‘The Birthplace of Australian Multiculturalism?’ Retrospective Commemoration, Participatory Memoralisation and Official Heritage

Abstract

Abstract In Australia, the authorised heritage discourse contributes to shaping the stereotypically Australian. It actively engages in creating a contemporary national story which glosses over the more shameful or distasteful episodes and themes in Australian colonial and post‐colonial history which is presented as being by‐and‐large progressive and benign. While the process of forging national history has become more complex and increasingly fraught, given globalisation and the emergence of new histories, nation and nationalism remain culturally persistent. The turn to multiculturalism from the 1970s as the principal way of defining Australianness and the nation lead some conservatives in politics and the heritage industry to appropriate the new social history, using it to present diversity as an indicator of a fair and open society. In this process, both history—an evolving academic discipline—and the past—lived experience which has meanings and uses in the present—were transformed into heritage. Keywords: MulticulturalismMemorialsCommemorationHeritagePublic HistoryAustralian History Acknowledgement The research drawn upon in this article was funded by the Australian Research Council. I would like to thank Paula Hamilton for her comments on this article. Notes [1] See, for example, Smith, Archaeological Theory and the Politics of Cultural Heritage; Waterton,'Whose Sense of Place?'; Waterton et al., 'The Utility of Discourse Analysis to Heritage Studies'. [2] Smith, Uses of Heritage, 11. [3] Ashton and Hamilton, '"Places of the Heart"'. [4] See Scates and Frances, 'Honouring the Aboriginal Dead'. [5] See, for example, Smith, Uses of Heritage, 201, 203. [6] Hamilton and Shopes, Oral History and Public Memories, 3 (emphasis added). [7] Hodgkin and Radstone, Contested Pasts, 2. [8] Hamilton, 'The Knife Edge', 9–10. [9] Smith, Uses of Heritage, 62. [10] Glassberg, 'Public History and the Study of Memory', 7–8. [11] Hamilton and Shopes, Oral History and Public Memory, xi. [12] For a concise history of racism in Australia see Marcus, Australian Race Relations. [13] Macintyre and Clark, The History Wars. [14] Carter, 'Working with the Past', 10 (emphasis added). [15] Entitled 'Places of the Heart: Post 1960 non‐war memorials in Australia', this national survey was funded by the Australian Research Council and was undertaken at the Australian Centre for Public History at the University of Technology, Sydney. [16] 'Snowy Mountains Scheme, Snowy Mountains Hwy, Cabramurra, NSW', place detail. [17] Places of the Heart Database, item 'Snowy Workers Memorial'. [18] Irvine, 'Town Planning and National Efficiency', 260–61. [19] McHugh, The Snowy, 18. [20] Griffin, 'Selling the Snowy', 44. [21] Neal, Snowy Mountains Story. [22] Henderson, Monuments and Memorials, 42–3. [23] See Marcus, 'History of Post‐War Immigration'; Merritt, 'Labour History'. [24] Office of Multicultural Affairs, National Agenda for a Multicultural Australia, ix. See also Commonwealth of Australia, A New Agenda for Multicultural Australia and Multicultural Australia. [25] Blainey, All for Australia, 170. [26] Castles et al., Mistaken Identity, 13. [27] Different groups of people, however, had cause to remember the Snowy such as those who lost their homes and towns due to inundations. See, for example, Read, 'Our Lost, Drowned Town in the Valley'. [28] Walker, Citation 2000 Golden Target Awards Collection, 25–6. [29] See, for example, The Sun Herald, 10 October 1999, pp.1 and 53, and 17 October 1999, p.77; Weekend Australian, 16–17 October 1999, pp.1–8; The Age, 7 October 1999, p.16. See also National Parks Journal, no. 12, 1999. Available from http://dazed.npa.npj/199912/#Scheme (accessed 4 November 2008). [30] See http://www.powerhousemuseum.com/hsc/snowy/investigating.htm (accessed 3 November 2008). [31] Weekend Australian, 27 January 1999, p.12. [32] Heritage Office News, March 1999. Available at http://www.heritage.nsw.gov.au/heritagensw/mar99/index.html (accessed 4 November 2008). [33] The Australian Heritage Commission, established in 1976, was abolished by the conservative Howard Government in 2003. See Ashton and Cornwall, 'Corralling Conflict'. [34] See note 16. [35] For example, see http://www.cultureandrecreation.gov.au/articles/snowyscheme (accessed 4 November 2008). [36] 'Transcript of the Prime Minister The Hon John Howard MP Address'. See reports of this in The Age, 18 October 1999, 9 and Sydney Morning Herald, 18 October 1999, 8. [37] 'Address by Sir William Deane'. [38] See, for example, Hamilton and Ashton, 'On Not Belonging'. [39] The Federal database was chosen to give a general national spread; the New South Wales database due to one third of the 'Places of the Heart' memorials coming from that state; Victoria because it is the second most populous state; and Western Australia because of its large geographical size and relatively small population. [40] Whitmore, 'Our Engineering Heritage', 126. [41] For an overview of this project see Ashton and Hamilton, 'Places of the Heart'. [42] See, for example, Byrne, 'The Archaeology of Disaster'. [43] See, for example, Healy, From the Ruins of Colonialism, 77–129. [44] Appiah, 'Identity, Authenticity, Survival', 159. [45] Stratton and Ang, 'Multicultural Imagined Communities', 135. [46] See Ashton and Hamilton, 'Places of the Heart', 24–5. [47] Northern Territory News, 29 July 2995. Thanks to Bev Phelts for the detailed recording of this memorial. [48] Places of the Heart database item 154. [49] Australian Human Rights Commission, Bringing Them Home, the report is available at http://www.auslii.edu.au/au/special/rsproject/rsjlibrary/hreoc/stolen/. [50] Thanapalasuntheram, 'A Reflection: 20 Years of Positive Life NSW', 1–2. [51] The Herald, 16 November 1987, p.3; Melbourne Star Observer, 22 April 1988, p.1. [52] For the American example, see Sturken, Tangled Memories, 145–82. [53] Jordanova, History in Practice, 155. [54] Ang, 'Intertwining Histories'. [55] Knauer and Walkowitz, 'Introduction', 5. [56] Jensen, 'Usable Pasts', 46. [57] Lowenthal, Possessed by the Past, x. [58] See for example, Pugliese, 'Migrant Heritage in an Indigenous Context'.