaust Centre (JHC), to examine how socio-cultural factors shaped the widely different experiences of Nazi persecution among Holocaust Jewish migrants to Australia, and how video mediates these experiences. Significant conceptual advances will be made in the study of memory, Holocaust and immigration history, class and identity debates, gender analysis, oral and video history and the theory of testimony. A team of experienced CIs will analyse a broad sample of videos, while the APAI will concentrate on studying a single episode. The JHC will act as industry partner.
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Empowering Australia: Collecting and Interpreting the Material Culture of Australian Technology in New South Wales, 1880-1972. In Australian social history, the industrial museum occupies an important but largely forgotten place. Today, Sydney's exciting Powerhouse Museum is increasingly conscious of its legacy and lineage, dating from its creation as the Technological and Sanitary Museum of 1880. Nevertheless, much of the material culture of manufacture and innovation that lies in its collect ....Empowering Australia: Collecting and Interpreting the Material Culture of Australian Technology in New South Wales, 1880-1972. In Australian social history, the industrial museum occupies an important but largely forgotten place. Today, Sydney's exciting Powerhouse Museum is increasingly conscious of its legacy and lineage, dating from its creation as the Technological and Sanitary Museum of 1880. Nevertheless, much of the material culture of manufacture and innovation that lies in its collections remains uninterpreted and inaccessible to historians and the public. This project seeks to 'recover' the past of the Museum, and its role in Sydney's heritage of research, design and the applied arts; and to demonstrate the dynamic relevance of historical research to the Museum's present and forward plannning.Read moreRead less
Vines, Wine and Identity: The Hunter Valley NSW and Changing Australian Taste. Australia is a leader in global wine trade and tourism, and Australian drinkers are shifting from beer to wine. Yet little is known about the regional communities that make wine, how wine production has shaped their identity, and how producers have changed national culture by creating a taste for their wines. This project explores these themes through a historical sociological study of Australia's oldest wine region, ....Vines, Wine and Identity: The Hunter Valley NSW and Changing Australian Taste. Australia is a leader in global wine trade and tourism, and Australian drinkers are shifting from beer to wine. Yet little is known about the regional communities that make wine, how wine production has shaped their identity, and how producers have changed national culture by creating a taste for their wines. This project explores these themes through a historical sociological study of Australia's oldest wine region, the Hunter Valley New South Wales. It traces intra- and transnational networks of people, knowledge and wine. This aims to in turn reveal elements of the power nexus in wine production, trade and consumption to provide critical new insights into Australia's change to a wine making and wine drinking country.Read moreRead less
Aboriginalia: Collecting Histories of Aboriginal Representation. Since Federation, non-Indigenous people have produced material objects for the home depicting Aboriginal bodies, artefacts and designs and marketing these as the truly Australian look. Since the 1960s, Aboriginal people started to collect these material objects, defined as 'Aboriginalia'. This interdisciplinary project aims to examine Aboriginal collectors' representations of 'Aboriginalia'. This is the first study to examine Abori ....Aboriginalia: Collecting Histories of Aboriginal Representation. Since Federation, non-Indigenous people have produced material objects for the home depicting Aboriginal bodies, artefacts and designs and marketing these as the truly Australian look. Since the 1960s, Aboriginal people started to collect these material objects, defined as 'Aboriginalia'. This interdisciplinary project aims to examine Aboriginal collectors' representations of 'Aboriginalia'. This is the first study to examine Aboriginal collectors' representations of non-Indigenous historical depictions of Aboriginality within Australian material culture. The research and associated publications will explore the Aboriginal social life of material objects in historical perspective.Read moreRead less
Multicultural Australia in national and state libraries. This project aims to develop strategies to assist major Australian libraries to enhance their library collections of histories of Australia as a multicultural nation. The project will develop a new methodology for evaluating multicultural collections, and new policies and strategies to develop and provide access to these collections. Benefits will include enhanced understanding of Australia’s history and heritage, and Australia’s identity ....Multicultural Australia in national and state libraries. This project aims to develop strategies to assist major Australian libraries to enhance their library collections of histories of Australia as a multicultural nation. The project will develop a new methodology for evaluating multicultural collections, and new policies and strategies to develop and provide access to these collections. Benefits will include enhanced understanding of Australia’s history and heritage, and Australia’s identity as a multicultural nation.Read moreRead less
Mobilising Aboriginal objects: Indigenous history in international museums . The project aims to build knowledge about exceptional, but poorly-documented, Aboriginal objects from Sydney and NSW coast (c. 1770-1920s) in British and European museums. These objects have not been accessible to Aboriginal communities and other researchers. This project proposes a major innovation: to bring objects to Sydney for community-led and interdisciplinary interpretation. Outcomes will include strong relations ....Mobilising Aboriginal objects: Indigenous history in international museums . The project aims to build knowledge about exceptional, but poorly-documented, Aboriginal objects from Sydney and NSW coast (c. 1770-1920s) in British and European museums. These objects have not been accessible to Aboriginal communities and other researchers. This project proposes a major innovation: to bring objects to Sydney for community-led and interdisciplinary interpretation. Outcomes will include strong relations between Aboriginal communities and overseas museums; a model for collaborative research about historic objects; and a material history of Aboriginal/colonial relations. It benefits communities, governments and museums by laying robust foundations for future projects seeking the return of Indigenous cultural heritage.
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Unlocking Australia’s Chinese archive: the political organisation and social experience of the Chinese Australian community, 1909-1939. Australia's social and economic fabric will be strengthened by incorporating the organisations and experiences of the inter-war Chinese Australian community into Australia's history of citizenship and civic participation. This will foster the Chinese community's sense of inclusion in the national story and will make that story available to non-Chinese Australian ....Unlocking Australia’s Chinese archive: the political organisation and social experience of the Chinese Australian community, 1909-1939. Australia's social and economic fabric will be strengthened by incorporating the organisations and experiences of the inter-war Chinese Australian community into Australia's history of citizenship and civic participation. This will foster the Chinese community's sense of inclusion in the national story and will make that story available to non-Chinese Australians, thus contributing to the social cohesion in multicultural Australia. It will also illuminate the impact of the White Australia Policy on a significant minority group which will benefit Australia as it responds to the legacy of this policy. It will also strengthen Australia's understanding of its historical engagement with the regional Chinese diaspora and with China.Read moreRead less
History, heritage and environmental change in a deindustrialised landscape. As the first collaborative and multidisciplinary, scholarly and community-based study of a forgotten shale-mining settlement in the environmentally and culturally significant Jamison Valley, this project aims to advance knowledge and enable cross-generational engagement with the history and heritage of an industrial landscape, thereby improving our understanding of the long-term impact of deindustrialisation. By combinin ....History, heritage and environmental change in a deindustrialised landscape. As the first collaborative and multidisciplinary, scholarly and community-based study of a forgotten shale-mining settlement in the environmentally and culturally significant Jamison Valley, this project aims to advance knowledge and enable cross-generational engagement with the history and heritage of an industrial landscape, thereby improving our understanding of the long-term impact of deindustrialisation. By combining archaeological, archival and oral evidence the project aims to provide new insights into everyday working and family life, community, gender, transiency and migration that can contribute to conservation of this site and its industrial heritage, cultural heritage tourism and education at a time of environmental change. Read moreRead less
Cultures of Coast and Sea: maritime environmental, cultural and ethnographic histories of north-east Australia, 1770-2010. Using new cross-disciplinary approaches and methods, this collaboration between university scholars, museum curators and a philanthropic foundation will study the impact of maritime and marine environmental and cultural change on the peoples and habitats of the Great Barrier Reef and the Torres Strait from the eighteenth century to the present.