Anniversaries and National Holidays

Abstract

Australia's national holiday – Australia Day – is celebrated on January 26th, coinciding with the date in 1788 that British settlers claimed Australia for the British Crown and dispossessed the Indigenous inhabitants. Many Australians, Indigenous and non-Indigenous, oppose holding a national day of celebration on a date that Indigenous Australians have commemorated, since 1938, as a “Day of Mourning and Protest.” In recent years, a campaign to change the date of Australia Day, or even to abolish it, has been gaining traction, facilitated by protest marches, a #changethedate campaign, and alternative events celebrating First Nations peoples and culture. Whereas memory activists typically work outside state channels, what distinguishes the Australian movement is the role that some local governments have played, not simply as supporters but as initiators of change. As such, this case study offers the opportunity to investigate the interplay between memory activists, local city councils, and national governments to better identify processes that drive and stall changes in commemorative practices, especially where issues of national identity are at stake.