School of Historical and Philosophical Studies - Theses
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Item‘Women Through the Years’: Oral History, Identity and 'Little Singapore Stories'( 2022)In the decades following Singapore’s 1965 independence, the ubiquitous ‘Singapore Story’ was developed as a common history of national identity to be shared by Singapore’s diverse inhabitants. Introduced into the national curriculum in 1997, the Singapore Story created an orthodox depiction of the nation’s past that prioritised political and military events and emphasised male experiences and contributions. Running parallel to its development were alternate histories that problematised this dominant narrative and emphasised people’s history. As some historians have criticised, however, these people’s histories frequently explored Singapore’s ethnic groups in isolation. This thesis considers how a collective existence of pre-1965 Singaporeans might be constructed, disrupted and retrospectively recalled. It primarily engages with the oral testimony of women recorded within the Oral History Centre’s project ‘Women through the Years: economic and family lives.’ The interviewees were born between 1897 and 1937 and interviewed between the 1980s and the early 2000s. This collection of so-called “little Singapore stories” demonstrates how class, race, language and religion could intersect within colonial spaces and create fluid and multifaceted identities as expressed by the interviewees. This thesis explores the construction of Singaporean identity from two temporal perspectives: the colonial Singapore in which the interview’s events took place and the post-independence Singapore in which the interviews were conducted. It argues the ‘Women through the Years’ collection indicates how memory is continually reconstructed and inflected with new meaning to legitimise current perspectives and identity.
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ItemThe Hotel Kurrajong and the public/domestic dichotomy: Women, Work, & Canberra 1926-66( 2021)To discover the world of Canberra’s hotels, of which the Hotel Kurrajong is a descendent, is to find a Canberra of women. Women as wives and mothers but also doctors, omnibus entrepreneurs, and bookshop owners. Apart from the Hotel Kurrajong’s managers, Isabelle (Belle) Southwell and Gladys Coles, there were women within and without the hotel who contributed to the making of Canberra. These managers, secretaries, activists, and politicians represent a fraction of the women who lived and worked in Canberra between 1926-66. While the working women of Canberra were more likely to be waitresses than palaeontologists, women were more of a presence in the city in its formative years than is commonly acknowledged. Population records show their percentage of the total population has never been less than thirty-nine per cent. If we accept women were a substantial proportion of the Canberra population from its 1911 inception, we must also accept they were contributing to the city’s culture and workforce. To have a more nuanced understanding of our federal capital’s history, we need to re-examine women’s contribution to the formation and development of that society through a re-evaluation of their paid work.
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ItemBotanic motifs of the Bronze Age Cycladic Islands: identity, belief, ritual and trade( 2019)Botanic motifs of the Bronze Age Cycladic Islands: Identity, Belief, Ritual and Trade Marcia Nugent, University of Melbourne This thesis argues the motifs with which we surround ourselves signify something – about us, our identities, our values and our understanding of the world. Frequently and infrequently represented motifs tell us something about the culture from which they come. Assemblages of motifs from different peoples and places tell us something about the people who created and viewed them – their preferences and their sense of place in their environment. In short, motifs have meaning. Although in many cases the original viewer may have assigned non-intrinsic meaning to motifs, patterns of representation and placement and the context of motifs can allow the uninitiated to recognise meaning. Motifs can communicate feelings, ideas, beliefs, practice and uses of the items represented to observers far removed from the original intended viewers. Since prehistoric times, the natural world has been a focus of human artistic endeavour. From before people first settled and started practicing agriculture, plants have been important sources of shelter, nourishment and clothing materials. It is perhaps not surprising, then, that plants feature in early artistic representations. The artistic record reflects our early and continuing inextricable link to our natural environment. Our reliance on plant products makes botanic motifs an important subset of the iconographic record. The temporal and geographical focus of this study is the Bronze Age period (approx. 3000 – 1200 BC) of three sites from the Cycladic Islands, a group of islands in the Aegean Sea north of Crete – Akrotiri (Thera), Ayia Irini (Kea) and Phylakopi (Melos). Motifs are frequently from the Late Bronze Age period (1600 – 1200 BC), but some motifs are first seen and traced from the Early and Middle Bronze Age periods. The thesis seeks to answer two broad research questions: 1. Which plants were represented at the Bronze Age Cycladic Islands of Melos, Thera and Kea and how were they represented? 2. What can the context, form and associations of the botanic motifs tell us about the identity, beliefs, rituals and trade of the people that created and viewed them? Although a number of scholars have undertaken broad iconographic studies and other research has considered a limited assemblage of plant motifs, none have focused only on the three Cycladic Island sites featured in this study. This thesis also uniquely applies a quantitative and contextual analysis to over 500 botanic motifs to understand broader qualitative archaeological problems. The newly developed analytical methodology of this thesis intends to extend a replicable, scientific approach reaching from a quantitative, numbers based analysis to qualitative analysis utilising theoretical frameworks, enabling a post-processual, post-structuralist, contextualised study of the botanic motifs. The study ultimately reveals botanic motifs and the plants they represent have an entangled relationship with humanity, built on dependency and co-dependency, which support and enhance the economic, health and spiritual lives of the people of the Bronze Age Cycladic Islands.
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ItemThe pear tree: family narratives of Greek Macedonian migration to Australia( 2018)This thesis examines how migrants who left Florina, Greece, in the 1950s-1960s remember, narrate and transmit experiences of migration, and how complex ideas of home and identity have been mediated across three generations. Drawing on oral history interviews, it investigates whether Greek Macedonian regional identity has remained relevant to second and third generations through the transmission of family stories and argues that ‘family’ is a stronger signifier of identity because of the difficulties of association with a historically turbulent region.
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ItemCreating space to listen: museums, participation and intercultural dialogue( 2018)This thesis examines the emergence, practice, and social meaning of intercultural dialogue as participatory programming in museums. While intercultural dialogue takes many forms in museums, the thesis focuses on projects that invite participants to create digital content in response to one another on topics related to identity, cultural diversity, and racism. The thesis presents a central case study of a contemporary anti-racist museum project – ‘Talking Difference’ – produced by the Immigration Museum in Melbourne, which facilitated, documented, and presented dialogue between participants. It draws on the personal experience of the author as a previous staff member on Talking Difference, as well as written and visual documentation, interviews with project staff, and analysis of content produced. Engaging with the field of museum studies, the thesis argues that dialogue projects like Talking Difference have come to prominence as museums adapt their traditional governmental role to contemporary societies where engagement with institutions is characterised by reflexivity and participation. Given this, the thesis argues that participatory programs should challenge the idea that museums can provide neutral forums for dialogue. Instead, dialogic museum practice may be more transformative if museums embrace their role of promoting social justice as third parties in the dialogue they facilitate. This entails not only encouraging participants to produce affecting personal accounts but also facilitating engagement with the complex social and historical contexts within which these accounts emerge. To this end, museums should prioritise listening, and facilitate the negotiation of conflicting perspectives in addition to providing platforms for their co-presentation. In acknowledgement of the field of practices within which such work takes place, the thesis argues that these interventions should be part of a broader suite of efforts to decolonise museum practice.
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ItemMigration from Limnos to Australia: rediscovering identity, belonging and 'home'( 2018)Post-World-War Two mass migration had a significant impact on the Greek population and on the nation’s social and economic infrastructure; for small islands such as Limnos (commonly known as Lemnos in the English-speaking world) the consequences were often momentous. During the 1950s-1970s, many Limnian islanders left for Australia, a nation then at the height of its post-war economic recovery. This thesis explores the intergenerational migration experiences of this community by interrogating emerging themes that arise in the oral histories of three different cohorts: the first-generation, or foundational immigrants; the second-generation, or those born in Australian or who arrived as young children; and those who stayed on the island. The critical focus is on identity construction and belonging and the dynamics of return visits to the ancestral homeland. Specifically, the thesis explores an emerging pattern of return visits to the parental homeland since the mid-1990s by descendants of migrants, which I argue is a form of identity consolidation among the second-generation. Drawing on original interviews conducted for this thesis, I outline the history of Limnos, analyse relevant historiography and then focus on the framing of personal experiences and cross-generational themes of belonging, identity, the significance and meaning of ‘home’ and ancestral roots. These are considered in the context of evolving transnational relationships and the re-connection of those who chose to settle in Australia with, those who have remained on the island. As the first scholarly research project about migration from this island community, this thesis provides a unique exploration of multi-dimensional themes that connect ‘those who have left and those who stayed’. It thus fills a distinct gap in Greek-Limnian migrant historiography and adds to the literature on Australian migration and oral history.
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ItemPublic architecture, space and identity in six poleis in Asia minor: the observer through time (from the 2nd century BC to the 3rd century AD)( 2017)Research on public architecture and its development in the poleis of Asia Minor from the Hellenistic to Roman imperial period has often tended to focus on individual building types and to regard them as a series. This approach overlooks a building's role in the overall cityscape and its intended effect on the observer. Yet studies which examine the notion of the cityscape for ancient observers often make only a passing reference to the archaeological record. The identity of this observer has also tended to be ill defined. The observer, who was either a resident or visitor to these cities, experienced public architecture as well as other objects on public display, and derived meaning from their placement, decoration and overall connection to the cityscape. This thesis will consider the social and historical context as well as the archaeological record in regard to the development of different types of public architecture and other displays in specific poleis in Asia Minor. The placement and motivations for these elements' construction, their role in the cityscape and their reception by those who experienced them will be discussed. The period discussed begins with the increased diffusion of Classical-style poleis in the 2nd century BC, and ends at the beginning of the 3rd century AD. This study will employ a number of carefully chosen case studies: Balboura, Lyrbe/Seleukia, Pessinus, Ephesus, Pisidian Antioch and Kremna; and thus will apply a specific rather than general approach. The discussion will consider the evolution and character of these poleis' cityscapes and the effect they had on ancient observers. By doing so, a greater understanding of the overall cityscapes' contemporary meaning and the impact of these public displays will be gained.
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ItemThe roles actors perform: role-play and reality in a higher education context( 2006-07)This thesis undertakes a description and analysis of the way in which Australian higher education students perform roles through the use of online role-play systems at the University of Melbourne. It includes a description of two case studies: DRALE Online, developed in 1997, and The Campaign, developed in 2003. The research undertakes a detailed study of The Campaign, using empirical data derived from classroom observations, online communications, and semi-structured interviews. It undertakes a qualitative analysis of these data using an interpretive approach informed by models drawn from social theory and sociotechnical theory. Educational authors argue that online educational role-plays engage students in authentic learning, and represent an improvement over didactic teaching strategies. According to this literature, online role-play systems afford students the opportunity of acting and doing instead of only reading and listening. Literature in social theory and social studies of technology takes a different view of certain concepts such as performance, identity and reality. Models such as actor-network theory ask us to consider all actors in the sociotechnical network in order to understand how society and technology are related. This thesis examines these concepts by addressing a series of research questions, such as how students become engaged with identities, how identities are mediated, and the extent to which roles in these role-plays are shaped by the system, the scenario, and the agency of the actors themselves.
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ItemThe Australian Governor-Generalship: sources of authority and identity( 2012)This thesis examines the Australian Governor-Generalship by evaluating the sources, symbols and consequences of vice-regal authority. While the constitutional foundation of the office has remained almost unmodified since Federation, the status of the role has changed dramatically, from an imperial actor to an apolitical figurehead. Archival sources are used to investigate how from 1936 to 1986 a position which was initially a ‘Britishness device’ was appropriated to ‘depict the Australian nation to its people’. The study explores how both British and Australian Governors-General from Lord Gowrie to Ninian Stephen have paradoxically sought to project a distinctly Australian identity while deriving much of their social and political gravitas from the imperial trappings of their office.
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ItemThe language of identity in Caesar's Bellum Gallicum( 2011)This thesis argues that Caesar’s Commentarii Belli Gallici is engaged in a Late Republican discourse of identity. It demonstrates that Caesar engages in this discourse by contextualising Caesar’s Commentarii of his military campaigns in Gaul within Late Republican literature. In particular I will focus on the negotiation of space, through territorial expansion, methods of asserting boundaries and movement with which Caesar’s text is prominently concerned. I argue that literary representations of peoples at the edges of the Roman empire enabled expressions of Roman self-definition. Therefore I will examine Caesar’s language in order to explore concepts of identity within Roman society and also within a broader context of the Mediterranean world. I demonstrate that situating Caesar’s Commentarii within the context of territorial expansion in the Late Roman Republican period is essential to understanding how the Romans negotiated their changing status and identity with other peoples within the Mediterranean world. This process is reflected in the geographical language that is frequently found within Caesar’s Commentarii, and the delineation of space in this text reveals a process of Roman domination and control. Through categorising and mapping an area, I show that Caesar expresses Roman cultural values, in particular those which involve power relations and the use of space. In this thesis I contend that Caesar’s Commentarii is inherently concerned with Roman self-definition. I argue that Caesar’s Commentarii was involved in the process of Roman formation of identity in response to new interactions at the frontiers of Roman territory and the re-negotiation of social boundaries amongst the Roman elite. Through his narrative of power and movement Caesar emphasises the role of space and boundaries, which were inherent to Roman identity and the expansion of the Roman empire, in regards to Roman identity within the Mediterranean world and elite identity within Roman society.