Awards
- Nominated for Australian Prime Minister's Literary Awards 2020 (Australia)
Overview
The Australian South Sea Islander (ASSI) minority community has a contested indentured labour background and involvement in the Australian sugar cane industry which has resulted in a consequent paucity of material culture and other records. This paucity, in a sense, forms a substantive part of The Secret Life of Memorials: Through the Memory Lens of the Australian South Sea Islanders as it is argued that memory places, rather than static artefactual stand-ins for the past, are dynamic material culture which have agency and relevance in the present, participating in the on-going post-colonial process. Although a material culture study focused on the materialised expression of memory, this research allows discussion beyond typologies, styles and categories to consider the relational meaning and distributed agency of these objects within the complex network of public memory. In addition to considerations of their symbolic, mnemonic or representational reflections of the past, contemporary memorials are discussed as extensions of the original ASSI event to which they refer, a part of a continuous process that is helping to shape current communities. This encompassing approach, from historical experience to present day memory enactment strategies, employs a variety of theoretical arguments, contributing a new method for comprehending and including the many interleaving aspects of memory spaces, of interest to heritage professionals, local councils and governing bodies, and members of the general public.
Full Product Details
Author: Julie Mitchell
Publisher: Archaeopress
Imprint: Archaeopress
Dimensions:
Width: 20.50cm
, Height: 1.00cm
, Length: 29.00cm
Weight: 0.729kg
ISBN: 9781789690958
ISBN 10: 1789690951
Pages: 202
Publication Date: 31 May 2019
Audience:
Professional and scholarly
,
Professional & Vocational
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active
Availability: Manufactured on demand
We will order this item for you from a manufactured on demand supplier.
Author Information
Julie Mitchell achieved her doctorate in the Department of Archaeology, Flinders University, Adelaide, Australia. A fascination with the human condition and the connections between past and present that manifest in contemporary life guided her research focus on the role of material culture in the construction and maintenance of memory. Julie is also an IPinCH fellow (intellectual property in cultural heritage), focused on the otherwise intangible cultural heritage information that material culture contains. Julie is currently working on another relatively unrepresented group, children living on colonial Australian gold fields, linking modern perceptions of Australian culture and identity, and those created, adopted and passed on by these ‘golden’ children.
