Memory In Australia Research Articles

Aftermaths: Colonialism, Violence and Memory in Australia, New Zealand and The Pacific. Edited by AngelaWanhalla, LyndallRyan and CamilleNurka (Dunedin: Otago University Press, 2023).

Aftermaths: Colonialism, Violence and Memory in Australia, New Zealand and The Pacific. Edited by AngelaWanhalla, LyndallRyan and CamilleNurka (Dunedin: Otago University Press, 2023).

In Search of a Meaningful Story: Oral History and Triathlon Memory in Australia

There has been limited effort to record and document the origins and growth of triathlon as a sport. Two decades after the Mission Bay Triathlon, which is widely regarded as the first modern triathlon occurred in 1974, the concept of swimming, cycling and running in continuous succession had attained sufficient global recognition and organization to achieve Olympic inclusion. Yet, while many magazine articles, oral and video interviews, and some small circulation films and documentaries present aspects of the sport’s past, triathlon is not the subject of a coherent sport history. The Multisport Dreaming project emerged in part out of a desire to understand the silence about triathlon history. Research for the project involved interviews with approximately two hundred individuals. Drawing on literature about subculture and sport, memory, and oral history, this paper analyses just three of these oral histories for signs of the processes through which interviewees made sense out of their experiences. It makes a case for a view of oral narratives as performances through which individuals deploy and engage with discourse. At least in the sport of triathlon oral narratives appear as influential acts of social memory.

Management of Indigenous Peoples Records and Sharing Communityʼs Memory in Australia

Management of Indigenous Peoples Records and Sharing Communityʼs Memory in Australia

‘A modern chamber of horrors’? Temporary Holocaust exhibitions as sites of memory: the 1961 Warsaw Ghetto commemoration exhibition, Melbourne

ABSTRACTThis paper examines the 1961 Warsaw Ghetto exhibition in Melbourne, Australia. Within the context of Eichmann’s trial in Israel and fears of rising anti-Semitism in Australia, the exhibition is a site through which debates over Jewish identity, Holocaust memory, and the hitherto marginalised role of temporary exhibitions can be understood. Using archival traces, the paper examines the intentions of the exhibition’s organisers, and its reception by visitors. It shows how representations of the Holocaust were shaped by local concerns, the availability of information from emerging global networks of memorial institutions, and the evolving category of ‘survivor’. It adds to a nuanced reading of Holocaust memorial forms, unsettling established narratives of Holocaust memory in Australia.

Memory up close: Memory studies in Australia

This special issue was first conceived of over dinner in a New Zealand cafe in London, on a warm summer night in July 2010. During that evening, it emerged that we’d both already been thinking about the issues we raise here for some time. Rosanne, a US citizen, and now Australian citizen, who has lived and worked in Australia since the 1990s, had co-edited a book on World Memory (Bennett and Kennedy, 2003). Susannah, at that point a UK citizen working in the United Kingdom and with a fellowship in Australia, was in the midst of running a project on memory in national contexts and had recently spoken on what she sees as the thorny politics driving both memory’s mobility and theories of transnational memory (Radstone, 2011). Later that evening, we were joined by another contributor to this issue, Felicity Collins, who arrived hot foot from a symposium in Dublin on disputed memory in Australia and Ireland (Holmes and Ward, 2011). Looking back, it’s hard not to notice how our coming together – even in the choice of a New Zealand cafe in London – condensed many of the issues that pulse through this special issue. We knew that our connections were through memory research and through Australia. But knowing that didn’t reveal what, if anything, might be denoted by the coupling of Australia with both memory and memory studies. There in London, in the context of theories of the transnational as they were bearing in on memory studies and as they were present – embodied, even – around our table, this special issue had its genesis. That evening, we began to make plans for a symposium,1 bringing together leading memory researchers from across Australia, and it was during that event that we made plans for this volume. The title of our special issue – Memory Studies in Australia – describes its contents more or less accurately, but aims to provoke, too. Our starting point – self-evidently – is our belief that there’s something significant to be learnt from bringing together this carefully commissioned collection of memory studies research in Australia. But what might that be? After all, general questions of the pertinence of the national notwithstanding, isn’t Australia generally regarded – as one of our contributors pithily put it – as just a ‘small’ country, situated beyond anywhere that matters? And isn’t it just plain retrograde, anachronistic or even overly nationalistic to talk about memory studies in

Prisoners of war of the Japanese: War and memory in Australia

This article reflects on the place of prisoners of war of the Japanese in Australian memory of World War II. It examines the return to prominence of prisoners of war memory in the 1980s and places this phenomenon in the context of the memory boom and the attention accorded to difficult or traumatic memories. By exploring the relationship between Australian war memories and debates about Indigenous suffering, it suggests that cosmopolitan memory cultures form an important conceptual link between them. Recognising prisoners of war memory as an example of traumatic memory allows us to move beyond an analysis bounded by the nation state, and to argue that instead of seeing it as emerging in competition with other contemporary memories focused on the suffering of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, it shares some elements in common with them.

Circuits of Memory: The War Memory Boom in Western Australia

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.

Identity Fraud: Interrogating the Impostures of "Robert de Bruce Keith Stewart" in Early Nineteenth-Century Penang and Calcutta

This study evaluates a transported convict, Robert Stewart, and his serial-invented identities. They culminated in him creating much sympathetic support among Calcutta’s white residents, as the honorable, romantic, and well-connected natural son of an aristocratic admiral. While not denying that he had escaped from Sydney by participating in the spectacular piratical seizure of the brig Harrington , he deluded his Calcutta supporters that his transportation offence was no mean felony but a crime of honour. Stewart’s “identity frauds” destabilized the (often fragile) claims to gentlemanly status of colonial elites. The Harrington affair plus his two, or possibly three, prior attempts to escape from transportation by piracy open up a wider issue, little considered hitherto in the academic literature on early colonial Australia. In brief, piratical seizures in Australian havens are revealed as a major escape practice among Australia’s transported convicts, contributing alongside stowing away and illicitly engaging as merchant seamen, to an escaped convict presence scattered across many maritime locations from Cape Town to Chile. These included Calcutta, which supplied many of the consumption needs and desires of early New South Wales and Van-Diemen’s Land—and a considerable sector of these colonies’ shipping resources. Two major archive collections of letters and petitions by Stewart, one from his time in Newgate in 1801–2, the other from his 5 months’ incarceration in Calcutta, are among sources interrogated and deconstructed to reveal a tricky but formidable man. Fittingly, in ex-convict memory in Australia, he long remained a liberational figure.

Effect of a 12-mo micronutrient intervention on learning and memory in well-nourished and marginally nourished school-aged children: 2 parallel, randomized, placebo-controlled studies in Australia and Indonesia

Background: Little is known about the combined effect of micronutrients and essential fatty acids on cognitive function in school-aged children.Objective: We assessed the effect of micronutrients, long-chain n−3 fatty acids, or both on indicators of cognitive performance in well-nourished and marginally nourished school-aged children.Design: Two 2-by-2 factorial randomized controlled double-blind trials were performed home-based in Adelaide, South Australia, and at 6 primary schools in Jakarta, Indonesia. A total of 396 children (aged 6-10 y) in Australia and 384 children in Indonesia were randomly allocated to receive a drink with a micronutrient mix (iron, zinc, folate, and vitamins A, B-6, B-12, and C), with docosahexanoic acid (DHA,88 mg/d) and eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA, 22 mg/d), or with both or placebo 6 d/wk for 12 mo. Biochemical indicators were determined at baseline and 12 mo. Cognitive performance was measured at baseline, 6 mo, and 12 mo.Results: The micronutrient treatment significantly improved plasma micronutrient concentrations in Australian and Indonesian children. DHA+EPA treatment increased plasma DHA and total plasma n−3 fatty acids in both countries. The micronutrient treatment resulted in significant increases in scores on tests representing verbal learning and memory in Australia (estimated effect size: 0.23; 95% CI: 0.01, 0.46). A similar effect was observed among Indonesian girls (estimated effect size: 0.32; 95% CI: −0.01, 0.64). No effects were found on tests measuring general intelligence or attention. No effects of DHA+EPA on the factors of cognitive tests were observed.Conclusion: In well-nourished school-aged children, fortification with multiple micronutrients can result in improvements in verbal learning and memory.

Memory-Work: Video Testimony, Holocaust Remembrance and the Third Generation

This article investigates the responses of grandchildren of Holocaust survivors to Holocaust video testimonies archived at the Jewish Holocaust Museum and Research Centre, Melbourne, Australia. Interviews with the grandchildren show that many have begun to question the existing communal obligations surrounding Holocaust remembrance. As significant sources for Holocaust remembrance, video testimonies have important roles to play in facilitating ‘memory-work’ for the third generation. Watching video testimony allows viewers to move beyond existing formulaic approaches towards Holocaust remembrance and form their own personal responses. The voices of the third generation emphasise that Holocaust memory in Australia will be shaped by each generation in ways that are meaningful for them

Book Reviews

Books reviewed in this article: The French Explorers and the Aboriginal Australians 1772–1839. By Colin Dyer Scandal in the Colonies: Sydney and Capetown, 1820–1850. By Kirsten McKenzie Varieties of Vice‐Regal Life (Van Diemen's Land Section). By Sir William and Lady Denison. Edited by Richard Davis and Stefan Petrow A Nation's Imagination: Australia's Copyright Records, 1854–1968. By Merilyn Minell Australia In Focus: Photographs in the National Archives. By Peter Nagle The Diary of Emily Caroline Creaghe Explorer. Edited with an introduction by Peter Monteath After the Rush: Regulation, Participation and Chinese Communities in Australia 1860–1940. Edited by Sophie Couchman, John Fitzgerald and Paul Macgregor The Gates of Memory: Australian People's Experiences and Memories of Loss and the Great War. By Tanja Luckins Bigger Than Gallipoli: War, History and Memory in Australia. By Liz Reed Reconsidering Gallipoli. By Jenny Macleod Pompey Elliott. By Ross McMullin John Wren: A Life Reconsidered. By James Griffin Australia and Israel: An Ambiguous Relationship. By Chanan Reich It's Time Again: Whitlam and Modern Labor. Edited by Jenny Hocking and Colleen Lewis Blackfellas Whitefellas and the Hidden Injuries of Race. By Gillian Cowlishaw The New Province for Law and Order: 100 Years of Australian Industrial Conciliation and Arbitration. Edited by Joe Isaac and Stuart Macintyre The Lowest Rung: Voices of Australian Poverty. By Mark Peel Australian Cinema after Mabo. By Felicity Collins and Therese Davies Journey into Darkness. By Winton Higgins Globalisation: Australian Regional Perspectives. Edited by Martin Shanahan and Gerry Treuren God Under Howard: the Rise of the Religious Right in Australian Politics. By Marion Maddox The Historian's Conscience: Australian Historians on the Ethics of History. Edited by Stuart Macintyre Imagining Australia: Ideas for Our Future. By Macgregor Duncan, Andrew Leigh, David Madden and Peter Tynan Navigating Boundaries: The Asian Diaspora in Torres Strait. By Anna Shnukal, Guy Ramsey and Yuriko Nagata Reluctant Saviour: Australia, Indonesia and the Independence of East Timor. By Clinton Fernandes Abdurrahman Wahid. Muslim Democrat, Indonesian President: a View From the Inside. By Greg Barton Pacific Journeys, Essays in Honour of John Dunmore. Edited by Glynnis M. Cropp et al. Pacific Places, Pacific Histories: Essays in Honor of Robert C. Kiste. Edited by Brij V. Lal The Manipulation of Custom: From Uprising to Intervention in the Solomon Islands. By Jon Fraenkel Perceptions of Race and Nation in English and American Travel Writers, 1833–1914. By Erik S. Schmeller Europe's Pasts and Presents: Proceedings of the Fourteenth Biennial Conference of the Australasian Association for European History Diplomaten und Agenten. Nachrichtendienste in der Geschichte der deutsch‐amerikanischen Beziehungen. Edited by Reinhard R. Doerries Fascists. By Michael Mann The Anatomy of Fascism. By Robert O. Paxton City: Urbanism and its End. By Douglas W. Rae World‐Systems Analysis: An Introduction. By Immanuel Wallerstein Metaphysics, Method and Politics: The Political Philosophy of R. G. Collingwood. By James Connelly Action as History: The Historical Thought of R. G. Collingwood. By Stein Helgeby “How Good an Historian Shall I be?” R. G. Collingwood, the Historical Imagination and Education. By Marnie Hughes‐Warrington

Bigger than Gallipoli: war, history and memory in Australia

Bigger than Gallipoli: war, history and memory in Australia

Passengers of Memory: Constructions of British Immigrants in Post-Imperial Australia

Based on broad research investigating British immigrants in post-Second World War Australia, this article examines various impacts of the passing of imperialism on this group, tracing how they have been “passengers” both of national memory in Australia and more recently of their own narratives. Arguing also that British migrants have been subject on occasion to postimperial forgetting, it is emphasised here that British migrants display heterogenous constructions and negotiations of identity that may reflect new departures.

BOOK REVIEWS

Book reviewed in this article: Bain Attwood and Fiona Magowan (eds). Telling Stories: Indigenous History and Memory in Australia and New Zealand. Piya Chatterjee. A Time For Tea: Women, Labor, and Post/Colonial Politics on an Indian Plantation. Jean and John L. Comaroff (eds). Millennial Capitalism and the Culture of Neoliberalism. Michael Humphrey. The Politics of Atrocity and Reconciliation: From Terror to Trauma. S. Jaarsma and Marta Rohatynskyj (eds). Ethnographic Artifacts: Challenges to a Reflexive Anthropology. Gaynor Kavanagh. Dream Spaces: Memory and Museum. Fred R. Myers. Painting Culture: The Making of an Aboriginal High Art. Nigel A. Stephenson. Kastom or Komuniti: A Study of Social Process and Change among the Wam People, East Sepik Province, Papua New Guinea. Ida Susser and Thomas C. Patterson (eds). Cultural Diversity in the United States: A Critical Reader. Elizabeth Wood‐Ellem. Queen Salote of Tonga: The Story of an Era, 1900–1965. Michael W. Young and Julia Clark. An Anthropologist in Papua: The Photography of F. E. Williams, 1922–39.

<sc>Bain Attwood</sc> and <sc>Fiona Magowan</sc>, editors. <italic>Telling Stories: Indigenous History and Memory in Australia and New Zealand</italic>. Crows Nest, New South Wales: Allen and Unwin. 2001. Pp. xvii, 269. $29.95

<sc>Bain Attwood</sc> and <sc>Fiona Magowan</sc>, editors. <italic>Telling Stories: Indigenous History and Memory in Australia and New Zealand</italic>. Crows Nest, New South Wales: Allen and Unwin. 2001. Pp. xvii, 269. $29.95

Reviews of Books:Telling Stories: Indigenous History and Memory in Australia and New Zealand Bain Attwood, Fiona Magowan

Reviews of Books:Telling Stories: Indigenous History and Memory in Australia and New Zealand Bain Attwood, Fiona Magowan

Using Logical Memory in Australia

Australian neuropsychologists, who use tests developed in North America such as Wechsler's Memory Scales, have expressed some concerns about the relevance of test materials for Australian clients. In Australia, concern about the American content of Logical Memory prompted Ivison to recommend modifications to adapt this test for local conditions. Consequently, when Australian psychologists administer Logical Memory they may be using Wechsler's stories, the stories Ivison adapted for Australian conditions, or stories modified on an individual basis, as was reputedly common practice in the past. We conducted a nationwide survey of members of the Australian Psychological Society, College of Clinical Neuropsychologists, to assess which stories neuropsychologists use and whether they modify the standard instructions for Logical Memory. Recommendations for psychologists who use modified versions of Logical Memory in clinical practice are discussed and may also be useful for those who use modified versions of other standardised tests.