Just a matter of time: reviewing temporality in Australian historiography

Abstract

ABSTRACT Time is a foundational concept in historical studies. The past is located ‘in time’, of course, such that time guides and bounds ‘what happened’ to a ‘when’. There have also been increasing theorisations that understand ‘time’ itself as temporally and culturally bound. As well as historicising, then, time itself must be historicised. Using Australian historiography as a case study, this paper explores the changing concept of ‘time’ over time. It sets out a provisional timeline of Australian history’s understanding and deployment of historical time, contributing a much-needed historicisation of time to a growing field of historical theory. In charting a history of time in Australian historiography, it demonstrates the historicity of ‘time’. This paper shows how the concept of time not only reflects, but in turn shapes and defines, historical practice and research.