Overview

The city of Bendigo and surrounds, in central Victoria, Australia, is described today by its Traditional Owners, the Djaara people, as 'upside down country', because since 1851 the sacred earth has been rotated and removed by mining, changing its spiritual 'faith-scape'. Since the arrival of settlers and sojourners of European and Chinese descent, relations between peoples in this region have been powerfully shaped not only by the quest for gold and subsequent bases of material wealth, but also by developments in this religious and spiritual faith-scape. In this innovative study, the authors examine a range of historically distinctive Bendigo customs, rituals, activities and events, from the famous Easter Fair, saved for posterity by the intervention of a Chinese community figure in the 1870s, and now led each year by Djaara people, to demonstrations associated with the Bendigo mosque controversy of 2014. They find that an understanding of spirituality and belief has often been a strong basis for connecting with and showing humanity towards others. Drawing on both oral sources and the objects and spaces of the material culture of religion and belief, the authors provide a fascinating elucidation of past and present meanings of faith, in and around Bendigo, as a lived dimension of experience.

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9781760467272

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Reviews

""[The book] will help restore the balance in social history writing that has often overlooked or downplayed faith. The issue of belief and cohesion is as important in our society [today] as it was during the Protestant-Catholic divide that shaped lives in Australia until the 1960s."" - Emeritus Professor Richard Broome, La Trobe University

Author Information

Jennifer Jones is Associate Professor in History at La Trobe University. She is a non-Indigenous woman whose research interests include Indigenous Australian history, rural and religious history, and histories of childhood and education. Timothy W Jones is Professor of History at La Trobe University. His research focuses on problems relating to equality, social cohesion and wellbeing in gender, sexuality and religion in the modern West, particularly in the UK and Australia. Nadia Rhook is Research Fellow at La Trobe University. Her research focuses on Chinese and South Asian migration to southeast Australia, and her interests include social and legal negotiations of race, whiteness and settler identity, and medical history.

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