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Flora's Box: Empty Space, Memory and Migration

Wills, Dr Sara ( 2003-09)

This is the text version of a seminar delivered in the 'History and the Meaning of Things Seminar Series' at Melbourne Museum on 10th September 2003, and it follows the more informal style of an orally delivered paper. The paper takes as its point of departure a wooden box made for the author’s great-grandmother, and now in the possession of her mother, and uses it to reflect on the narratives produced inresearch on post-Second World War British migration to Australia. Noting how personal experience informs research, and drawing on interviews conducted with British migrants inFrankston, this paper discusses the voices that echo around objects such as Flora’s Box; both those that reflect memories under erasure and those coming to terms with their routes. A fuller version will be published; further details from the author at s.wills@unimelb.edu.au.