School of Historical and Philosophical Studies - Theses
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ItemNo Preview AvailableBarbarian Civility British Expatriates and the Transformation of the Maghreb in English Thought, 1660-1714( 2021)This thesis explores the role of British expatriates living in Ottoman Algeria, Tunisia, and Tripolitania, in a transformation of British-Maghrebi diplomatic, economic, and cultural relations in the later Stuart era. This period, 1660-1714, represented a distinct transitional period in which pragmatic cooperation, detailed knowledge, and material exchanges decreased the envy, enmity and ignorance of earlier periods of conflict, without resulting in the controlling Orientalist domination that characterised later periods. Drawing primarily on a large, little-studied collection of correspondence collected at the British consulate in Tunis, as well as English periodical news, State Papers Foreign, and numerous other government and official records, I highlight how expatriates acted as mediators in trade, diplomacy, and material culture, formed networks of influence and information, and transmitted their pragmatic, nuanced, well-informed views of the Maghreb to British audiences. My introduction presents a survey of relevant literature, sources, and historical context, followed by an outline of key theoretical interventions: the contested term ‘expatriate’ in historiographies of British-Maghrebi relations, the biblical-theological lens of ‘exile’ through which many expatriates viewed their more difficult or isolating experiences, and the concept of ‘equivalence’ in which expatriates and their correspondents viewed Maghrebi institutions, individuals and cultures as essentially equal in legitimacy, and sometimes superior in value, to European equivalents. In Part 1, by exploring the origins, expectations, and interpersonal relationships of British expatriates in the Maghreb, I argue that expatriates were governed fundamentally by self-interest, viewing the Maghreb as a site suitable for personal and professional advancement – not just for wealthy men, but for apprentices, women, and children as well. In Part 2, by examining expatriate material cultures and religious interactions, I show how they ably, often enthusiastically, embraced British, European and Maghrebi traditions without abandoning their essential loyalties to Britain, such that they could act as trusted mediators in negotiation, exchange, and information. In Part 3, I explore expatriates’ professional activities relating to networking, commercial diplomacy, and the Mediterranean corsairing economy, showing how they built robust and varied connections of trust such that they could exploit opportunities to enrich themselves and overcome opposition, in the process deliberately promoting peace and trade between Britain and the Maghreb. In Part 4, I show how expatriate views of the Maghreb and its people reached wider audiences in Britain, by two routes: first, the networks of information that brought expatriate testimony on Maghrebi news to British newspapers, and second, the creation, publication, and influence of The Present State of Algiers, a little-studied but significant longform text produced by a British consul. As a whole, my thesis highlights the significant influence of the actions and networks of British expatriates living in the Maghreb on improving British-Maghrebi relations and increasing public understanding of the Maghreb in British society.
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ItemA Quarrel with the German People? The Totalising Logic of Enmity, Narratives of Enmity and the “German Question” on the Australian Home Front During the Second World War( 2021)A significant aspect of wartime discourse is the construction, definition and redefinition of in-group and out-group identities which justify, rationalise and strengthen the support and unity behind a war effort. The totalising “logic” of contemporary visions of twentieth century peoples’ wars, and the horrific realities of such conflicts, facilitated the systematic demonisation, dehumanisation and condemnation of entire peoples and nations. Recent scholarship, however, has emphasised the need to account for unique contexts and political, cultural and moral choice when analysing enmity during the Second World War. Such factors rendered the totalisation of enmity during the conflict, and its concurrent “communitarisation” of identities, contextually contingent, conditional, and far from inevitable, notwithstanding the irrevocable momentum of the enmity process in totalising peoples’ wars. This thesis explores the logic of totalising enmity during the Second World War. It analyses Australian public discourse and contemporary framing of the German enemy between 1939 and 1945. It focuses on the dynamic of this logic by exploring the structures, forms and contested nature of various “narratives of enmity” relating to the “German Question” in the Australian context. Reduced to its core, the German Question summarises the polarising debates on the Allied home fronts as to whether the German nation and people, through their national character, history, culture and aims, expressed bellicose intent and complicity with the objectives, ideology and horrors of National Socialism and the Nazi regime. These questions, this thesis posits, heavily influenced wartime enmification and problematised Australian conceptions of the enemy, despite the unanimity of Australian support for a perceived just, defensive, “good” war against Nazism. Qualitative analysis, largely focusing on Australian print media – editorials, foreign correspondence cables, reports, the correspondence columns, published speeches, cartoons and images across a variety of newspapers, magazines, journals – and other published materials, reveals several ambiguous, contested and often contradictory enmity narratives relating to the German people and nation. This thesis demonstrates Australia’s complex response to the totalising logic of enmity. This thesis proposes that totalising narratives of enmity encompassing the German people were far more pronounced in Australian wartime discourse than previously accounted for in the historiography, and grew exponentially as the war progressed. Widely held distinctions between the German people and Nazism professed in the first months of the war evaporated as the war progressed in light of changing wartime contexts. This process, however, remained contested between 1939 and 1945, even though there was a widespread receptiveness to, and expression of, totalising enmity narratives by the end of the conflict. This thesis investigates the intersecting relationship between three major themes in Australian war discourse – totalising enmity, narratives of enmity and the German Question – to further historical understanding of Australian experiences and attitudes under the pressures of a totalising peoples’ war and situate these findings within the broader historiography of such conflicts.