School of Historical and Philosophical Studies - Theses
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ItemA voice for animals: the creation, contention & consequences of the modern Australian animal movement, 1970-2015( 2015)During the unrest and upheaval of the 1970s and at a time when social movements were struggling for liberation and justice, a fresh wave of animal activism emerged in Australia. From the rearing of pigs and poultry in intensive farms, the slaughter of Australian sheep and cattle in the Middle East and South East Asia, the use of animals in research, the shooting of native waterbirds, to the consumption of meat, across Australia the modern animal movement consistently contested the politics and culture of how animals were used and exploited. Engaging with diverse approaches to studying social movements, exploring previously unexamined archives, and through interviews with current and former leading activists, this thesis offers the first major historical study of the creation, contention, and consequences of animal activism in modern Australian history. Through an account of the ideas of animal rights and by analysing other dynamics and processes, this thesis tells the story of how ordinary people were inspired to take action and create the modern animal movement. By exploring the development and performance of a wide variety of protest methods, such as lobbying, direct action, civil disobedience, open rescue, undercover investigations, and lifestyle activism, this thesis reveals the often innovative and provocative ways in which activists made their claims and challenged the status quo. In doing so, this thesis also examines a set of complex and conflicting outcomes, for the animal movement affected the political agenda, policy, industry, media and communication, and the very fabric of society. Over time, activists influenced and pluralised Australian politics, society, and culture, although not necessarily in the ways they desired. Ultimately, through narrating and analysing the modern animal movement, this thesis reveals how and why ordinary people engaged in politics and activism, and uncovers the extent and limits of the changes they stimulated.
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ItemA history of Churchill Island: settlement, land use and the making of a heritage site( 2015)This thesis utilises a public history approach to respond to the desires of the project’s public stakeholders to obtain a rigorous and detailed history of Churchill Island, and to examine its nature as a heritage site. It examines how Churchill Island has been variously imagined and used to make a permanent settler colonial space. In doing so it argues that the history of the island offers a rich example of the complexity of settlement in Victoria. An exploration of the intersections between the practices of community engagement, academia and history, the thesis responds to the challenges thrown up by the History Wars and the Churchill Island Project by making a history of settlement that is both academically critical and publicly accepted.
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ItemThe civilisation of Port Phillip( 2014)In understanding their place in the Port Phillip District, free settlers were pulled between the European legacy of the Enlightenment and the Australian experience of brutal encounters, in which those in power deployed violence against both Aboriginal people and convicts. Somewhere between these two sources of understanding lay the ideologies of Port Phillip’s free settlers. This thesis contends that a close examination of the colonial archive reveals the ideologies of Port Phillip’s free settlers. By identifying the specific intricacies of these settler ideologies, we can achieve a better understanding of the white settlement of the District. This thesis uses the lenses of rhetoric and violence to identify and understand free settler ideologies. It analyses settler statements about their role in the District using Roland Barthes’ idea of ‘mythologies’—statements of purported fact that mask ideological positions. Slavoj Žižek’s breakdown of violence into three separate forms helps conceptualise the realities of the early settlement period, and creates new and productive understandings about violence in the Australian colonies. The thesis applies these theoretical tools to a series of incidents and individuals of Port Phillip. It contends that these seemingly insignificant points of history actually reveal much about the early District, including imagined futures, ideological struggle, and intellectual debate. In different contexts, free settlers defined themselves against Aboriginal people, government officials, and convict-class labourers, and they also expressed their aspirations for the future of the District. Free settler rhetoric in the Port Phillip District established and maintained a settler polity in southeastern Australia whose influence continues to be felt today. Combining a re-reading of the colonial archive with new historiographical methods and an extensive review of the existing literature, this thesis upends conventional progress narratives, and in their place presents a truer picture of what free settlers termed the civilisation of Port Phillip.
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ItemLeft wing Melbourne artists and the Communist Party during the early Cold War period( 2013)Although the 1950s remain in the collective psyche as a distinct period of dull, uneventful, complacency, there have been some intellectual reassessments which present the period as a more fluid and formative time in our social and political history. I will reinforce this view by examining the cultural landscape of Melbourne. For a section of society, including cultural workers, this was a challenging and difficult period, when lives took a turn towards a new kind of political intensity. Progressive, left-wing artists wished to have a say in the building of post-war culture and sought a stake for the underdog in the future of the nation in the face of the Menzies Government’s political and moral war against the Left. I explore issues such as how artists’ participation in the early Cold War political scene affected their strategies for professional survival. I highlight the relationship of artists to the Communist Party of Australia, by focusing on its cultural policies and political practices and by asking, what was its role and degree of significance in the lives of artists? How did left-wing cultural workers negotiate the tension between following the Party line and their own creative expression? By exploring these themes I will demonstrate that the 1950s was a time of highly engaged creative and artistic endeavour and a period of ferment around issues of left-wing politics and art. The thesis studies individual artists as well as relevant left-wing cultural institutions from the 1950s. I submit that a significant effect of the cultural Cold War in Melbourne was to encourage artists to join groups which provided support, political activism and means of expressing their art-forms. There were important ‘warrior’ institutions that were part of the Left during this period. I discuss the activities of a number of these and examine their relationship with the Communist Party. They are the New Theatre, the Realist Film Association and the Victorian Division of Actors Equity. I also discuss the role of the Guardian weekly newspaper and the CPA’s theoretical journal, the Communist Review. The activities of these individuals, groups and institutions provide evidence of an effective role played by art and culture within the political sphere. The picture emerges of a melding of art with political life to an extent that counters popular descriptions of Melbourne as unstimulating and lifeless during the 1950s. For those artists who saw themselves in combat with conservative forces, life was indeed far from dull.
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ItemPrinciples and paradoxes: the Whitlam government's approach towards the Palestine Liberation Organisation, 1972-1975( 2011)Australian policy towards the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) was the source of significant controversy during the Whitlam government’s term in office. Between the years 1972-1975, disagreement within the major political parties and among the Australian public over responses to the PLO emerged in several crises over the period. Drawing upon archival sources and popular media, this thesis examines the personalities, pressures and paradoxes that shaped the government’s viewpoint on the PLO. The difficulties that Whitlam encountered in maintaining a neutral approach and the domestic debate over the government’s even-handed policies contributed to an issue that, although overlooked in much of the scholarship of the period, proved to be an extremely controversial aspect of the Whitlam government’s conduct of Australian foreign policy. Whitlam’s policies to the PLO have been interpreted as being anti-Israel in their orientation, inextricably tied to Middle East economic concerns and an abandonment of Australia’s alliances and principles in international relations. This thesis argues that contrary to this, the overall purposes of Whitlam’s foreign policies to the PLO are best understood in the context of Whitlam’s desire to reshape Australian national identity. Over the course of the events during 1972 and 1975 and the ensuing debate over the PLO, Whitlam strives to articulate a foreign policy that was free of racial considerations, which upheld the principle of neutrality and that demonstrated Australian independence in the world. Whitlam’s commitment to reshaping Australian international relations and renewing Australian identity provided the foundation for his resilience in seeking to accord the PLO with some level of recognition in Australia.