Circuits of Memory: The War Memory Boom in Western Australia

John R Stephens

doi:10.3390/soc2030084

Abstract

In some Australian academic circles in the 1980s it was believed that, as the numbers of soldiers of the world wars declined over time, so would attendances at war remembrance ceremonies on Anzac Day and interest in war commemoration in general. Contrary to expectation, however, there has been a steady rise in eagerness for war memory in Australia over the past three decades manifest in media interest and increasing attendance at Anzac Day services. Rather than dying out, ‘Anzac’ is being reinvented for new generations. Emerging from this phenomenon has been a concomitant rise in war memorial and commemorative landscape building across Australia fuelled by government funding (mostly federal) and our relentless search for a national story. Many more memorial landscapes have been built in Western Australia over the past thirty years than at the end of either of the World Wars, a trend set to peak in 2014 with the Centenary of Anzac. This paper examines the origins and progress of this boom in memorial building in Western Australia and argues that these new memorial settings establish ‘circuits of memory’ which ultimately re-enchant and reinforce the Anzac renaissance.

Highlights

Over the past three decades there has been a steady rise in the numbers of war memorials built in Western Australia, which is the largest of the Australian states
From 1980 to the present there have been well over 130 monumental war memorials built, with over 60 in the period after 2000. Green memorials such as gardens and honour avenues follow a similar more gentle trajectory [1]. These figures suggest that war commemoration in Western Australia is booming and that memorials are being constructed at rates not seen since the end of the First World War
This paper reveals that the cumulative effect of the many war memorials built across the urban and regional localities of Western Australia is to form a web of places that ritualise and sacralise the landscape

Summary

Introduction

Over the past three decades there has been a steady rise in the numbers of war memorials built in Western Australia, which is the largest of the Australian states. Driving through the urban areas and suburbs of Australian cities and country towns reveals many war memorials in parks, on roadsides or in front of public buildings advertising a community‘s contribution to the defence of the country Many of these were built during the first rush of memorial construction after the First World War as a material response to the sorrow, pride and grief felt by communities at the devastation of a generation of young people in mechanised warfare. This paper explores the drivers of the current boom in Anzac and war remembrance and endeavours to understand the effect this boom has had on the building of war memorials It seeks to answer questions about why and how this phenomenon has been generated by discussing Anzac‘s function in Australian society, its recent renaissance and its role in shaping attitudes towards war commemoration. Through the circuits of memory set up by new memorial building and the re-enchanting of old memorials, the landscape has been ritualised and sacralised, reinforcing the place of Anzac as a legitimate national story and generator of national and local identities

Anzac Memories

Anzac Landscapes

Circuits of Memory

Conclusions